Nature (1982–…): Season 35, Episode 5 - The Story of Cats: Into the Americas - full transcript

♪♪

They are the greatest
predators since the dinosaurs,

the most widespread
carnivore on the planet

and one may be
living in your home.

Cats are a diverse and
formidable family of predators.

But what makes a cat a cat?

New research allows us

to piece together their
story like never before.

Across the planet,

37 different species live
in nearly every landscape.

Our last remaining large
carnivore in the mountains,



surviving next to one of
the largest urban areas

in the world.

Even at 20,000
feet above sea level,

scientists made a
remarkable discovery.

When I saw the photo,
I completely surprised.

I did not sleep all night.

This is "The Story Of Cats,"

an 11-million-year

evolutionary journey
from ancient rainforests

and the African savannah
and into our homes.

♪♪

♪♪

Last time, on "The
Story Of Cats,"

we discovered how
the first felines evolved



in the tropical forests
of Southeast Asia

nearly 11 million years ago.

Agile predators with lethal
weapons and honed senses,

they established
the feline blueprint.

Cats spread across
Asia and into Africa.

But then, a new world
opened up to them...

the Americas.

Today, there are 13 different
species of American cats,

from the mighty jaguar

to the nimble margay.

After their global
conquest came the rise

of the most
successful cat of all...

our humble housecat.

♪♪

But the American chapter
begins 9 million years ago.

An ice age gripped the planet

and sea levels across the
world dropped by nearly 200 feet.

For the first time, a
land bridge opened up

between Asia and the
Americas, across the Bering Strait.

For the cat family,

this was their stepping
stone into the New World.

Today, one of the descendants

of those pioneering
American cats still exists.

The Canada lynx.

♪♪

They're about twice the
size of a domestic cat,

with really thick fur and
long, muscular back legs.

The tufts on their ears
channel sound into the eardrum

and give them
supersensitive hearing.

And a bobtail is less prone
to frostbite than a longer tail.

♪♪

Biologist John Squires

has been studying
Canada lynx for 15 years,

tracking them high in the
mountains of Colorado.

The elevation is about
8,000 to 10,000, 12,000 feet.

Cold temperatures, 20,
30 below zero, at times.

Lynx are highly adapted

to living in very
cold environments.

They're thermally neutral,

meaning it's almost like
room temperature to a lynx

when it's many, many
degrees below zero.

That way, they can
live energetically

in a very cold area
and still be comfortable.

♪♪

The latest
thermal-imaging camera

glows white where
heat is escaping.

The lynx's fur is so dense,

he only loses heat
around his eyes and ears.

And a thick scarf of
hair around his neck,

seen in black, keeps
his head extra warm.

But what pushed the
Canada lynx to such extremes?

Cats weren't the only predators
in North America at that time.

As cats were evolving in Asia,

early canids, ancestors
of wolves and foxes,

were rising and spreading
across the Americas.

Cats were invading their lands,

competing for
food and territory.

It was the start of a
battle for supremacy

for two very different
groups of predators.

Who would win out,

the pack hunter that
chases down prey

or the solitary ambush killer?

The Canada lynx came up

with a clever strategy
to avoid competition.

They took refuge
high in the mountains,

where deep snow meant
wolves struggled to hunt.

John Squires knows
there's probably lynx around

if he spots tracks
of their primary prey.

These are snowshoe-hare tracks

and they have many of the
same adaptations the lynx do,

in that they have
very large paws

that allows them to float
across the snow surface,

just like they have
snowshoes, just like I'm wearing.

And lynx have the
same adaptations:

big, round feet
for their weight.

They also have very
long legs, light bones.

They almost can fly
across the snow surface

as they hunt snowshoe hares.

So, really, lynx
and snowshoe hares

are one of the few animals
that really adapted to live

in this deep-snow,
high-elevation environment.

Snowshoe hares make up

more than 75%
of the lynx's diet.

Using their giant
feet, hares can bound

nearly 30 miles an hour
over the surface of the snow.

Lynx ambush their prey.

They bound across the snow,
just like the hares they chase.

♪♪

By adapting the feline blueprint

and becoming
specialized hunters,

Canada lynx were
able to colonize areas

their canine rivals
couldn't reach.

But, 7 million years ago,

a new group of felines
evolved in North America.

Descendants of the leopard

that crossed from
Asia to America,

they, too, pushed their
bodies to extremes.

It's thought one cat
in this new family

drove this antelope to do this.

The American pronghorn

is the second-fastest
land mammal on the planet,

reaching speeds
of 50 miles an hour.

But its pace long
baffled scientists.

