Deep Ocean: Lost World Of The Pacific Part 1 - David Attenborough Documentary HD

the tropical waters of Southeast Asia are home to some of the richest coral reefs on the planet but hundreds of meters beneath the surface lies a world where time has Stood Still here of creatures from the former distant past still survive now a team of scientists and filmmakers have joined forces to explore this largely unknown [Music] with a state-of-the-art submersible they descend deep below the surface this is truly a living fossil here and discover prehistoric creatures that have survived virtually unchanged for over 400 million years it's a lost world hidden in the depths of the sea where parmie Ville Peters have lived since the earliest times following reports from local fishermen the team set off in search of a strange fish that is said to lurk in these waters [Music] it's a journey full of surprises and extraordinary encounters and finally after a year of exploration they discover a bizarre fish that few people have ever seen and encounter some of the oceans most elusive inhabitants [Music] it's the journey of a lifetime [Music] the island of New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean it's a wild paradise that still remains the largely untouched by modern civilization a scientific research vessel is here to explore the Uncharted depths of these waters the illusive is equipped with the latest technology including a deep-sea submersible that can dive to depths of a thousand meters the crew are carrying out final safety checks to the submersible Nadia no one before has attempted to dive in these waters with us up the expedition is led by marine biologist mark Earthmen Earthmen is an expert in the ecology of coral reefs and has been studying them for over 20 years he's worked in these waters for over a decade and knows them well their first stop is the Raja Ampat islands of the western end of New Guinea [Music] okay say already [Music] the war mortars are teeming with colorful fish nowhere in all the Seas of the world is that a greater diversity of life [Music] over 500 species of corals live here they in turn support a myriad of fish that depend on them for food and shelter [Music] tropical waters are surprisingly poor in nutrients but the coals produce enough food to sustain a vast community of marine creatures Agron has identified over 1,500 species of fish in the shallow waters here confirming that this is one of the greatest biodiversity hotspots in the world but admin has long been wanting to explore the deeper ocean it all started with an extraordinary discovery that he made over 15 years ago [Music] he was travelling around the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia so it was on my honeymoon in 1997 we were in Minato and we were doing some diving there and I always liked to go to the fish markets just to see what's what the people are catching them so we win quite early in the morning my wife saw it first very intrigued by what this was it was something she'd never seen before so she called me over and asked me what this was [Music] Guttman immediately recognized the bizarre looking fish and I said oh my goodness it's a it's a silica the coelacanth is a very rare fish that was once thought to be the ancestor of all and living background animals it has armor like scales and large bulging eyes and fleshy fins that resemble limbs very surprised to see it's something I'd known as a child but it obviously never seen a real one so it was it was fantastic and and a really big surprise to see until our lives first man was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938 the coelacanth was thought to be extinct it had only been known from fossils over 80 million years old and the discovery of a living specimen was the scientific sensation it was over a metre and a half long and weighed nearly 60 kilos news of the strange pammi fish soon spread around the world fifty years later Birdman you self found another coelacanth in Asia unit is far from Africa it was a different species and once again the strange fish captured our imagination [Music] since then a few more specimens have been recovered in Indonesian waters but only in a handful of places Earthman believes that their range may be much wider than we think he's long had the dream of conducting a full-scale exploration of the deep Pacific Ocean other prehistoric creatures such as deep-sea sharks and Nautilus they've already been discovered here and he hopes one day to find the coelacanth to [Music] there's an important question about why we have so many of those here what about the the deep tropical sea and perhaps really try to unlock some of the the mysteries of the the deep tropical ancient seas here the expedition at Edmund and his colleagues are planning will require much preparation and take over a year from inside the submersible the team will have an unobstructed view nearly 360 degrees all around the sub is also equipped with a high-resolution camera that can capture even subtle shades of color underwater [Music] with final preparations complete the subject is ready for its descent I think that there is an extremely good chance that coelacanths are found right here we're in the right place and I'm extremely excited about this and yeah just ready to go Ed Boon is