Cast adrift in the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere
lies a continent separated from all other lands...
..for 45 million years.
Evolving in isolation,
nature has created a unique world of wonders.
Spiders that dance...
..birds that spread fire.
Where bouncing beats walking and youngsters are carried in pouches.
It's a world where animals have had to adapt
to surprisingly diverse landscapes,
and thrive in its vibrant seas...
..even making their homes amongst the growing concrete jungle.
In this episode, we travel to Australia's far flung corners...
..to discover how these contrasting landscapes each create
their own set of challenges.
And find out what it takes to survive
in Earth's Magical Kingdom.
Australia is a land defined by its vast, hot outback.
But in the southernmost regions, desert gives way to snow.
On the country's highest peaks, the Snowy Mountains,
winter temperatures plummet to well below zero.
Reaching over 2,000 metres,
this range spends half the year beneath a blanket of snow.
Only the toughest stay to see out a winter up here.
This echidna has hibernated on and off through the coldest months,
emerging at the tail end of winter very hungry.
But there's no food here for an insect eater.
To get around this problem, this solitary mammal,
twice the size of a hedgehog, has the remarkable ability
to lower his body temperature to below five degrees Celsius.
Conserving energy, he requires less food to get by.
It's a lonely march on an empty stomach,
until the thaw, when he can feed again.
As the warmer days of spring arrive,
rivers begin to flow down the mountain.
For the echidna, springtime brings the promise of food
after the winter's famine.
But one obstacle still stands in the way of a full belly.
A fast flowing one.
Using his long beak as a snorkel and large feet as paddles,
he's perfectly capable of a river crossing.
This adaptable little creature evolved tens of millions of years
ago and is the most widespread of all Australia's native animals.
He will now spend 18 hours a day foraging,
using his highly sensitive nose to hoover up ants and termites
wherever he can find them.
The echidna is a monotreme,
believed to have evolved from a platypus-like ancestor.
Despite the platypus being furred, duck-billed and truly aquatic,
the pair still share some unique characteristics.
They are the world's only egg-laying and milk-bearing mammals.
But only the platypus forages underwater,
using electrical receptors in his bill to find prey.
The platypus is one of Australia's evolutionary masterpieces...
..a finely tuned hunter and a living fossil,
whose family existed at the time of the dinosaurs.
But it's the mammals that came later in the evolutionary calendar
that now dominate the grasslands and forests that radiate out
from the base of the Snowy Mountains.
The marsupials.
Most familiar of them all is the eastern grey kangaroo.
The weight of a man, but head and shoulders taller,
this top-ranking male is displaying his might.
The challenge here isn't finding food or facing the elements,
it's social harmony.
He scent marks his territory with sticky secretions from his chest,
leaving no-one in any doubt that he is in charge of this patch.
He presides over a harem of nine breeding females,
all with at least one joey.
But despite their posturing, males are not the driving force
behind this extraordinarily successful species.
That accolade belongs to the female, and her uniquely marsupial pouch.
While one joey is starting to explore the world,
a tiny baby is already developing in his mother's pouch.
Each joey feeds on a different teat,
depending on their stage of development.
High in carbohydrates for the newborn...
..or high fat for the older joey...
..who is being forced to spend more time outside the pouch...
..giving his mum and new sibling a break.
At ten months old, it's time for the youngster
to watch and learn what it means to be male in the 'roo world.
Too small to join in, he must learn by example.
Important techniques include scratching...
..grappling...
..rapid fire punching...
..head dodges...
..kung fu kicks...
..tail balancing...
..the sneaky headlock...
..and knowing when to admit defeat.
For now, it's safest to practise on his long-suffering mother.
With the young joey now almost permanently out of the pouch,
she is ready to fall pregnant again.
A fact not lost on the amorous dominant male.
He will pursue her relentlessly for days,
much to her irritation.
But rival males are a constant threat.
This time, it's no play fight.
