(suspenseful music)
The islands of Indonesia,
refuge for countless species of plants and animals.
Including some of the most spectacular reptiles
in the world.
In the rain forest of Sulawesi,
80% of all the species are endemic
found nowhere else on Earth.
And these islands are home to 15%
of the world's coral reefs.
(suspenseful music)
In the mid 19th century, a young English zoologist
spent three years here.
Alfred Russel Wallace discovered that nature in the region
was divided by a mysterious barrier.
150 years later,
a new generation of scientists explorers
has come to solve another mystery.
This time it's beneath the sea.
They're diving into a world that was closed
to the Victorian explorer
to see if species are separated in the ocean as well.
An expedition into the depths of the Wallace Line.
(suspenseful music)
(people chatting) (dog barking)
Padangbai on the Indonesian island of Bali.
A team of marine biologists have returned to the region
where Alfred Russel Wallace made his discoveries
150 years ago.
They want to answer some new questions about evolution.
Matthias Kopfmuller and his scientists
are ready to launch their expedition.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, okay.
All right, stop.
Their research vessel, Ananda, sets off
for the first morning's dive.
(wooden boards creaking)
(speaking in foreign language)
Alfred Russel Wallace had noticed how different
the plants and animals were
in different parts of the Malayan archipelago.
(motor buzzing)
When he collated his data,
he realized that a mysterious line
seemed to cut the region in half.
On one side where the mammals,
on the other the big reptiles.
(speaking in foreign language)
There must be something under the water
keeping the species apart,
but Wallace had no way of looking.
(speaking in foreign language)
Matthias Kopfmuller's new expedition can.
(speaking in foreign language)
We're now positioned
right over Wallace Line,
the imaginary line Wallace plotted back then.
The Australasian animals are on one side
and the East Asian animals are on the other,
at least above the water.
Now we have the technology to establish
how things are underwater
to find out whether the wildlife
to the east and west of the line
is separated by a deep sea trench and by ocean currents.
(light calm music)
It's literally an expedition into the unknown.
The Wallace Line is actually the Wallace Band.
It marks the boundary between two continents,
Asia and Oceania.
At its narrowest, it passes between two islands,
Bali and Lombok.
Wallacea, as this region is known,
has one of the richest ecosystems on Earth.
Wallace noted in his diary
that although these islands were separated
only by the straits,
they were more different than England and Japan,
even though Lombok and Bali
were no more than 30 miles apart.
Russel wanted to know the reason
for this extraordinary diversity
and why it happened here.
1855.
He solved the mystery after four years of work
and observation.
Traveling from island to island
was a sure way to catch malaria.
But even racked by the fever,
he would not give up on his search
for the origin of species.
(dramatic music)
He needed to know the purpose of such astounding variety.
How could it have developed?
Where was the evidence for a divine creator?
(dramatic music)
Wallace already knew that island seemed to encourage
unusual forms of life.
Especially here in the Malayan archipelago.
And now, he had the insight of his life.
That as a result of the struggle for existence
and the natural selection of individual animals,
entirely new species would inevitably develop.
It was a revolutionary thought.
(light calm music)
As Wallace wrote down his idea,
another man had long been working on the same theory,
Charles Darwin.
One of the most famous scientists
in the history of the world,
the spiritual father of the theory of evolution.
His book on the evolution of species
changed the world forever.
But Darwin had already been working
for 20 years on his book,
constantly delaying the final decision to publish.
As a clergyman, Darwin feared the public reaction
to his theories.
This was a time when the church still taught
that the world was created in seven days.
And most scientists believed
the Earth was no more than 4,000 years old.
(dramatic music)
In three days and nights of fever,
Wallace's work was completed.
(insects buzzing)
All his ideas were condensed into a single paper.
It was just 20 pages long.
Russel signed it and addressed it
to the lead zoologist in England.
Soon after receiving it,
Darwin decided to publish "On the Origin of Species."
Was this a response to Wallace's ideas?
That may never be known.
But Wallace is now a legend only to the experts,
the founder of island geography
and discoverer of the Wallace Line.
And the Wallace Line is what the new team is looking for.
They want to know how far down it extends
and how a linking element like water
can separate the species that live in it.
From the early morning, there's been hectic activity
on board the two research vessels.