excited and nervous [Music] the sub waves nearly eight tons it will be lowered into the sea by a huge crane it's odd moves first step into the deep below the coral reef [Music] the sub slowly descends into the deep the lower they go the darker it gets very little light penetrates these gloomy depths the dears 34 meters on the wall loud and clear got a whole fanox of little tiny squid that one 7-0 okay the seafloor is very different to the coral reef above bare and barren there is little sign of life here at last they spot something the strange heart-shaped creature at the end of the stalk it's a rare comb jelly that was first discovered in 1941 by the Japanese Emperor Hirohito who was also a passionate marine biologist this jelly-like creature lives attached to a rock at the bottom of the sea and feeds in the most extraordinary way it throws out long sticky filaments which catch tiny prey drifting by the water [Music] the Sun has now descended to below 200 meters and is entering what is known as The Twilight Zone very little light penetrates as deeply as this that Sears the sea urchin looks quite different to most modern-day virgins have been fewer spines in fact it more closely resembles fossils from 200 million years ago and belongs to a primitive group known as the pencil urgence because of the thickness of their spines the team noticed another unusual creature on the seafloor this this is true the other than castle here we can get up on that on video and I think this is see these are sea lilies which are now static exactly what they look like at the fossil record the sea lily looks just like those founders fossils dating back 400 million years it has changed very little over millennia perhaps sensing the sun's presence as it approaches the sea Lily begins to wave its arms it may look like a plant but it is in fact an animal and if in danger it will resort to a remarkable strategy it detaches itself and uses its feathery arms to crawl over the seafloor in search of a safer spot [Music] the seed lily may have retained its primitive form for millions of years but it's also hardly enough to have survived into the modern age discovering these living fossils has been quite overwhelming for Edmond we had a week of this stalked seed lilies like these were once far more abundant than they are today and then found mostly in shallow waters 400 million years ago think carpets of these strange creatures covered the sea floor forming spectacular underwater meadows the warm shallow waters were rich in plankton and there were few large predators the Nautilus an ancient relative of the squid octopus hunted small marine invertebrates such as trilobites over time more formidable predators began to appear primitive sharks and huge armored fish with powerful jaws of the ability to swim swiftly these formidable hunters ruled the shallow seas while many prehistoric creatures became extinct the sealers and some other species survived as living fossils in the twilight zone [Music] the key to their success was their ability to adapt during the age of the dinosaurs even bigger and more ferocious predators appeared in the shallow seas large swim reptiles like the previous song [Music] now slow-moving animals without weapons of their own made easy prey those that lived in deeper waters were largely unaffected by this struggle for survival they're descendants of the living fossils that we know today the coelacanth and the seed leaders here in the deep there were few competitors and it was too dark for most predators to find them the sub has returned to the surface the first dive completed thank you sir a fantastic trip I would say it really was it was otherworldly it was truly a lost world that we encountered I think that if we had some more time here that we would definitely find since the cancer the team stopped planning for the next phase of the expedition Edmund decides to focus his search on finding prehistoric fish including the coelacanth the where should he start to look Sheila Temper thought to be Nocturne hiding away in caves and rock crevices around 200 metres below the surface there are hardly any maps of the seafloor around New Guinea from the little information he has edmund decides to focus on a smaller island called will rule off the northern coast I think that we will loo looks to me from the maps to being probably the steepest and the few divers that I've spoken to talk about very large caves there so that could also be quite interesting so that's the general habitat that we're going to look for general topography is something like quite too steep if coelacanth do live in these waters will voulu could have the right kind of habitat they set course for this remote and little visit [Music] if we can confirm the existence of silicates here in northern PNG it will be actually a very significant scientific finding it will open the possibility that seal accounts are found of course throughout this western Pacific Rim so we're very excited about this possibility thirty hours later the ship has reached its destination just north of New Guinea who voulu is about five kilometres long the team head towards the shore on the way they encounter a fisherman in his small canoe he's just caught an oil fish nearly two meters long it's a deep-sea fish usually found at depths