Maintaining his status as the dominant male is so taxing,
he may only hold on to his position for a year.
In a large society, achieving social harmony is always a challenge.
But the fact that it is a large society
demonstrates that kangaroos are doing well.
There are now millions of them.
They are among the few native animals to benefit
from the increase in agricultural grazing land
and the decline of Australia's natural apex predators.
Australia's top carnivore, the Tasmanian tiger,
was hunted to extinction in the early 1900s.
And the grand hunter from the skies,
Australia's own eagle, has come perilously close to the same fate.
Australia's wedge-tailed eagle is one of the world's largest.
For years, it was mercilessly persecuted.
Inaccurately portrayed as a prolific killer of lambs.
With a bounty on its head,
up to 30,000 eagles were killed each year.
Eagles are now protected,
and most farmers accept that they are no threat to their livestock.
They are now affectionately known as wedges,
and their calls echo once more across farmland.
Australia's biggest bird of prey has a chance of a comeback.
Thanks, in part, to a devastating legacy of European settlers.
Fluffy eagle fodder.
Brought here 150 years ago, and now in plague proportions.
The wedge-tailed eagle is a stunning avian predator.
With a two-metre wingspan,
the wedge-tail can soar to heights of 2,000 metres
and carry half her 5kg body weight in her huge talons.
Her eagle eyes pick up something curious.
An eastern long-necked tortoise.
Despite his almost-impenetrable shell,
he's not taking any chances.
She's sure that rock was moving.
Baffling!
The eagle resumes her search for an easier target.
This time, a more familiar one.
In some parts of Australia, rabbits make up 90% of the eagle's diet.
The tortoise, zero.
And eagles are now the farmer's friend.
Helping to keep the rabbit populations down.
By helping to solve one of man's self-inflicted problems,
wedge-tailed eagles have earned their survival.
But there's one species that offers us nothing more
than its charming existence.
And its plight is far less visible.
100 miles southeast of Perth
lie the Dryandra Woodlands.
Covering just over 100 square miles,
they are tiny by Australia's standards,
but they are critically important.
This stand of wandoo eucalyptus
is one of the last strongholds
of an enchanting creature that once roamed the entire continent.
As the morning sun hits the carpet of wild flowers
and insects begin massing on the forest floor,
a small marsupial is making its first move.
The shy and secretive numbat.
The closest living relative to the extinct Tasmanian tiger
is on a termite hunt.
She needs 20,000 termites to fill her belly.
Back in her den are four rapidly-growing pups
that she has fed through the night.
The young are eight months old
and starting to become curious about life beyond the burrow.
One is bolder than the rest.
She's begun to explore the tree stump fortress
protecting the burrow exit.
Her siblings follow,
trembling as the cool morning air hits their fur.
Each day, the leader inches closer to the fortress walls.
Now, she has her first glimpse of the world beyond.
Every new sound is startling,
heralding a potential threat.
They are wise to be cautious.
Numbats once ranged widely across Australia.
Today, there are fewer than the famous endangered snow leopard
or giant panda.
They need something that is now in short supply.
Undisturbed woodland,
with plenty of logs filled with termites.
The adult female uses her worm-like tongue
to extract tasty morsels from hard-to-reach crevices.
Each day, she'll swallow 10% of her own body weight.
Her young are getting braver, and revelling in the sun.
Their rounded snouts, suited to milk-feeding,
are becoming more elongated by the day.
Within a month, they, too, will be reliant on termites.
So the job of working out what is food and what is not
is the lesson of the day.
Except for one of them.
The intrepid explorer wants to discover
what lies beyond the wall...
..while her siblings stay cautiously close to the burrow.
She'll keep wandering further from the burrow
until, one day, she leaves her mother's territory for good,
perhaps crossing paths with other young numbats,
also emerging from hollows in this forest.
Together, they carry the survival of their entire species
on their shoulders.
Over the past 200 years, habitat loss
and predation by invasive species
has led to numbats disappearing from 99% of their previous range.
