Bear: Deserts.
Scorched, desolate, hostile.
But, alive.
One million hungry bats
Forced to leave the safety of their cave before nightfall.
The sun is so powerful here,
There's barely anything to eat.
The bats can only catch enough insects by leaving early.
But, in daylight, they're dangerously exposed.
Hawks wait for them.
In the desert, timing is everything.
Get it wrong and you pay the price.
The sun governs the rhythm of desert life.
And the animals that make their home here
Are at the mercy of its power.
(theme music plays).
Above me is a nuclear reactor almost a million miles across.
Every second, the sun spits out more energy than humans
Have used in all our history.
And nowhere is its power more potent than in the desert.
Amazingly, there are animals that spend their lives
In this scorching heat.
But now the hottest places on earth are getting even hotter.
And even the most resilient creatures are facing a fight
Like never before.
The sun's rule begins.
From now on, survival gets tougher by the hour.
Nubian ibex make their home in the highest,
Steepest corners of the desert.
A daunting place to raise two kids.
(bleating).
But, their greatest challenge comes from the sun.
In the last few decades,
Heatwaves have become more severe.
They need water, but it lies 1000 feet below.
(bleating).
It's a perilous journey for kids only a few days old.
But, their soft soled hooves grip like climbing shoes.
And, they appear utterly immune to vertigo.
(bleating).
Little grows on these steep, sun baked slopes.
All that's underfoot is crumbling rock.
♪ ♪
(bleating).
Driven downward by the sun,
The family's journey is almost over.
But now, they no longer enjoy the protection
Of the high cliffs.
(bleating).
An arabian wolf.
He outweighs an ibex kid ten to one.
In this desert, he's the ibex's most feared predator.
By keeping her family up slope,
She has a slender advantage.
But falling rocks won't stop him.
(bleating).
The kids have unbeatable agility,
But lack experience.
(bleating).
There's nothing the mother can do.
Now, she will focus all her energy on protecting
And providing for her remaining kid.
Deep in the canyon, sheltered from the sun,
It's a different world.
This is what they've risked everything for.
The desert's most precious resource.
A lifeline.
But a costly one.
As the sun climbs higher its power intensifies,
Tightening its grip on desert life.
In some places, it seems miraculous
That anything can survive.
The temperature here is rising three times faster
Than the global average.
This mining town was abandoned over 60 years ago.
Some believe these buildings are haunted.
But whatever's stalking this ghost town
Is very much alive.
Bear: In africa's namib desert...
A brown hyena has set up home in a ghost town.
Her pups are hungry.
And, finding food in this desolate landscape
Seems impossible.
Yet, less than a mile away, the desert meets one of the
Richest seas in the world.
The atlantic brings life to the namib.
Thousands of cape fur seals.
Pups could be an easy target.
15 pound balls of blubber,
Totally unsuited to desert life.
Black backed jackals are also on the hunt.
(seal calls).
But, the pups have formidable bodyguards.
(growling).
In a colony this size,
There are plenty of other opportunities.
(growling).
A placenta from a recent birth.
With three pups of her own to feed,
The hyena needs a bigger meal.
(seal calls).
As the land heats up, bodyguards retreat to the sea.
Armed with sharp teeth,
Even a lone pup can put up a brave fight.
(squeaky growling).
It's easier to wait until the sun takes its toll.
Disoriented by the punishing heat,
This pup strays into the desert.
(squeaking, crying).
She timed her hunt to perfection.
Now it's time to relax during the heat of the day.
Even now, with temperatures still rising,
Not all animals can afford to rest.
These meerkat pups are just five weeks old.
They still have a lot to learn about desert survival.
It's a dry season.
Rain is six months away.
And the closest river hasn't flowed in seven years.
Finding food is the toughest challenge.
Most of it's hiding under sun-baked soil.
With adults on guard duty scanning for danger.
Ready to sound the alarm.
It's safe for the pups' lessons to begin.
First, digging.
Harder than it looks.
An adult can dig its own body weight every few seconds.
But, for a pup, it's easier to beg.
(barking).
(chattering).
Why not let the adults do the hard work?
But, not all handouts make for a simple meal.
A scorpion.
The adult has already disabled its stinger,
But its pincers are still fully functional.
Learning how to deal with dangerous animals
Is a vital desert skill.
All too soon, it's time for a break.
They need to find shade in the searing sun.
But, lessons aren't over yet.
(hissing).
Bear: In africa's kalahari desert,
A young meerkat is face to face with a cape cobra.
One on one, he's in big trouble.
But when his family hear the call,
(squealing).
They race to the rescue.
(hissing).
This will be one of the most important lessons of all.
How to handle a venomous cobra.
(hissing, chattering).
If they can't see the snake off their territory,
The entire family remains at risk.
(hissing, chattering).
The pups now know,
Their secret to living in this inhospitable desert,
Teamwork.
Midday is approaching.
School's over and it's time to take shelter.
For the next few hours, the sun's full power is unleashed.
Very few animals can survive out in the open.
This is the world's oldest desert.
It's existed for at least 55 million years.
And now the temperature is rising even higher.
An extra degree or two a century may not sound much.
But where creatures are already pushed to the limit
It could be fatal.
At midday, the sand is hot enough to melt your shoes.
The shovel snouted lizard
Avoids burning its feet by dancing.
♪ ♪
The buck spoor spider can survive higher temperatures
Than any other spider.
Up to 120 fahrenheit.
But it's gonna get hotter than that.
She must work fast, weaving a blanket of sand
To cover the entrance to her burrow,
Where she escapes the heat.
Now, the sand hits 160 degrees.
Yet, for hotrod ants, it's the start of the working day.
Alone on the dunes, they scavenge the sun's victims.
