ATTENBOROUGH: For millions of years
before birds evolved and long before the rise of the mammals
cold-blooded animals ruled the world.
In some places they still do.
Some of these reptiles witnessed the dinosaurs come and go.
Yet in all that time
they themselves remained virtually unchanged.
Among them were some of the most impressive reptiles alive today.
They took that most characteristic of reptilian features
the scale to extremes. They turned it into armour.
That increased their weight but nevertheless
some can still move with extraordinary speed.
And although they may appear cold and impassive
they can nonetheless be passionate
and even affectionate.
(CHIRPING)
Among them are the biggest of all reptiles alive today.
Theyre the crocodiles the turtles and the tortoises.
This is a giant Galapagos tortoise
and its climbed all the way up the flank of this great volcano
and is here wandering around the rim of the crater.
But why should it come to such a bleak and inhospitable place?
Tortoises being reptiles
cant generate their own body heat internally as we do.
Instead they must get it from their surroundings
and these particular ones have come up here
to warm themselves on the hot volcanic rocks
among the jets of steam and sulphurous gas.
They live longer than any other animal on Earth
well over 1 20 years.
They weigh up to a quarter of a tonne and have shells over a metre across.
They really are giants.
(GRUNTING)
Having your body encased in shell obviously brings problems
and one of them is how do you mate?
Making love in a suit of armour is not easy.
But the males have a very ingenious solution.
The underside of their shell is concave
so it fits neatly over the domed top of the shell of the female
who is somewhat smaller.
That doesnt make clambering on top of her any easier initially
but once the male is up there
it will reduce his chance of slipping off.
(GRUNTING)
The two shells fit together as neatly as two spoons.
So mating can begin.
And once started it can go on for a long time.
A tortoises shell is so familiar to us
its easy to forget
what an extraordinary construction it is.
But how did it originate?
Nearly all reptiles are covered in scales
and so were the tortoises ancestors.
But then as they evolved a radical change took place.
The ribs expanded outwards
so that they enclosed the hip and the shoulder joints.
They enlarged and fused with other bones beneath the skin.
They widened and eventually they joined together to form a bony box.
Above the scales in the skin enlarged to form a continuous shield of horn
on the surface of the box.
And the basic armour was complete.
By developing a shell tortoises inevitably sacrifice speed
so they cant sprint off and take shelter
in a crack when danger threatens.
But with a shell like that they seldom need to.
Some have added deluxe features to the basic model.
This is an eastern box turtle.
In North America where it lives there are plenty of would-be predators.
Racoons among them.
(RACOON CHATTERING)
And they have very nimble paws.
(SNIFFING)
But these turtles dont have to worry
because their shell has a special safety feature.
It has a drawbridge.
And when danger threatens
the box turtle just retreats into its shell and pulls it up.
The drawbridge fits so tightly
there is no crack for the racoon to get its teeth into.
After a while most raccoons give up.
Of course when your head is inside your shell
you cant see whether your attacker has gone or not.
So its best to check before you emerge fully.
A shell is an excellent defence against predators
but there are other dangers against which it provides
no protection whatever.
Its midsummer its nearly midday and its very very hot.
And as a consequence Im sweating.
Sweating is a direct response to heat that only mammals can do.
No reptile like this gopher tortoise has got sweat glands
but instead its got another way of keeping itself cool.
Most reptiles head for the shade when it gets too hot.
To see where this gopher tortoise is heading here in Florida
Im going to use this.
A remotely controlled mini-camera on wheels with its own lights.
It can go pretty well anywhere.
The gopher tortoise is heading for home.
And with luck Ill be able to follow it the tortoise
as it goes down into its burrow.
And that camera has also got a thermometer mounted on it.
Already I can see the temperature is beginning to drop.
The further down the burrow we go the cooler it gets.
Now wheres the tortoise?
There it is.
Im right behind.
(CHUCKLING)
Were now a couple of metres in
but the burrow could go on for some 20 feet 1 7 metres.
And its all been built by this tortoise.
(CHUCKLING) Well that is not a tortoise
thats a rattlesnake.
Obviously taking shelter from the heat just as the tortoise is.
The tortoise is so well armoured its in no danger from the snake.
And gopher tortoises dont seem to mind sharing their burrows.
(CHUCKLING)
Its changed its mind and theres its rattle.