of around 500 meters where did you catch this this is no place for them definitely a good sign good coelacanth it sounds like coelacanths and oil fish may be found in the same kind of habitat Earthman and his team head towards the local village to see if they can find out more the island has a population of some nine hundred people most of them making a living from fishing everyone thinks they're a fish expert have you bought any of these fishes yeah yes but this one normally we used to pitch this at night right but what about the sealing cap Earthman then gets to meet a veteran fisherman who gives him a crucial piece of information have you ever seen that fish before hey did you catch that during the day or at night and was it also in the same kind of depths as miss Fisher [Music] yeah quite deep yeah okay was that a long time ago or no just recently you see this area admin asks the fishermen to take them to the spot where he cord the coelacanth [Music] the Rivera's have a traditional way of catching fish from the deep they tie a strip of leaf to a stone and use it as a weight to lower the line down to 200 meters or more after that it's simply a waiting game [Music] next morning a tropical storm is proving [Music] despite the difficult conditions the crew continues to prepare the sub for another dive they want to get as close as possible to the shore [Music] then the plan is to follow the coral reef war down into the deep [Music] [Music] once underwater they're sheltered from the storm above and they discover that the reef drops straight down they're on the face of water they head for the location pointed out by the fishermen [Music] a large fish is lurking inside a crevice could it be the coelacanth no it's not it's a kind of group of fish the team seemed a bit disappointed but then a massive Koopa swims right up to the subs window it's a giant maybe a meter long as groupers mature they're known to move into deeper water it peers into the sub fascinated by the alien visitors this is a novelty even for earthman [Music] 200 meters all systems with fisherman's anger you see that it's the weight from a deep seed line this may be the place where the fishermen caught the coelacanth [Music] I'd be it stocked see Lily right there [Music] it's another seed Lily confirming that they're now entering the twilight zone the threshold into the lost world creatures like this a few and far between these waters are barren sustaining very little life [Music] but something is floating towards the sub it's a notice another living fossil once common in the shallow seas but now largely confined to the deep [Music] surface nadir we have a nautilus it's large shell contains gas-filled floatation chambers with which it controls its buoyancy and depth and it moves by squirting water out through a siphon a form of jet propulsion the team have already had superb views of two primeval creatures it's a promising beginning [Music] they're now at a depth of 200 meters Oatman notices that the surrounding seascape is gradually changing [Music] the rocks are riddled with holes these caves are formed thousands of years ago by wind and waves eroding the limestone cliffs of a small island that has now sunk beneath the sea [Music] there could be a coelacanth hiding in one of these crevices the team decides to embark on a systematic search of the caves day after day they dive for eight hours of the time but it's not easy to find a fish hiding in the dark getting the sub coast of the holes and crevices in strong currents is a challenge it seems an endless task the state wrecked hundreds of caves [Music] have coelacanth already been fished to extinction in these waters or are they too shy to reveal themselves it's frustrating and they have nothing to show for their efforts but sheer exhaustion the team faced a difficult decision should they stay or move to another site after much consideration Earthman decides to take his chances on a new location they had east towards the came--it Islands 200 miles away [Music] far out in the Pacific the Conneaut islands are still uninhabited untouched by man the coral reefs are healthy and well preserved and the waters rich in marine life Birdman hope said here in these pristine waters they may find the creature they're looking for [Music] the sub descends into the crystal blue water the team have their hopes set high even at 200 meters the light still penetrates the water is exceptionally clear [Music] the team are astounded by the sheer numbers of fish at these depths it's unlike anything they've seen before suddenly they come across a whole complex of caves [Music] opening those large and small lined the surface of the rock some are so large that the submersible could easily fit inside the large grouper disappears into a hole this space definitely has potential my point was rich with interesting caves but strong current [Music] to find their quarry admin has brought along a new gimmick it's a compact camera called the drop camera that can be taken down into the deep the back of bait is tied to the front of the camera and within minutes its attracting the attention a huge grouper has ripped the bait bag right off together with the arm of the Ring [Music] surface the deer we were just attacked by a very large grouper and he tore the whole bait on