Everyone is concentrating on this first dive.
(motor buzzing) (speaking in foreign language)
Onno Gross is a marine biologist.
He's the scientific leader of the expedition
and he's confident of getting results.
(speaking in foreign language)
I'm pretty sure we will find differences
between the animals separated by the Wallace Line.
We'll make tests, identify and map corals,
take sediment and sand samples.
And I'm pretty sure we'll also find new species.
This is an area
that has very rarely been dived.
(speaking in foreign language)
The team know they will need to cope
with extreme depths and powerful currents.
A new gas and air mix will allow the divers
to spend more time below the surface.
(water splashing)
They can dive deeper
and explore a greater area.
(suspenseful music) (water splashing)
They'll need that extra capability.
They know that the Wallace Line
forms a deep under sea canyon here
and the strong currents will slow them down.
(suspenseful music)
The nutrient-rich waters forced at high speed
through these narrows make this a rich habitat
for a multitude of species.
White-tipped reef sharks, the top predators here,
can wait lazily for their prey,
fed ample oxygen by the rushing current.
They feed on creatures that eat still smaller fish
and plankton.
An extremely rich mix of marine species exists here,
poised above the abyss.
(light techno music)
A many individual fish show unexpected variations.
This is a lionfish.
It's stripes are usually bright red.
The scientists have never seen these colors before.
(light techno music)
A manta glides by.
Their undersides are usually white,
the perfect camouflage when viewed from beneath
but this one's is black.
Are these unique genetic mutations?
Or completely new species?
The citizens of Wallacea are somehow bigger, stranger
or more colorful than sea creatures
in other shallow ocean waters.
(light techno music)
As they descend,
the divers find more and more strange forms of life.
Feather starfish, strange creatures
with tentacles like feathers
dance past the undersea cliff sides.
These are scenes that Wallace or Darwin
could never have witnessed.
(dramatic music)
Since their time, zoologists have identified
about 230,000 different marine species.
But scientists believe
that between one and 10 million species
still remain to be discovered.
(hammer thumping)
On the edge of the rock face,
the marine biologists take samples of corals
that have been here for thousands of years
and samples of the rock itself.
The microscopic creatures living on them
will be genetically analyzed in the lab.
(bubbles gurgling)
They're making an inventory of the undersea cliffs
of the Wallace Line.
A sort of marine census.
And this is a densely-populated region.
This area has been a rich tropical sea
for hundreds of millions of years,
a hothouse for species development
and a boundary between continents
with very different species.
This has made it a true cradle of marine evolution.
(air whooshing)
Special plastic tubes called multicorers are used
to take samples of the different layers of sediment.
One tube-full can contain up to 1000 Foraminiferas,
tiny single-cell creatures, 90% of them new to science.
These will be tested on both sides of the line.
(dramatic music)
Lifting bags transport the first samples to the surface.
(suspenseful music)
The first dive was successful and relatively easy.
Now they want to go deeper into the canyon
where the two sides of the line meet.
There's a steep drop for several hundred meters.
(suspenseful music)
And on the way down, the divers expect to meet
severe turbulence.
From the water surface to a depth of about 30 meters,
the current runs at eight knots.
That's almost 14 kilometers an hour.
This current drags everything that isn't attached
into the open ocean
or pulls it down into the depths.
The divers are exposed to it
and it's more dangerous than it looks.
In fact, the current could be deadly.
One of the divers loses his grip on the rocks
and is fast pulled away by the current.
(suspenseful music)
To panic now could fatal.
It takes calm nerves to get the situation under control.
It's a warning.
These currents deserve respect.
(speaking in foreign language)
We managed to get something,
but it's gonna be tough.
We thought it would be a bit easier than this.
(speaking in foreign language)
It's been a sobering start.
Wow.
(speaking in foreign language)
I've never ever been in a current like that.
Really, it was at least five to seven knots,
crazy, up current, down current.
No fun at all.
(speaking in foreign language)
No one Thought the currents
might make them stop working.
They'll need a change of plan.
(speaking in foreign language)
I really think the next time we go down,
we should try to attach decompression bottles
every 10 meters.
I think it's psychologically important.
And we should also bring out safety lines
when we're in the current.
Heavy buoys with weights
so that we always have something to hang on to.