Over 1 00 different species of animal have been recorded
taking shelter inside tortoises tunnels.
In fact some can live nowhere else.
But theres another reason why tortoises homes are so popular.
Tortoises are one of the few animals here
that can actually dig.
Each may have more than one burrow within its territory
and thats very valuable
because they have to deal with an even greater danger than sunstroke.
Bush fires.
These are a major and recurrent threat to all the animals that live here.
Tortoise tunnels are invaluable places in which to take refuge.
Gopher tortoises may seem to be unassuming creatures
but their engineering skills are essential
for the survival of the whole ecosystem.
The ground is still smoking but the flames have passed
and the emergency is over.
So by digging tunnels tortoises save not only their lives
but the lives of hundreds of other animals.
But tunnels arent the only place
where you can escape extremes of temperature.
Theres another environment thats cooler and even more stable.
Water.
Some of the ancestral tortoises started to spend all their time there
and became turtles.
Some still walk slowly along the bottom in much the same way
as their ancestors walked on land.
Water is a good place for a cold-blooded animal to live.
It retains its warmth through the night
and stays comfortably cool during the heat of the day.
So turtles are able to keep their body temperature
relatively constant without much difficulty.
Many have developed webs between their toes
and have become very efficient swimmers.
The most aquatic of all freshwater turtles
is found in New Guinea
and a few rivers like this one in northern Australia.
The pig-nosed turtle.
Its feet have become completely transformed into flippers
and are of little use on land.
And indeed the pig-nosed turtle rarely comes ashore.
But turtles are descended from land-living ancestors
and so they still need to breathe air.
Females also have to return to land in order to lay their eggs.
Pig-noses nest during the dry season high up on the river bank.
If turtle eggs get wet the babies inside them will drown.
At least that is the case with most turtles.
An egg for a turtle represents a huge investment
as it does for any reptile.
So turtles go to a great deal of trouble
to make sure that they lay their eggs in safe dry places.
So you would think that dropping one into water
would be a disaster.
But watch.
A fully developed baby turtle.
And it has come from an egg which as far as we know is unique
in the reptile world.
It can not only survive being flooded
it actually requires to be submerged in water in order to hatch.
This enables the pig-nose to make the hatching of its eggs
coincide with the onset of the rainy season.
A view inside the egg
would show the babies to be fully developed.
They can remain there in a kind of suspended animation if necessary
for weeks.
(THUNDER CLAPPING)
When the rains finally arrive they are torrential.
The river rises swiftly and soon the nests are flooded.
This would be a disaster for most turtles
but the unhatched pig-noses are ready for it.
Indeed its the moment theyve been waiting for.
Their unique waiting strategy ensures that
no matter how late the rains are the young turtles only emerge
when the rivers are full and theres plenty to eat.
Theyre able to swim immediately.
In due course
the females among them will return here to lay eggs themselves.
The males however will never set foot on dry land again.
No turtles are better suited to life in fresh water than the pig-nose.
But the most extreme adaptations for swimming
are found in those turtles that went to sea.
Marine turtles
have altered their front legs really radically
and turned them into oar-like flippers.
Theyre so at home in the sea they even mate while swimming.
The male turtle has special hooks on his front flippers
that enable him to cling onto the females shell.
And he has to have a firm grip
for she makes no allowance for him as she swims.
But hanging onto his female is going to get much harder for this male.
A rival has appeared.
The males armour protects most of his body
but his rear flippers are exposed
and they are relatively soft and vulnerable.
There can be little doubt that this hurts
but theres not much that the first male can do about it.
If he lets go with even a single flipper
he will lose his grip and his female.
The rival tries again and attacks the front flipper.
And now the males troubles are about to double.
A second rival arrives.
The two challengers join forces and attack the male from both sides.
His only option is to grin and bear it.
Now a third hopeful male joins in.
The female tries to shake them off
but theres no shifting them.
Its going from bad to worse.
Even more males gang up on the hapless couple.
Some of the gang try to force themselves between the mating pair.
The pair have now been submerged for a long time
and both of them are in desperate need of a breath.
If the rivals can prevent the male from reaching the surface
he will have no choice but to let go. Hes in real danger of drowning.
At last the determined couple break free
and make a dash for the surface.
With a welcome gasp of air the pair escape.
One by one the gang give up.
It was over 200 million years ago that the first turtles took to the water.
