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1、The Blue PlanetThe Blue Planet The Blue Planet 1 The Blue Planet 1. Out in the open ocean, unimpeded by land, such swells can become gigantic. 2. A tiny island lost in the midst of the Pacific, its the tip of a huge mountain that rises precipitously from the sea floor thousands of meters below. 3. T
2、hese silky sharks are normally ocean-going species but the sea mounts in the eastern Pacific, like Cocos, Malpelo and Galapagos, attract sillies in huge groups up to five hundred strong. 4. They look like immense oil slicks up to a mile long. 5. Millions and millions of sardines on a marine migratio
3、n that in terms of sheer biomass rival that of the wildebeest on the grasslands of Africa. 6. These three-meter sharks cut such great swathes through the sardine shoals that their tracks are clearly visible from the air. 7. Harried by packs of predators and swept in by the actions of the waves, the
4、sardine shoals are penned close to the shore. 8. They use the bubbles to corral the sardines into ever tighter groups. 9. Each month it waxes and wanes as it travels around the earth, and this monthly cycle also triggers events in the ocean. 10. The top of the beach gets so crowed that they have to
5、clamber over one another to find a bare patch where they can dig a nest hole. 11. How it is coordinated is a mystery. 12. But why do the females use a cue from the moon to help in synchronizing their nesting? 13. Nothing deters them as they head for even shallower waters. 14. Soon the excesses of th
6、e herrings sexual spree creates a thick, white scum on the surface. 15. Stranded herring eggs are just what they need. 16. She can inflict real damage with her tail. 17. Time and again the black fins of the killers appear between the mottled backs of the grey whales. 18. The calf snatches a desperat
7、e breath. The mother becomes increasingly agitated. 19. The mother, bereft, has to continue her migration north on her own. 20. They have been attracted by the faint whiff of decay suffusing through the water for miles around. 21. They feed, not by biting, but by rasping off flesh with two rows of h
8、orny teeth. 22. The squid make their huge journey into the shallows because their eggs will develop faster in the warmer water here. The Deep 1. Come on a journey into the abyss. 2. A reinforced acrylic sphere, with walls 12 centimeters thick, protects a pilot and our cameraman from the enormous pre
9、ssure below. 3. Its head is completely filled by two large eyes, with which it strains to detect its prey. The Blue Planet 2 4. This impressive cutlery set and its huge eyes make Phronima a powerful predator. 5. Squids are among the most advance of invertebrates, but this one never meets a hard surf
10、ace in its entire life, so its body need not be as robust as that of its shallow water cousins. 6. Thousands of tiny cilia propel them through a world without walls. They grope blindly for their prey. 7. This pulsating bell is the head of a colonial jelly, that can be forty meters long. 8. Their bel
11、lies carry rows of light-producing cells called photophores. This counter shading breaks up their silhouette, making them almost invisible from below. 9. One device for escape is countered by another equally subtle one for attack in an evolutionary arms race that has been waged for millions of years
12、. 10. Life becomes ever more sparse. 11. Turn off the submersible headlights and you see pyrotechnic display outside. 12. For a hunting squid, with huge eyes, this glimmer is intriguing. 13. Within a matter of weeks the male is completely fused to the male and there he will stay for the rest of his
13、life. 14. This gives them a sniper scope, a headlight invisible to their targets. 15. This acts like a burglar alarm, startling the attacking fish and leaving it illuminated in the dark and vulnerable its own predators. 16. It discharges a packet of bioluminescent liquid. 17. That, presumably, is th
14、e way it scares away its enemies. 18. An enormous variety of different animals join the convoy and feed off it as it passes. 19. Its only here that photosynthesis can take place and coral reefs can flourish. 20. There are literally millions of them marching across the seabed, hovering up any edible
15、particles there might be in se sediment. 21. Their spikes are good for locomotion and defense perhaps not quite so good when it comes to mating. 22. Their long stalks ensure that their umbrella of feeding tentacles are positioned to best effect in the current. This sudden movements swat away tiny am
16、phipods that try to steal the see lilys captures. 23. Its polyps are far larger than those of shallow water corals. 24. Its a polychaete worm and normally you would expect the long pulsating body to be stuck firmly in the sediment. 25. Propelling itself with its yellow frill it moves about and so fi