(speaking in foreign language)
Or we should lay lines from the rocks into the sea,
20, 30 meters long
so that if I'm swept away,
I at least know there'll be something
that will give me a bit of safety.
(suspenseful music)
Back to the edge of the abyss.
The divers become mountain climbers,
each step secured by steel cables.
Meter by meter, they work their way down
against the current.
(suspenseful music)
This time things go better.
They pass through the current layer
and after 30 meters, they can slowly descend.
At 40 meters, a quick safety check.
Everything's fine, on they go.
(light techno music)
At 60 meters, they reach the first caves.
Caves and grottoes are especially important
for the expedition.
They're often completely closed unique ecosystems.
(light techno music)
Lifeforms can develop here in peace for millions of years
untroubled by the nearby currents
or the depths and distances of the oceans.
Sponges and bacteria grow on the cavern walls
in thick red mats.
The energy they create in metabolizing
is the basis of all life in this region,
the region of Wallacea.
A lionfish stares at the intruder,
the first human he has ever set eyes on.
(light techno music)
(water splashing)
Perhaps the analysis of this small horn coral
will provide the genetic proof
that the Wallace Line exists under water
as a completely natural frontier.
or perhaps it's not a frontier but an edge,
where changes take place faster,
ripped along by the current.
(dramatic music)
It's time for the divers to return to the surface.
(dramatic music)
Rising to the surface from 60 meters
requires a number of stops for decompression.
Otherwise, there's a serious risk of the bends
where bubbles of nitrogen form in the blood
as water pressure lessens.
They can cause embolisms throughout the body
resulting in paralysis or even death.
(dramatic music)
But by building these pauses into the dive,
they can use them to continue their research,
taking samples for later analysis.
(dramatic music)
Back among the inhabitants of the shallows,
the team are beginning to understand
what the Wallace Line really is.
(dramatic music)
And the currents seem to play a crucial role.
(bubbles gurgling)
Back onboard, the samples are given a first examination.
(speaking in foreign language)
The simplest one-celled animals
may give the clearest indication
how a barrier, like the Wallace Line, works.
(speaking in foreign language)
Algae, sediments, stone and coral samples
are washed, separated and then packed
for further examination on the main land.
Nothing gets left out.
(motor buzzing)
The researchers also bring up live fish.
They have been painlessly and harmlessly anesthetized.
(speaking in foreign language)
How long will it be out?
(speaking in foreign language)
For about another hour.
We gave him quite a high dose.
He was a bit more mobile earlier.
This little scorpion fish
wakes up quicker than expected.
A tiny sample is taken from his fin
before he's thrown back.
The labs will use its DNA
to test how widely this species is distributed.
Using these DNA tests,
the structures of a population can be established
in incredible detail
and could prove further evidence for an underwater boundary.
(water splashing)
(speaking in foreign language)
Wallacea is one of the hotspots
of biodiversity.
The oceans of the earth are colonized from here
with coral and fish larvae.
This is a nodal point that radiates a special energy
and thus holds a special importance
for the oceans as a whole.
We don't fully understand it yet.
That's why we're here.
Few other regions can compare to Wallacea
in biodiversity.
The Caribbean has just 10% of the species
of coral found here.
This is a newly discovered species of starfish.
And since Devonian times, 400 million years ago,
Wallacea has always been an area of sea
and of tropical warmth.
That makes it unique in the world.
And it gave the animals and plants
the time and the conditions to develop in remarkable ways.
By comparison, the Caribbean is an evolutionary baby.
(dramatic music)
The expedition has now been diving here for two weeks.
Time to move across to the other side of the Wallace Line,
the Australian side.
Even this short journey needs careful plotting.
It takes skill to find the safest possible crossing
between Bali and Lumbok.
The crew expect a powerful swell,
one of the effects of the strong current
just below the surface.
And then they receive a message.
Okay yes, we definitely need to do more
on those things, over and out.
Their second vessel, the Al Isra,
has engine trouble.
And the promised swell has arrived even on a windless day.
With no engine and no wind for the sails,
the Al Isra drifts helplessly.
Nothing for it but to attach a line
and tow her to calmer waters.
(waves splashing)
For a theoretical barrier,
the Wallace line is quite an obstacle.
(waves splashing)
The engine is soon repaired, but nevertheless,
it's decided that the two ships will separate.