But they were not alone.
Another group of reptiles were also making the same move
and they too were armoured giants.
Crocodilians like turtles and tortoises
have barely changed since the time of the dinosaurs.
Today crocodiles caiman and alligators
live in tropical waters throughout the world.
Crocodiles and tortoises are obviously very different
but they do have one thing in common.
Armour.
Their bodies are encased by tough thick scales
particularly along the back.
In tortoises that armour is clearly defensive.
But for crocodiles it has an extra function.
just below each of these scales lies a network of blood vessels.
A crocodile can control the flow of the blood within them.
When basking it allows it to circulate freely
so transferring the suns warmth from these ridged scales
to the rest of its body.
The crocodile in short has rows of very effective solar panels
all down its back.
And a sophisticated solar heating system like that is a very valuable facility
for a cold-blooded creature.
Being cold-blooded brings considerable advantages to a crocodile.
Whereas a warm-blooded predator like a lion
would die if it didnt feed every few days
a crocodile if necessary can go without food for months on end.
And that means that crocodiles can live in places
where no warm-blooded predator could survive
and wait for events
that only happen two or three times each year.
And one of those events will occur tonight
right here.
This road in northern Australia is close to the coast
and it floods at the highest tides.
Night falls and the scene changes dramatically.
The road is now covered in water
and crocodiles.
But this is no random gathering.
The crocodiles are all here for a reason.
We know that some of them have travelled over 60 miles
1 00 kilometres to get here.
But how they know when to come here we have little idea.
There must be some 40 crocodiles
assembled in the river behind me.
And what makes that sight all the more remarkable
is that these are saltwater crocodiles
which are normally very territorial and intolerant
of one another.
So there must be something pretty special happening
in the river tonight and indeed there is.
This river is tidal
but its been crossed by a barrage.
However at particularly high tides
the water flows over the barrage.
And that is the moment that all these crocodiles are waiting for.
With the salt water come fish.
Mullet have been waiting for weeks to migrate up the river to breed.
This high tide is their first chance to cross the barrage.
And the crocodiles are waiting for them.
Remember its now pitch dark.
Our infrared cameras give us a clear view
but the crocodiles can see virtually nothing.
So they wait with open jaws ready to snap them shut
at the first touch of a fish.
Normally saltwater crocodiles would not tolerate being so close to each other.
They do compete for the best fishing spots
but their disputes are settled with the minimum of fuss.
The fish keep coming for over an hour
but as the tide starts to fall so their numbers dwindle.
With so many crocodiles competing some inevitably go hungry.
But for those that stay around
there will be a second bite to this particular cherry.
The next high tide comes during the day and brings yet more fish.
The crocodiles can now see the fish
but that doesnt seem to make them any easier to catch.
These skilful hunters are surely dramatic proof
that reptiles are certainly not simple-minded creatures.
Theyve predicted the time of the arrival of the fish
with astonishing accuracy
and they have worked out just what they have to do to catch them.
They have also managed to suppress their normal antagonism to one another
so that they can all take advantage of this bonanza.
The more we learn about crocodiles
the more we realise what complex creatures they are.
Despite what you might think
crocodilians are among the most talkative of reptiles and amphibians.
Indeed theyre second only to the frogs in the variety of noises that they make.
The most impressive of sounds of all come from the American alligator.
When the breeding season starts
the males begin to proclaim their ownership of territories.
(INHALING)
(EXHALING)
(BELLOWING)
The vibrations in his body are so powerful
they make the water dance along his back.
(BELLOWING)
(DISTANT BELLOWING)
Sound travels through water even better than it does through air
and he can be heard by other alligators hundreds of metres away.
This is a clear statement of ownership of territory.
Thats fine when he does it lying in his own patch
but watch what happens when he bellows close to another male.
But the rivals dont come to blows.
They sort out their differences with gestures.
Head slaps and gaping jaws are very obvious signals
but alligators also send messages in less conspicuous ways.
Raising their backs slightly above the surface of the water
is a significant move. Its a claim to dominance.
Using signals that are almost imperceptible to us
all these individuals are sending messages to each other
making claim and counterclaim.
Communication between alligators can be very subtle
quiet but there are some occasions
when they really want to make their meaning very unambiguously clear.
And one of those is when theyre guarding their nests
as this one is.