17、nds new source of food. 26. The body of a tuna is a substantial meal but just occasionally a really gigantic corpse drifts down to the deep sea floor. 27. Hagfish have a skeleton of cartilage and are so flexible that they can tie themselves into knots and so get a better purchase on the flesh they f
18、eed on. 28. Scientists have discovered 178 different animals on a single whale vertebra. 29. This whale, lying over a mile down, was filmed from a submersible with and acrylic sphere. 30. Its walls are made of titanium, the viewing ports have to be tiny. Any larger, and The Blue Planet 3 the submers
19、ible would implode under the enormous pressure down here. 31. They forage near the sea floor and use their battery of sensory pits to follow odor trails from rotting carcasses. 32. Some of the chimneys were encrusted with white tubes. 33. They had discovered a rich density of life that clearly deriv
20、ed no energy form the sun. 34. The worms plumes were bright red with hemoglobin that carries sulfides and oxygen down to the bacteria. Open Ocean 1. As they perform their nuptial dances they discharge clouds of eggs and sperm into the water. 2. But other perils await them as they join the clouds of
21、eggs and larvae and tiny fish that drift through the surface waters of the open ocean. 3. This is no amiable waltz. 4. Darkness shrouds the arrival of battalions of dangerous drifting predators. 5. Theses shimmering comb jellies trap their prey with sticky net-like webs. 6. They take in water throug
22、h their mouths and expel it through their gills, sieving out the plankton which is then funneled down their throat. 7. As it ascends, it detects the smell of oils and proteins shed into the water by the panicked mackerel. 8. Ocean travelers come in many guises and few are stranger than this. 9. Many
23、 floaters are little more than jelly, enclosed in membranes, but they may drift for vast distance. 10. They dont scatter their eggs but lay them on pieces of flotsam like this palm frond. Few bits of flotsam are without their quota of lodgers, even manmade junk attracts them. And some, like this oce
24、anic trigger fish, defend their squatters rights with vigor. 11. Out here, even discarded netting can provide valuable shelter, so, in a bizarre twist, a wrecked trawl net like this can end up as a sanctuary for fish, until such time as it finally sinks. 12. Giants also seek out this algal flotsam.
25、13. They seek a little rest and recuperation and warm up near the surface. 14. The rafts are rotting and will eventually lose their buoyancy. 15. But the open ocean is not entirely devoid of permanent shelter. 16. These are mysid shrimps. 17. As currents sweep toward it they are deflected up its tow
26、ering walls. 18. At first the sheer scale of the bait ball seems to daunt the predators. 19. The speed of this attach is so great that gradually groups of anchovetta are splintered from the main fish ball. 20. Many hundred have gathered together in this exuberant super pod. 21. As they travel, ever
27、inquisitive, they pay a call on one of their larger relations, a pilot whale. 22. By mid-afternoon the dolphin are starting to hunt in earnest. The Blue Planet 4 23. But another squadron of predator arrives to replace the dolphin. 24. Despite the arrival of the giant fish, the shearwater continue to
28、 press home their attack unfazed. Frozen Seas 1. In the winter, the feeble slanting rays of the sun bring little warmth an the temperature seldom rises above minus fifty degrees Centigrade 2. The bear uses snow like blotting paper. 3. They are the jackals of the north and scavenge from bear skills w
29、henever they can. 4. This canny individual is going to bury its prize. 5. Then it is abandoned and has to fend for itself. 6. This impressive nasal display is used to warn away other males. 7. Its beginning to acquire the rudiments of its own hunting skills. 8. They also move up the leads in search
30、of feeding grounds. 9. despite having the largest mouths in the animal kingdom, the size of a small garage, they eat tiny crustaceans, copepods, straining them from the water with the four-meter long stripes of baleen that hang from their upper jaws. 10. At this time of the year they are moulting, g
31、etting rid of their old scarred and parasite-ridden skin. 11. They make daily excursions out to deeper water. Down at 20 meters, they root around in the sediment, using their sensitive bristles to search out soft-shelled clams. 12. The lights of the aurora play in the winter sky. 13. Only by huddlin
32、g together can they survive the appalling winter months. 14. Remarkably, they also shrink in size, and revert to their juvenile form to save energy. 15. Their need to get ashore is now urgent and imperative. 16. As the bergs break up, they form brash ice. 17. Minke whales make their way into there p