The Al Israel will stay on the Asian side of the line.
The Ananda continues eastwards.
(dramatic music)
(speaking in foreign language)
We'll see you in two weeks on Komodo, okay?
You come from the east and welcome from the west.
The crew of the Ananda drop a buoy
with a satellite transmitter overboard.
This is a perfect opportunity
to test the strength and direction of the current
over days and weeks.
(speaking in foreign language)
The difficulty of examining
the distribution of marine species
is of course quite different
from the problems Wallace faced.
After all, the situation is clear for land animals
and they can't get from one island to another
because there's water in between or too much water.
But marine species spread in their larvae phase
and they're distributed by drifting.
That means we shall have to use
the most refined technical methods
to distinguish the creatures from each side of the line
and to be sure that they are really different.
(speaking in foreign language)
So the schooner Ananda set sail
for the Australian oceanic side of the line.
This is deepest Wallacea.
It's a journey into another world.
The world of reptiles and of the reticulated python,
the longest reptile on Earth.
These snakes can reach 12 meters in length
in favorable conditions.
The local people fear them for their strength
and aggressiveness.
(dramatic music)
They can still be found in places unchanged
since Wallace explored here, 150 years ago.
Once, reptiles were the dominant form of life on Earth.
(water splashing)
And many of today's species have barely changed
since the time of the dinosaurs.
(dramatic music)
In most of the Earth's regions,
there are very few reptiles left.
But here, in the rivers and dense rainforests of Wallacea
on the Australian side of the line,
they still dominate life.
There have never been any big meat-eating mammals
on the Australian eastern side of the Wallace Line.
(dramatic music)
So now reptiles, like this salt-water crocodile
are at the top of the food chain.
They're bigger and more fearsome here than anywhere else.
(dramatic music)
Snake expert, Mark Auliya,
doesn't want to miss this chance
to research into some of his favorite species.
He's left the ship on a special mission.
He's looking for deep and complex cave systems.
The breeding grounds and nurseries for the giant snakes.
(speaking in foreign language)
Caves help unique forms of life to evolve on land
as well as in the sea.
And this great cave system on the island of Flores
is home to countless microorganisms,
millipedes, scorpions, and spiders
like this giant tailless whip scorpion
as big as the palm of a hand, but completely harmless.
And this is a perfect habitat
for thousands and thousands of bats.
In slits, holes, and on ledges and outcrops,
they nestle and hang suspended in the fetid atmosphere.
And they're a prime source of food
for young reticulated pythons
who use them to hone their hunting skills.
Pythons don't poison their victims,
they wrap themselves around their prey at lightning speed
and strangle them.
So they're not easy to catch.
(speaking in foreign language)
(grunting)
(speaking in foreign language)
No luck with this first one.
(speaking in foreign language)
It was three and a half meters long,
nearly four.
Why didn't you grab its neck?
Because if I let go of its tail,
it gets away.
(bats screeching)
Things work better on the second go.
(speaking in foreign language)
This python is still young,
but it's already longer than a man.
(speaking in foreign language)
And it doesn't like having the tables turned.
(speaking in foreign language)
So, here it is.
It must be about, I'd say, three meters long
maybe just over.
(speaking in foreign language)
When they're that size, they eat smaller prey like bats.
(speaking in foreign language)
When he reaches four meters,
it'll probably leave the cave ans search for larger prey.
Auliya starts his examination.
(speaking in foreign language)
Now you can see its windpipe.
The inside of the mouth looks healthy.
These snakes have been here
for 140 million years.
(speaking in foreign language)
Smaller snake species
develop poisonous fangs much more recently
probably to kill fast moving land mammals.
No one is quite sure how snakes originally evolved.
They probably developed
from small creatures living underground.
The loss of their lemons and their extraordinary length
could be an evolutionary adaptation
to the narrow passages, nooks and crannies of a cave.
(insects buzzing)
(speaking in foreign language)
This young python will soon leave its nursery
and go out into Wallacea in search of prey.
(speaking in foreign language)
Today, DNA analysis helps us understand
the evolution and distribution of snakes,
like these pythons.
Mark Auliya has already discovered two new species
of reticulated python on islands of Wallacea,
isolated by sea and currents.