off the front of the frame back on the mothership the technicians had a to build a second system they managed to assemble all the parts and even replace the frame with a sturdier one [Music] [Music] that okay okay the camera is rigged again and the contraption will be left for the next 24 hours the Dropcam uses red light the deep-sea creatures can't detect this should allow us to see the animals behaving naturally the Nautilus has been lured in by the bait and it's soon joined by another the newcomer seems to be watching the first with interest [Music] now it's trying to pull the first one off the bait with a strong-arm tactics and jet-propulsion it wrenches its rival of the food it's a surprisingly vigorous battle between these two living fossils [Music] down in the deep food is so scarce that every morsel is heavily contested the large bag of bait continues to attract others and is soon the center of a feeding frenzy [Music] it's the last day of the expedition aboard the elucha preparations are under way for the final dive the dome is given a good clean and the crew also decide to change the lights on the sub one light is replaced with a red one since it works so well with the drop cap it may decrease visibility a little but it will ensure that they don't scare off the animals still optimistic we could get the mayor looking forward to this last dive and crossing fingers we get to it's happened before [Music] surface Lydia depth 2 1 0 they have entered the twilight zone it's time to switch off the fight lights leaving only in the red [Music] it's working the fish seen unperturbed by the Lord sub above and then a massive grouper attacked the fish a ferocious predator like this would likely scare off any coelacanth in the area [Music] Bertrand decides to take the sub down even further [Music] [Music] this team it's virtually finished plan and there is almost no Sun [Music] it seems unlikely they'll find anything here just as the crew are debating whether to turn back one suspicions we will go straight to that big dip there's a couple of them holy is this what this could be it this is who this is anything yeah right well at least I think you know let's make sure let's make sure let's make sure they got something they sure isn't something else there's something they got a weird something on what is this that's it that's a custom that's not a Sealy that's something else but maybe right behind it bizarre animal look at but there's a second one a book but which you gotta film this it's a creature Earthman has never seen before it swims slowly along the sea floor it has a large head like a coelacanth but a spotted body and beneath its belly there are strange appendages or feelers Earthman has no idea what this fish could be is it possibly a new species service ladira we have to silicon's looking fish variety there is astonishment in the control sound like lfts found new fish it looks very much like a coelacanth the strange fish shows little sign of fear even when the sub moves in closer a second one is looking further back in the shadows [Music] herdmen is fascinated and decides to follow the mysterious creature [Music] but they to their surprise the fish starts to swim towards them it appears to be interested in the sub it's a close encounter of the Third Kind [Music] close [Music] he thinks for shelter two meter fish as it passes overhead it clearly extends it's curious appendages [Music] could it be using these to feel the surface of the dome and then it even swims upside down [Music] it clearly has three and 10a like structures on both sides of the body [Music] the tripod [Music] the fish appears to stroke the rock with its antennae as if exploring the surface [Music] the longest antenna extended just beyond the fins and the animal is able to move them at will [Music] the tips of the strange feeders flatten out to a point and seem to be soft and tactile should we want to do some red light filming yes yeah Birdman's switches to the red light to see if the animal will behave any differently [Music] it heads off slowly towards the back of the cave [Music] it seems to have lost interest in the Sun and continues with its normal life [Music] it swims into a narrow crevice though they wait it doesn't appear to be coming out again this must be its home [Music] slowly circling around it appears to be checking out its surroundings gently probing the walls with its feelers for creatures that live in the dark other senses such as touch become more important is intrigued what is this strange creature [Music] the crew on the surface try to identify the fish from the information they've received from the sub they come to the conclusion that there might be a new species that was only recently described [Music] in fact it turns out that the fish was first discovered in Japan in 2008 the specimen is preserved in the Museum of Natural History in Kanagawa dr. Hiroshi Sano who first described it explains that it's a very rare kind of deep-sea fish it has a skeleton made mostly of cartilage and a strange soft gelatinous nose there are only four recorded specimens of this jelly nose in the world this is one of them [Music] dr. cirno points out it's strange pelvic fins which are typical of the species they have evolved into three long narrow fin rays which look like antennae