(GROWLING)
I think that was pretty clear.
(CHUCKLING) Oh dear.
Anyway I wont press the point.
Communication between crocodiles starts even before theyve hatched.
(CHIRPING)
A tranquil pool in Argentina
and in it a female broad-snouted caiman.
She laid her eggs in a pile of vegetation close to the water
almost three months ago.
Now sounds are coming from it.
The eggs are beginning to hatch.
(CHIRPING)
Even while the eggs are still within the nest
their mother can hear them from some way away.
(CHIRPING)
Back on the nest she listens intently.
(MUFFLED CHIRPING)
Then very gently she starts to take it apart.
She cant know exactly where each of her babies is
and stops every few seconds to listen.
(CHIRPING)
At last the young are free.
But she doesnt abandon them.
She is going to take them down to the pool
that she has selected as their nursery.
Some babies start to make the journey for themselves
but they continue to call and that helps their mother locate them.
(DISTANT CHIRPING)
Caiman jaws are among the strongest in the animal kingdom
but now she uses hers with the greatest delicacy and gentleness.
So at last her babies are brought together in the nursery pool.
But their mothers job is still not finished.
Several of the eggs have failed to hatch.
(BABIES CHIRPING)
One by one she takes these in her mouth.
The shell around the egg is quite strong.
The babies must make a considerable effort to free themselves
and for some its more than they can manage.
So she starts to crack the unhatched egg with her teeth.
Once the hard shell has been broken away
she has to pierce the leathery inner membrane.
Without her help this baby might not have hatched at all.
But the female caimans maternal duties are not over even now.
She will stand guard over her babies for the next few months.
All crocodilians take good care of their young
but one of them takes parental responsibilities
to a really astonishing level.
The Llanos of Venezuela
a lush wetland teeming with wildlife of all kinds.
As well as birds there are amphibious rodents
capybara and spectacled caiman.
This female is looking after an extraordinarily large number of babies.
But most of these are not in fact hers.
This nursery pool is being used by several caiman families.
But instead of all the mothers staying nearby
one of them has taken charge of the whole creche.
Keeping an eye on all these energetic babies is not easy.
There are lots of enemies around.
When danger threatens the babies all run for protection to the female
even though she may not be their mother.
There are so many of them
that theres not enough room for them all on her back.
Soon these babies will face another hazard
and one thats not quite so easy to escape from.
The water that has kept them safe until now
is beginning to dry up.
Each year in the space of a few short months
the Llanos is transformed from a flooded paradise to a baking oven.
For some babies the unrelenting heat and the lack of water
has already been too much.
Any babies that are left alive will certainly die if they stay here.
So the mother decides to leave.
(LOW CHIRPING)
(FEMALE CONTINUES CHIRPING)
Calling to her creche she sets off across the parched land.
In one long cavalcade they march onwards in search of permanent water.
For the mother this is certainly exhausting.
For her babies with their tiny legs it must be a real marathon.
(CHIRPING)
Some start to fall behind.
But she stops.
The babies call constantly. She knows exactly where they all are
and waits until every single one of them has caught up.
Only when all are with her will she set off again.
At last safety.
The babies are close to exhaustion.
Without such devotion from the female
few if any of these baby caiman would have survived.
And remarkably most of them arent even her own.
When parental care was first described in crocodiles
the reports were dismissed as too extraordinary to be true.
We may call reptiles cold-blooded but they can show great tenderness.
Reptiles and amphibians are full of surprises.
They can look after their young with as much care as many a mammal.
Their displays can be as colourful as that of any bird.
And they can astonish and enthral us.
Reptiles and amphibians are sometimes seen as simple primitive creatures.
Thats a long way from the truth.
The fact that they are solar-powered
means that their bodies require only 10% of the energy
that mammals of a similar size require.
At a time when we ourselves are becoming increasingly concerned
about the way in which we get our energy from the environment
and the wasteful way in which we use it
maybe there are things that we can learn from life in cold blood.
We filmed a lot of different reptiles and amphibians
during the making of this series.
We were looking for extraordinary behaviour
preferably for things that had never been filmed before.
To see such wonders we needed the help of scientists
who were working in the field.
...actually quite thin.
Point it a little bit more...
ATTENBOROUGH: They passed onto us their insights and their discoveries
and then they helped us to interpret the footage that we had shot.