(dramatic music)
But the scientists are not the only ones
who've discovered the habitat of the pythons.
Poachers, smugglers, and dealers
are also after the rare animals.
Mark Auliya uses his contacts with illegal dealers,
usually Chinese immigrants, to monitor this illicit trade.
(dramatic music)
(speaking in foreign language)
It helps that he speaks several local dialects fluently.
(speaking in foreign language)
The dealers aren't interested in live snakes.
They can make a fortune selling the skins.
For the python it means a long wait and a cruel fate
for only when the snake has molted
is the new skin at its best,
ready to be harvested.
(speaking in foreign language)
This five meter snake tries to resist
but there will be no escape.
(speaking in foreign language)
On the black market, a snake like this
is worth $1,000.
The snake is condemned by its own beauty.
(mysterious music)
Such deliberate destruction seems a crime
at a time of wholesale extinctions
for 70 species disappear every day.
That's 500 every week
and 27,000 in a year, lost forever.
(dramatic music)
Thankfully, most of Wallacea's animals
escape the poachers
and in the wild, the reticular python
has evolved a special solution to ensure its survival.
It has taken to the sea.
This way, it can make the most of living in archipelago
of thousands of islands.
Skimming between the reefs, islets, and sand banks
completely at home.
(suspenseful music)
In the search for new territory,
it even swims out into the ocean.
Individual pythons are often found
surviving far from their original habitat.
They have colonized every island
in the Indo-Malaysian region,
even the smallest and most remote.
And they're not the only migrants.
The ocean currents transport fruits, seeds, and nuts
over thousands of kilometers
until they make landfall on some deserted island.
(mysterious music)
(waves crashing)
Often, there's a stowaway on a bundle of twigs or creepers.
(mysterious music)
A single log or a branch torn off in a storm
can serve as a natural raft
that may be underway for weeks or even months.
Small land creatures cross seas
using only this flotsam and jetsam as a lifeboat.
And as soon as they land,
there's another struggle for survival
which sometimes can be almost too successful.
This prehistoric looking giant was once an ordinary lizard
until it landed on a particular island in the archipelago.
This is the Komodo dragon.
With no other predators, it grew and grew.
A mature male can be more than three meters long.
The Komodo archipelago
is surrounded by particularly strong currents,
completely impossible for such large unwieldy animals.
And so as they grew,
the dragons became prisoners of their own island.
Prisoners of their own size.
And yet, a close Wallacean relative
developed quite differently.
This is Varanus salvator, the water monitor.
He developed a much slimmer and longer body
than his land-locked cousin.
His long tail has developed flat sides
to make him a perfect underwater swimmer.
(techno music)
An adult dragon can dive for up to 20 minutes.
(light techno music)
It's hard to believe that this is actually a land creature
and closely related to the Komodo dragon.
(light techno music)
Slipping through the water like a prehistoric shadow,
he gives us an idea of how the seas looked
when the dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
(waves crashing)
His amazing swimming skills
have made the water monitor
the most widely distributed lizard on Earth.
(waves crashing)
(dramatic music)
The Ananda has anchored in a quiet bay on Flores Island.
Matthias Kopfmuller is following a hint
by a zoologist friend
that this island has its own giant lizard.
And Mark Auliya wants to see for himself.
They need to walk to the eastern tip of the island.
They've given themselves just one day
out from the expedition.
(speaking in foreign language)
Soon, Auliya find signs of a large reptile's presence.
(speaking in foreign language)
(suspenseful music)
And the flock of flying foxes up ahead may be a clue.
Normally, these giant bats sleep during the day,
suspended in the trees.
A predator must have disturbed them.
(bats screeching)
And then they see it,
a giant lizard in the undergrowth.
(leaves crunching)
(speaking in foreign language)
A pale yellow, three-meter long dragon.
The splashes of pink and gray in its scales
match perfectly with its environment.
Evidence that this lizard has been isolated here
for millions of years.
Yet, this is a Komodo dragon.
It probably came here from Komodo
when a landbridge still connected the two islands.
When the waters rose, the two animals developed separately
into different species
and the giant of Flores gained its new coat.
The visitors mustn't get too excited.
If this animal is related to the Komodo dragon,
the chances are it's extremely aggressive.
(birds chirping)
(camera clicking)
But these animals, and their cousins on Komodo,
that have lived here since the time of the dinosaurs
are well on the way to extinction.