There are now fewer than 1,000 left in the wild.
Where Australia's ancient ecosystems are left intact,
animals thrive.
In Far Northern Queensland,
a remnant of the world's oldest rainforest
runs like a green ribbon along the coast.
Older even than the Amazon,
Australia's fertile tropics date back 180 million years.
Their year-round heat and humidity provide the perfect condition
for all manner of species to thrive.
But that doesn't mean life is easy.
Competition for the spoils is the challenge here...
..even on the forest floor.
Dark and damp...
..only 2% of sunlight finds its way here.
Yet these conditions are perfect for thousands of species of fungi.
As they battle to dominate every surface,
they create a mystical display of mycological magic.
They break down wood and fallen leaves,
returning nutrients to the soil...
..while slime moulds hunt down the fungi
and turn them into nutrients too.
It's a live fast, die young existence on this forest floor.
Fungi are the unsung heroes of the rainforest.
They're true recycling pioneers.
Feeding the hungry forest for millions of years,
they've helped it become one of the Earth's evolutionary hot spots.
It's in these rainforests
that Australia's mammals first emerged
and then spread far and wide across the continent's grasslands.
But there is one kangaroo
that has never left its rainforest home.
A shy creature, rarely seen on the forest floor...
..because its home is high in the gallery.
A tree kangaroo.
This young male has evolved for life in the trees,
with large, strong arms, big, curved claws,
and a tail as long as his body.
But even 20m up, he's still clearly a kangaroo...
..if a little less agile than most.
At almost two years old, he's only recently left his mother
to find his own territory.
Unlike his ground-dwelling cousins, he will live a solitary life,
only seeking a female when it's time to mate.
But he's finding it hard to make the break.
He can hear his mother in a nearby tree
and crosses the canopy to reach her.
But it's not a warm welcome.
She doesn't want him near, and moves away.
Her tough love makes sense.
At eight months, her youngest joey has started to leave the pouch
and is exploring her highwire world.
She's wobbly enough.
Teenage sibling might topple her altogether.
With his mother fully occupied,
he'll have to accept he's now an adult
and it's time to go it alone.
And space is something that is in short supply in the rainforest,
where almost half of Australia's colourful bird species
are competing to raise the next generation.
They use forest treasures to build elaborate nests.
The sunbird uses bark and seeds...
..while the fawn-breasted bowerbird creates an eye-catching structure
with leaves to charm his mate.
This female eclectus parrot
has laid her eggs in a much sought-after tree hollow.
Her green mate will deliver food to her
so she can stay on guard duty.
High and dry, the hollow is safe from flooding and predators.
It's the perfect spot for her precious clutch.
It should be a textbook incubation.
COCKATOOS SCREECH
But the neighbours nobody wants
are looking to move into this leafy suburb.
The sulphur-crested cockatoo.
COCKATOO SCREECHES
Loud, assertive and ready to lay,
this pair want the hollow for themselves.
But the eclectus that is lucky to raise even one clutch a year
isn't easily intimidated.
As the day heats up,
temperatures inside the nest reach more than 30 degrees Celsius.
And with their own body heat raising the temperature further,
it soon becomes too hot for her eggs.
She has no option but to leave to let things cool.
It's a big gamble.
If the cockatoos get inside,
they will smash the eggs to make room for their own.
It looks as though all is lost.
The eclectus will lose her chance to raise chicks this year.
BIRDS SCREECH
But not here and not today.
Victory belongs to the eclectus.
Such are the challenges of raising the next generation
in the competitive environment of the rainforest.
But it's not just about having a place to raise a family.
It's also about being heard above the din.
Songbirds originated in Australian rainforests 24 million years ago.
And some of nature's great vocalists are still to be found here.
BIRDS CALL
But there's one species that has developed
a way of communicating
that is far in advance of anything witnessed elsewhere
in the avian world.