Long legs are a lifesaver.
Just a fifth of an inch up is 12 degrees cooler.
And, the hotrods live up to their name,
Running so fast they create a cooling breeze.
When it gets too much, they climb off the sand entirely.
By pushing the limits of thermal survival,
The ants can be active when their predators are in hiding.
But, even they must get back to the nest soon.
Before they boil to death.
The ants' struggles won't go unnoticed.
Vibrations travel down silk threads,
To an underground lair.
♪ ♪
Sometimes, the spoor spider lets the sun do its killing.
It will emerge later to eat its precooked meal.
Across the world's deserts,
Temperature peak in the early afternoon.
With barely a trace of life,
These landscapes look like the surface of mars.
From space, the full beauty of desert geology is revealed.
In africa, the eye of the sahara is 30 miles wide.
A collapsed dome of rock millions of years old.
Landscapes like this will become more common if deserts
Continue to expand in our warming world.
Right now, the closest we have to a desert continent
Is australia.
The driest of all inhabited land masses.
A brutal drought has hit an area the size of
California and montana combined.
In places, under an inch of rain has fallen in a year.
Right now, survival is all that matters.
Unlike smaller animals,
Red kangaroos can't burrow to escape the heat.
Instead, they have evolved to be some of the toughest
Of all desert creatures.
But at 115 degrees, even they begin to struggle.
This mother and her joey are dangerously overheating.
They must find shelter and fast.
Bear: In australia, a kangaroo and her joey
Are dangerously overheating.
They have one chance to escape.
♪ ♪
Shade cuts the sun's energy by 80%.
But latecomers are not welcome.
In the full force of the sun,
This mother must draw on all her survival skills.
Digging offers a little relief.
Just five inches underground,
The soil can be 50 degrees cooler.
As a last resort, she uses precious water reserves.
Evaporating saliva cools the blood in capillaries
Beneath her skin.
But the heat keeps rising.
Australia receives more solar energy
Than any other landmass.
They barely have the strength to move.
And, with almost nothing left to eat
They're all slowly starving.
In the most severe droughts, 80% of red kangaroos can die.
Their bodies quickly mummify in the dry, desert air.
Yet, a few of the very toughest kangaroos
Somehow manage to survive.
When the rains finally come, their offspring will
Repopulate the outback.
Not all deserts are so desperately bleak.
Saguaro cacti can tower over 60 feet and weigh two tons.
Just one of over 2,000 plant species that grow here.
In this green, spiky desert.
A young harris hawk has a problem.
(cawing).
There are lots of places for his prey to hide.
(cawing).
It forces harris hawks to hunt like no other bird.
In a pack.
And, now the sun's dropping.
It's cool enough to launch an attack.
As the youngest family member,
His job is to flush the rabbit into the open.
Above, his mother coordinates the hunt.
The rest of the family take their positions,
Ready for the chase.
A dive signals that the hunt is on.
The three chasers enter the game.
(screaming).
After a miss, another chaser takes over.
Finally, it's the youngster's turn.
(screaming).
Beating his wings four times a second,
He accelerates to over 30 miles an hour.
(cawing).
By working as a team,
The hawks more than double their chances of success.
A smart hunting strategy
In a desert with so many places to hide.
The sonoran is the most diverse desert
In the united states.
But, the monsoonal storms that bring it life
Also spawn monsters.
Bear: On summer afternoons in the western united states,
The sun whips up winds that suck moist air
Into the desert.
Storms bring life to the land.
(thunder, lightning).
But, sometimes the winds generate a monster.
Moving at 50 miles an hour.
A dust storm can engulf and even suffocate
The animals in its path.
An unstoppable manifestation of the sun's destructive power.
By late afternoon, deserts finally become less hostile.
Conditions are calmer and cooler.
The perfect time for a hunter.
It may be the end of the day,
But this caracal is just getting started.
The prey she's after are all coming home for the night.
Hundreds of sociable weaver birds return to roost in their
Enormous communal nest.
(chirping).
Muscular legs propel her into the air.
And, with claws splayed like grappling hooks
She'll try to catch any bird within reach.
(chirping).
She can leap 11 feet vertically.
(chirping).
This could be her last chance before sunset.
(chirping).
Deserts seldom give up their scarce resources.
But, the caracal will continue hunting through the night.
She's just one of many species that use the ultimate
Survival strategy against the sun.
Timing their lives to avoid it almost entirely.
It's only at night that
The true magic of deserts is revealed.
These fennec foxes have been holed up for the day,
Waiting for darkness.
Just to catch a glimpse of them is extremely rare.
Let alone to see two pups.
They've emerged into a world bustling with creatures,
Adapted to a nocturnal life in our planet's largest dessert.
Dense fur insulates the fennecs against the cold.
A reflective retina enhances night vision.
And, enormous ears pinpoint the slightest sound.
(owl hoots).
The fact that such a diversity of animals can thrive here in
A landscape that at first seems uninhabitable,
Is remarkable.
Yet, for all nocturnal desert animals,
Life is a race against time.
Soon enough, the sun will rise again.
With each new day, life here gets more challenging.
As global temperatures rise ever higher,
Our deserts are expanding by almost
50,000 square miles every year.
So, perhaps the ingenious and battle hardened creatures of
The desert might just inherit the earth.
In australia, desert life shows its remarkable ability
To bounce back.
Creatures like the red kangaroo have evolved over
Countless generations to cope with the power of the sun.
They thrive in a landscape with barely any food or water.
And are able to raise a new generation in conditions
That would kill us.
We don't know exactly what our warming world will bring.
But, whatever happens, you can bet that desert animals will
Never give up without a fight.
Captioned by cotter captioning services.