is almost certainly the same fish that Earthman and his team encountered in the deep I think this video that we were able to capture of the jelly nose is probably in many ways more valuable than any video coelacanths given that this group is so poorly known and there's really no existing footage of anywhere near that quality and in fact most of the photos and video that we have are just simply for the dead specimens so this is really spectacular footage and I think that there's a lot that's gonna be able to be learned about this special group of fishes the jelly nose hides in narrow caves deep within the ocean which is perhaps why it was not caught until the 21st century even today we know virtually nothing about it and how it lives in the teeth the expedition's footage provides the first clues as to how this curious fish may have managed to survive at such depths a tiny fish swims up to the teller nose and briefly comes into contact with its sensitive feelers surprisingly the jelly nose doesn't react [Music] even though food is scarce in this environment the Gelineau showed no sign of feeding the entire four hours that the team followed it [Music] like many deep-sea fish it seems to conserve energy by swimming very slowly in the cold water and can therefore survive on very little food but how did the toninho's come to live in one of the most inhospitable places on earth genetic analysis suggests that its ancestors evolved in shallow seas some a hundred million years ago a first they prospered but were then driven into deeper water by the arrival of powerful predators in this impoverished environment they evolved to withstand periods of starvation and this may be how the Gelinas survived the extinctions that befell many other species on earth [Music] 66 million years ago dinosaurs ruled the land and PCs or was dominated the Seas [Music] the gigantic meteor ten kilometers in diameter collided with our planet with catastrophic consequences the intense heat burnt over half the Earth's forests giant tsunami swept across the country it may well be this that wiped out the dinosaurs [Music] the soft waves of the impact released underground sulfur into the atmosphere which turned into deadly acid rain [Music] the sulfuric rain killed off the plankton and the shallow seas and many marine animals including the Plesiosaurus are thought to have died of starvation [Music] the acid rain however never reached the deep it was neutralized by seawater on the way down so many creatures that lived in the deep seas were able to survive [Music] already adapted to living in the sparse environment these animals now had an advantage [Music] moving slowly to conserve energy and able to endure periods of starvation helped the ancestors of the jelly nose to survive in the deep that certainly is Edmunds theory it's clearly something from the lost world it would appear that these animals actually have a an ecology or behavior which is very similar to the sila cats so it's dwelling inside of caves it's well camouflaged against the back of the cave hovering there but then if it's disturb it will come out from our limited observations from the submarine it appeared that these fishes really are probably quite dependent on the caves where they're living so I would say that the caves are probably a very important part of their habitat the year-long research has come to an end Edmund and his team have discovered a lost world of prehistoric creatures still living in the deep waters of the tropical seas notice virtually unchanged for 400 million years slowly bobbing through the dark water [Music] and see lilies standing tall on the ocean floor [Music] it's a world where time Stood Still and living fossils survived this baron involved where most marine creatures could not survive as cradled these ancient animals in a virtual time capsule [Music] exploring these tropical seas just 200 meters below the surface we found a very unique and special place unlike anything that I've ever experienced before the deep sea of course is a very vast area interestingly very little exploration has ever been done in this region it's largely still a mystery but by using cutting-edge technology like the triton submersible we've been able to really shed some light on this very unique place and and understand much better this lost world the astounding encounter with the bizarre fish the jelly nose that leads an austere life in the dark waters was the highlight of the expedition it has revealed that the deep seas still remain a mysterious and unexplored world [Music] over 90% of our oceans are so deep that they're normally far beyond our reach and they remain the least known part of our planet [Music] [Music]

Channel: Wisdom Land

Views: 916,755

Rating: 4.7999716 out of 5

Keywords: New Guinea, David Attenborough, Sea, Underwater, Bioluminescent Creatures, Bioluminescent, bioluminescence, Squid, habitat, Pacific, Ocean, Deep, deep-sea, giant squid, luminous, Indonesia, Dive, Diving, submarine, exotic, caves, Documentary, encounter, fossil, Life, Animals, Fish, Expedition, Explore, unknown, Mystery, Marine Biology, Mysterious, Strange, Weird

Id: TODZQ7_7UOs

Length: 58min 22sec (3502 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 03 2018

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Part II