I learnt a lot and had a lot of fun.
But I was also alarmed to discover just how rare
some of the subjects of our series have now become.
One of our key locations was the Galapagos Islands.
Here giant tortoises were going be among our stars.
The scientists working for the Galapagos National Parks
care for the wild animal populations
but they also look after one extraordinary unique individual
with whom I had a special appointment.
This is the rarest living animal in all the world.
There is none rarer.
This is Lonesome George.
He is about the same age as I am
but his story starts a very long time ago.
In the 1 7th century when human beings first came to the Galapagos
there were about 1 2 different kinds of giant tortoise
each living on its own island or its own great volcano
isolated by unpassable lava flows.
There are 1 3 large islands in the Galapagos and many smaller ones
and they differ in both age and their vegetation.
The tortoises differ too because their shells have evolved into
the different shapes best suited for eating the food available
on their own particular island.
On islands where theres abundant food on the ground
the tortoises have dome-shaped shells and short necks
that only need reach downwards.
But on islands where the tortoises browse on higher bushes
their necks are longer and the shells are saddle-shaped at the front
so they can stretch their necks upwards.
When the first ships arrived here
there were thousands of each kind of tortoise.
But then people began to slaughter the tortoises for meat.
They discovered the remarkable fact
that these creatures could live for a year without water or food
so they took them on board their ships and slaughtered them at sea.
The tortoises on Pinta Island were apparently exterminated.
But then in 1 971
it was discovered that there was one lonely single survivor.
That was Lonesome George.
This film was taken over 30 years ago by the team that brought George back
to the Charles Darwin Research Station.
The scientists hoped that another Pinta tortoise might be discovered
in some corner of this island or even in a zoo somewhere in the world.
But none has ever been found.
So now George lives in his own enclosure
completely safe but entirely by himself.
Hes the last of his kind.
Its better news for the other Galapagos tortoises.
Felipe Cruz from the research station
showed me some of the work being done there.
They take eggs laid by wild tortoises and put them in incubators.
The hatchlings are about the size of apples and have soft shells
so are vulnerable to predators especially rats
that were accidentally introduced to the Galapagos.
They will keep this number for their life.
ATTENBOROUGH: The young ones I saw were only a few months old.
Theyre kept in special enclosures and given all the foods they need
to enable them to develop hard protective shells.
It takes a few months for their shells to harden
and its five years before theyre totally predator proof.
So far in total we have repatriated over 3000 tortoises.
-Three thousand? -In the different islands.
ATTENBOROUGH: Scientists are also helping to solve
another man-made problem.
Domestic goats that have run wild are eating the tortoises food
and destroying the precious plant cover that they need for shade.
So a systematic programme of eradication has started.
I was able to see the effects of this programme for myself.
We visited one island where two years earlier
the goats had been eliminated
and the difference was dramatic.
The lush vegetation had returned.
Now the tortoises can find the shade that is so important for them
and theres plenty of grass for them to eat.
Reptiles are not alone in being under threat.
The amphibians if anything are in even greater danger.
Not since the disappearance of the dinosaurs
has a whole group of the animal kingdom been under such threat.
In Japan one of the most dramatic of amphibians the giant salamander
has fewer and fewer places to live.
In Panama we filmed the golden frog.
Since we took this shot the species has become so rare
that the few survivors have been caught to be protected in zoos.
So its now extinct in the wild.
The gharials that we filmed with their babies
were nearly exterminated in the 1 970s
when they lost most of their natural habitat.
And theyre not safe yet.
To try and halt their decline their eggs are being collected
hatched in incubators and the babies reared in captivity
until they can be released in the wild.
So there may be hope for them yet.
The gopher tortoise we filmed in Florida is also in trouble.
The areas where it digs its burrows have become prime real estate
and are now much sought after for building and farming.
By explaining their problems to landowners and developers
they may yet have a future.
In the great island of Madagascar there are more species of chameleon
than in all the rest of the world put together.
But the destruction of the islands forests
began centuries ago and only a few patches are left.
They too are still being felled
and chameleon species may be lost even before theyve been identified.
We will need to act now if were not to lose
what remains to us of the reptiles and amphibians
that have survived for 200 million years.
Lonesome George it seems is doomed to be the last of his kind
but at least he can be a living inspiration for us all
to protect the remainder of the reptiles and amphibians of the world.