(suspenseful music)
Back on the ship, they're planning the dives
to the easy of the Wallacea Line, on the Asian side.
(speaking in foreign language)
Watch watch out for the currents.
We know they increase towards the west.
So don't forget your safety lines.
(speaking in foreign language)
Don't worry, we'll be careful.
Conditions here
call for some unusual solutions.
The divers are pulled through a tropical lagoon
on an underwater trapeze.
It's less rocky on this side of the line.
So the team can inspect a greater area at higher speed.
(light techno music)
A plankton net is dragged through open waters.
It scoops up innumerable thousands
of these tiny plants and animals,
the start of the marine food chain.
If they find something interesting,
the others dive down to take a sample.
Reef fish are anesthetized with oil of violets
before being taken on board for examination.
The plankton net fills up in the open ocean.
A manta ray rises from the depths.
It's following the clouds of plankton.
It couldn't survive without them.
(dramatic music)
And neither could we.
A quarter of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere
is produced by phytoplankton,
the plant part of this gigantic biomass.
(speaking in foreign language)
(water splashing)
And the exact composition of the plankton here in Wallacea
is once again influenced by the fast-moving waters.
(speaking in foreign language)
A shrimp.
Yes, brought along by the current.
(speaking in foreign language)
(suspenseful music)
Every night,
thick clouds of these minuscule animals and plants
rise towards the surface of Wallacea's waters
where they're distributed by the current.
A ribbed jellyfish,
a greedy filtration eater
feeds here to its heart's content.
(suspenseful music)
Plankton swarms around a giant drifting salp,
a form of jellyfish,
a live colony of thousands of individual animals.
A swarm of salps
can measure up to a hundred thousand square kilometers
and can absorb almost 4,000 tons of CO2 a day.
(suspenseful music)
This is a living stream of nourishment
transported by the ocean currents around the entire globe.
(suspenseful music)
(light dramatic music)
Or just as far as the next coral reef
where other animals, attached to the rocks,
wait for easy prey.
(dramatic music)
Feather stars are ghostly flowers,
stretch their tentacles into the current.
Thousands of hungry mouths, waiting for food supplies
from the open sea.
Scientists are discovering more and more life in the oceans.
Up to 20,000 individual plants and animals
and thousands of different species
live in every liter of this water
and each has a role in the ecosystem.
(dramatic music)
Marine organisms, like this fire sea urchin,
are responsible for many important metabolic processes
in the sea.
Each one of these strange creatures
has a contribution to make
to the biochemical cycles of the entire planet.
(dramatic music)
Two weeks later,
the Ananda is on its way back to its sister ship,
the Al Isra, which has been waiting
on the western side of the Wallace Line.
The scientific evidence
of a biological frontier under the water
is beginning to arrive.
Tests have been carried out on the samples
by the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
They've been checking for inherited characteristics.
DNA analysis should show great differences
between the animals and plants
on the east and west sides of the Wallace Line.
And the confirmation comes
in a radio conversation with the lab.
(speaking in foreign language)
So you received the samples we sent
a couple of weeks ago, over.
Yes, we of course,
we received the samples, over.
Okay and did you have a chance to do
some first analysis on those?
Positive, we did a genetic test, over.
Okay, that sounds fantastic.
So how does that compare with them previous publications
on those issues?
Perfect, over.
Okay, so basically we can say that we have first hints
that the Wallace line is confirmed
with these genetic analysis, over.
Yes, you're totally right.
Great differences, over.
Okay, yes, thanks very much and over now.
Little doubt remains.
(speaking in foreign language)
That would mean what Wallace found out
150 years ago also holds good beneath the water.
There is a marine Wallace Line.
The expedition has been a success.
Pleasure. -: Good, so far.
(men chuckling)
(speaking in foreign language)
(dramatic music)
And now it's time to pack up.
(dramatic music)
The northeast monsoon
will soon make further work impossible.
(rain trickling)
Wallacea will increasingly become a threatened habitat.
The variety of species is already being destroyed by humans.
Wallace recognized that 150 years ago.
But if we lose the opportunity to study the interdependency
of animals, plants, and habitats in a place like this,
we will be missing a chance to help secure our own future.
(dramatic music)