33、lacid waters in summer. 18. It occurs in phenomenal quantity. 19. Humpbacks engulf hundreds of thousands of them in a single gargantuan mouthful. 20. So by and large, the animals they prey on are safer out on the ice. 21. They have a lazy grace that belies their ferocious nature. 22. Somehow, in thi
34、s melee if sixty thousand or so penguins, the parent has to find its chick. 23. The plaintive entreaties of the chick stimulate the adult to regurgitate a mouthful of fish. 24. Almost invariably, it makes a kill. Seasonal Seas 1. As yet unable to dive, the pups are marooned and sustained by nothing
35、except their fatty blubber. 2. On this microscopic scale, water is so viscous that phytoplankton cant swim The Blue Planet 5 against the current. 3. Nevertheless, there are such astronomic numbers of copepods that enough will survive to form swarms of their own. 4. The immense 30 meter long strands
36、have small gas filled floats. 5. But at the first hint of danger, they rush back to the safety of the forest. 6. Garibaldi fish do not, in fact, damage the kelp, if anything, they help it by picking off tiny animals that in places encrust the leaves. They graze on bryozoans, tiny colonial animals, w
37、hich build their colonies like a patchwork of white skins one the leaves. 7. To protect itself it produces silk, just like a spider, and uses it to sew together two sides of a kelp frond and so form a shelter. 8. There are mantid shrimps here, living in tunnels. 9. Navanax pulls itself along the tra
38、il of slime that Janolus leaves behind it. 10. The new arrival is in urgent need of a pit and since she weighs a hefty 7 kilos, she stands a good chance of getting one. 11. The marauding fish scatter the herring. 12. Now its easier for the divers to keep the confused fish penned at the surface. 13.
39、Melibe as an assiduous searcher. 14. The handfish that strolls around on modified fins. 15. Bubbles stream from the rising fish as gas in their swim bladders expands and escapes. 16. They use their tail to club the fish with waves of water pressure. 17. Violent as this winter weather may be, it is e
40、ssential for the renewal of the riches of the seasonal seas. 18. Out in the open oceans, the surging waters stir up nutrients from the depths. Coral Seas 1. They may seem like underwater paradise, but they are perpetual battle ground for space. 2. In just a few days the larva changes form and become
41、s a polyp, similar to a sea anemone. 3. Here, the living tissue deposits an intricate lattice of limestone. Beneath that, the limestone skeleton is bare, having been vacated by the living coral tissues. 4. All plants need sunlight to photosynthesize sugars. 5. The polyps extrude their guts and simpl
42、y digest their rivals alive. 6. Crown of thorns starfish, poisonous, invincible eating machines. 7. They are indiscriminate feeders, taking both rock and coral alike in their quest for algae. 8. This soft sand form the tropical beaches that we find so alluring. 9. The guano from thousands of terns w
43、hich have chosen to nest here enrich the sandy soil, which then can support more plants. 10. They are on watch at all times, ready to tackle intruders. 11. Better to retreat intact, than risk serious injury. 12. The grouper, braving the lionfishs poisonous spines, tries to evict its rival. The Blue
44、Planet 6 13. Only by maneuvering the starfish onto its back can they have any hope of gaining the advantage. 14. The territory is stripped of algae in minutes. 15. They persist with their attacks until the marauders are well on their way. 16. When night falls, some very strange creatures creep out o
45、f crevices and crawl over the reef. 17. The reef becomes uncannily tranquil. 18. Marbled rays come out to hunt for prey buried in the sand using electro-receptors to scan the seabed. 19. They all head for the same place, usually some prominent feature. 20. For ten minutes or so they remain together,
46、 reaffirming the bond that is essential to their partnership. 21. It takes time and after about two hours they rise together off the seabed entwining their bodies. 22. The females come here to give birth and suckle their newly-born young. 23. The lone males sing to establish their relative seniority
47、. 24. They do so using the rising water temperatures of spring and phases of the moon. 25. They conserve their energy by travelling in one anothers slipstream. Tidal Seas 1. This is a tidal bore. 2. A sand bubbler crab in Northern Australia, it hunts meiofauna. 3. For such large animals, they show q
48、uite extraordinary dexterity at opening the unfortunate shellfish. 4. Once there they tuck in with macabre relish. 5. With large crabs theres no substitute for experience. 6. There is insufficient food to warrant the risks of swimming about out here in the open. So the demoiselles head odd to find shelter en-masse. 7. More and more demoiselles pour towards the cave entrances that riddle the Poor Knights islands. 8. Although the sea level does not ch