The palm cockatoo, or palmy,
is known for its superior intelligence and longevity.
It has a brain to body weight ratio comparable to a dolphin
or a great ape,
and it can live for over 50 years.
Like its parrot relatives, it, too, nests in tree hollows.
This proud pair work in shifts, with one parent always on guard.
They mate for life,
and like all successful marriages,
that means good communication is the key.
The pair greet each other with a kiss
as they swap guarding and foraging duties.
The hard fruits of the nonda plum tree
are too tough for most birds.
But the palmy has one of the largest and strongest beaks
in the bird world - so large, it never quite closes.
As the female returns to the nest, her belly full,
she offers a distinct knock to say, "It's me."
KNOCKING SOUND
But her mate works harder still to message his partner...
..communicating in a way no other bird,
indeed, no other wild animal, is able.
The male palmy has an ability long-thought exclusively human.
He fashions a drumstick...
..and deliberately beats out a rhythm.
Each male has his own individual drumming style.
Why he does it is unclear.
Perhaps it's a show of strength to ward off competitors,
or a message to his partner that she need look no further -
he and his nest are best.
Rainforests thrive because of their stable climate.
The opposite is true of the Northern Monsoon Region
that covers almost a quarter of the continent.
Here, the land seesaws between two extremes...
..the floods of the summer's wet season...
..and the raging fires that can burn for months through parched winters.
It is these extremes
that have helped sculpt some dramatic landscapes.
Savannas sweep across more than 1.5 million square kilometres...
..intersected by permanent tidal rivers...
..the hunting ground of the saltwater crocodile.
This male, known locally as Casanova, has been top cock
on this river for decades.
He has 60 teeth, measures over 4m long
and weighs almost three quarters of a tonne.
Now in his late fifties,
he might be considered an old croc.
But that hasn't stopped him learning a new trick.
Casanova has adapted to the presence of humans in an unexpected way.
He has learned to associate
the rumble of a boat engine, filled with delicious tourists,
with dinner.
Life jackets, yeah?
They're situated just up there.
I'm not even going to show you how to put one on.
Does anyone know why?
Crocodiles are attracted to bright colours, OK?
And splashing. So, um...
And there's about 5,000 crocodiles in this river.
If you end up in the water,
you won't have time to drown anyway. Yeah?
So number one, avoid going in the water.
But if we do, life jackets are useless.
It's fair to say Casanova makes quite a splash with the tourists,
who come to see him put his natural hunting abilities to use.
A wave-like thrust,
created by hundreds of muscles working in tandem,
push against the water.
He finishes the leap with a snap of his jaws,
exerting the strongest down force of any animal.
..lizards, snakes, birds and mammals...
She's ready to go now. Look at this.
No mucking around. Here we go, here we go.
JAWS SNAP LOUDLY
To avoid a crocodile attack is very easy.
You stay back 6m from the water's edge
and you never enter the water.
Those two simple things - never get attacked by a crocodile.
Although that is a very complex thing to comprehend
for some people.
On this river, crocs have a seemingly easy life,
but it's not entirely without its challenges.
Despite being Australia's apex predator,
crocodiles are relentlessly hunted...
..by the March fly.
At just 2cm long,
it's thousands of times smaller than its prey.
It seeks out weak spots in the croc's armour,
and bores its scissor-like proboscis into the soft skin below.
An anticoagulant in the fly's saliva prevents the blood from clotting.
And the fly then sucks up the blood
with its fleshy mouthparts...
..filling to bursting point on its victim's rich, cold blood.
The delicate three-layered eyelid
is particularly vulnerable to attack.
Nostrils are targeted too.
Each bite is a painful irritant, and there are plenty of them.
From this perspective,
the menacing croc is reduced to an involuntary blood donor,
although it does have one pest-control strategy.
Mud.
Not only a barrier to flies,
but also a salve to soothe irritating bites...
..at least for a moment.
In the end, the flies always find a weak point.
