#The blue planet seas of life bbc series#

Accumulations of plankton correspond to ocean 'boundaries' and consequently, shoals of fish seek them out. Manta rays also gather to eat the eggs of spawning surgeonfish. A feeding frenzy is filmed, as striped marlin, tuna and a sei whale (later identified as a Bryde's whale) pick off a shoal of sardines until all within it have been consumed. Such waters contain the swiftest and most powerful of ocean hunters. The open oceans are known as 'marine deserts', as they are the furthest from the land. Species captured on film for the first time include the Dumbo octopus and the hairy anglerfish. Attenborough remarks that more is known about the surface of the moon. At seven miles, the deepest is the Mariana Trench, and fish have been found there right down to the very bottom. As the continental slope flattens out, it joins the abyssal plain, which can form huge trenches. The remains of a gray whale are filmed being consumed by hagfish, a sleeper shark, probably a Greenland or Pacific sleeper and the submersible involved in filming this is DSV Alvin, which is the same submersible that Robert Ballard used in 1986 to film the wreck of the Titanic, as acrylic sphere submersibles cannot reach that depth. They are described as 'living fossils' and relatively little is known about them. In addition, sixgill sharks can grow up to eight meters in length and have remained unchanged for 150 million years. It is dominated by echinoderms that sweep the seabed however, there are occasional large hunters, such as chimaera. A descent to the very bottom of the ocean - some 4,000 meters - reveals life even at such cold temperatures, much of it new to science. To that end, some use bioluminescence as a means of detecting food or evading predators. In suck dark places, both being able to see or sense movement, and the means of quick concealment are equally desirable. On the way down, a number of unusual creatures are witnessed, such as transparent squid and jellies, whose photophores give pulsating displays of color. A sperm whale descends 1,000 meters to look for food and is followed, with the Johnson Sealink submersible. Over sixty percent of the sea is more than a mile deep and it forms the planet's most mysterious habitat. A year and a half later, the carcass is stripped to the bone. Hagfish, a sleeper shark, and other scavengers arrive to feed on the carcass, a valuable food source in the depths, where sustenance is almost always scarce. Meanwhile, another gray whale carcass has sunk to the bottom of the deep sea. Along the coast of California, a migrating gray whale and her calf are targeted by a pod of orcas, who hunt down and kill the calf. In addition, their eggs are nutrition for many, both above and in the sea. Herring initiate the most productive food chain, providing sustenance for humpback whales, and Steller's and Californian sea lions. Lunar phases can also have a bearing on events and the mass arrival of ridley sea turtles on a Costa Rican beach is shown. Phytoplankton forms the basis of all sea life, and every night some 1,000 million tons of creatures ascend from the deep to search for food.

These feeding grounds have led to world's largest albatross breeding colony, on Staple Jason Island, west of the Falklands. The South Atlantic waters are the roughest, and storms also churn up nutrients to the surface. Off South Africa, a similar situation occurs every June when sardines migrate and are pursued by a caravan of various predators. This in turn attracts fish to the area that are higher up in the food chain, line tuna, and those that are high still, such as silky sharks. Near a Pacific seamount, there is a large concentration of marine animals because when the current makes contact with the submerged rock, it forces upward plankton and other organisms. The opening episode reveals how ocean life is regulated around the globe by currents and the varying position of the Sun.

#The blue planet seas of life bbc series#

This series will reveal the complete natural history of our ocean planet, from its familiar shores to the mysteries of its deepest seas.' -David Attenborough, from episode one

You can fly across it non-stop for twelve hours and still see nothing more than a speck of land. The Pacific Ocean alone covers half the globe. 'Our planet is a blue planet: over seventy percent of it is covered by the sea.