The crocodile has had to change very little
since the time of the dinosaurs,
but it isn't perfect.
With legs this short, there's always going to be an itch
that just can't be scratched.
While the croc fights daily battles with its flies...
..other creatures of Australia's Monsoon Region
face the challenges presented by changes of season.
Birds migrate,
moving with the dramatic pulses of the wet and dry.
Other creatures, unable to flee inhospitable seasons,
must remain and face the elements.
On the flood plains of Maningrida, the monsoon will soon arrive.
This region is home
to one of the most remote communities in Australia.
The children here enjoy a playground of epic proportions
and they have discovered an extraordinary web of life
beneath their feet.
In just one small area,
they've helped scientists identify an astonishing 46 new spiders,
including one tarantula.
Like most spiders, they have eight eyes and eight legs.
But what sets these tarantulas apart is their dashing red coat.
Almost every metre of this flood plain has a spider burrow...
..forming a megacluster of ambush hunters.
This female has settled down to wait for the perfect dinner guest.
She's spun a series of silk trip wires around her burrow entrance.
And she'll strike only when success is guaranteed.
This longheaded hopper is lucky.
Once in the tarantula's eight-legged grasp,
there's no chance of escape.
She injects toxic venom into the grasshopper
with her one-inch fangs,
dealing the unfortunate victim a final, paralysing blow.
THUNDER RUMBLES
Rumbles outside suggest her world is about to be drenched.
The monsoon has arrived.
As pressure builds, electric charges begin to spark and fire.
Each thunderstorm releases an atomic bomb's worth of energy.
THUNDER CRASHES LOUDLY
A flood makes its way towards the plain.
For a creature that lives underground,
this could spell disaster.
But she's no ordinary tarantula.
She won't flee her burrow.
This spider is evolved to cope with flood.
She has her own silvery life support system.
Her hairy coat traps air bubbles,
providing the perfect backup air supply
as she breathes through holes in her abdomen.
Like a cosmonaut in space,
she has created her own atmosphere.
Her discovery is so recent,
she has no official name.
She's simply referred to as the "diving tarantula",
a truly unique Australian phenomenon.
Nobody knows what her underwater endurance limit might be,
but the monsoon floods may last for four months.
Scientists estimate there are 25,000 diving tarantulas
on this one flood plain.
When the wet season ends, the floodwater recedes,
leaving a vivid and replenished survivor.
It will soon be the dry season's turn to repaint the landscape.
Months will pass without rain.
The land will be parched.
But for some, this challenge also presents an opportunity.
Traditional burning of the grasslands by Indigenous people
has occurred for thousands of years.
It triggers germination and prevents uncontrollable wildfires
later in the season.
The dry grass ignites quickly
and the flames move on, leaving the trees intact.
The rising smoke has not gone unnoticed.
A black kite has been drawn in.
The rangers have prepared an easy meal...
..an exodus of creatures fleeing the flames.
Out in the open, they are a prime target for aerial attack.
But the pleasure of solitary dining will be short-lived.
The smoke signal has spread far and wide
and the black kite is soon joined by others.
Hundreds of them.
and talons clash over the spoils below.
Soon, the insect supply will be exhausted.
But these kites have a clever way of obtaining more.
They've developed a technique
that has become immortalized in local folklore.
This has led them to being called the firebird, or "karrkkanj".
TRANSLATION:
These ingenious pyromaniacs
have been seen creating new fronts during bushfires,
expanding their hunting area
and flushing out fresh prey.
Apart from humans,
they are the only animal known to harness fire
for personal gain.
Despite being one of the world's most common raptors,
it's only here in Australia that black kites play with fire.
Like its landscape, Australia's wildlife is dramatic and magical.
We've seen how animals survive here...
..through intelligence...
..unique evolution...
..and adaptability.
Some are thriving...
..while others are on the brink of extinction.
Each individual faces its own set of challenges.
But it is the challenge of the modern world
that is proving to be the biggest test yet.