The pronghorn's main
predators, like coyotes,

can't run at anything
like this speed.

So, why has the pronghorn
evolved to reach such velocity?

♪♪

Fossils from a
cave in West Virginia

show a cheetah-like cat

that existed around
3 million years ago.

Long legs; and large nostrils,
for better oxygen intake;

indicate they sprinted
after their prey

like modern-day
African cheetahs.

It's speculated
that an arms race

between these early
cats and the pronghorn

may be the reason for the
antelope's remarkable speed.

But, having evolved in America,

how did cheetahs
end up in Africa?

Over eons, ice ages
would come and go...

and sea levels
would fall and rise.

It meant the Bering Land
Bridge between Asia and America

would open up and close again,

allowing animals to disperse
and then become isolated.

Cheetahs took advantage of
one of these ice-age crossings

to work their way into
Asia and down into Africa.

Today, they're one of
Africa's most iconic cats...

and the fastest
mammal on the planet.

The lynx and American
cheetah were specialists,

finely tuned to
living and hunting

in one particular landscape.

But the cheetah's
closest cousin,

the mountain lion, or puma,

came up with a very
different strategy for survival.

It became the
Jack-of-all-trades,

a generalist capable of
living in almost any habitat.

But what was the
secret to their success?

Surprisingly, biologists
studying mountain lions

in the most modern
landscape of all,

around Los Angeles, are
gaining a unique insight.

♪♪

Biologist Jeff
Sikich has the job

of tracking these top predators
on the outskirts of the city.

I'm really fascinated
with the urban landscape

and how we still have
this large carnivore.

It's actually our last
remaining large carnivore

in the mountains here,
surviving next to one

of the largest urban areas
in the world: Los Angeles.

As part of his
research, Jeff tracks

10 different mountain lions in
the Santa Monica mountains.

From the GPS
tracks, Jeff can tell

that one collared
female, called P-39,

has remained in the
same area for some time.

So we're looking at a
cluster of GPS points for P-39

and there's a cluster of points

from a little over
a day and a half

and it looks like
she has a kill.

So we're gonna hike
into this area to this cluster

and see what she killed,
and is, hopefully, feeding on.

Unlike the highly
specialized lynx,

mountain lions aren't
fussy about what they eat.

They'll take anything, from
small mammals to adult deer.

But they share the same
winning hunting strategy.

Mountain lions are
ambush predators,

so they'll actually
stalk their prey

and get pretty close,
sometimes within, ideally,

10 to 15 meters, where
they have a burst of speed.

Mountain lions
are more sprinters

than endurance runners.

And they'll pounce on the
prey, usually from behind.

This hunting strategy

gave American cats the edge
over predators, like early wolves,

that would chase their
prey over long distances.

It was an energy-efficient
means of making a kill.

And cats became masters at it.

The GPS tracks
lead Jeff to a steep,

mountainous area
with plenty of scrub.

This is perfect puma country,

with plenty of places to
hide and pounce on prey.

And there's evidence
P-39 is still in the vicinity.

This is real fresh
urine right here.

We have a track of her.

It has some hair,
a very strong odor.

I smell the kill, too,
so we're real close.

For Jeff, this is a giant
game of hide-and-seek.

So yeah, it looks like P-39
killed an adult doe mule deer.

She killed this deer
around 80 meters from here,

drug it down to this spot...

covered up the kill,
keeping the scent down,

hopefully keeps scavengers away.

This is a classic
mountain-lion kill site right here

that we find in the LA area.

Mountain lions hide their kills

and return to them
for several days.

But will our elusive
mountain lion return

to her hard-won kill?

Jeff sets up a
surveillance camera

and leaves it running overnight.

The following day,
Jeff reviews the footage.

All right, so we have
P-39 right here...

coming back to the
kill right at 7:00 pm.

The carcass will last our
mountain lion several days.

Yeah, so this is great.

You can see her really
tearing at the meat right there,

ripping the flesh off the bone.

Her teeth are great for
shredding away the flesh.

Unlike pack animals,

like wolves, that
must share their spoils,

solitary cats get to consume
everything they catch.

Jeff's research shows that, even
on the outskirts of Los Angeles,

mountain lions tend
to stick to the brush

and hunt large prey, like deer.

This was key to their success.

It's believed their
early ancestors

would follow migrating
herds over great distances.

3 million years ago,
as they spread south,

mountain lions and
the other American cats

reached an
impenetrable barrier...

the ocean.

For millions of years,
North and South America

had been cut off
from each other.

These were turbulent ages.

♪♪

Shifting land masses brought
the two continents together,

via the Isthmus of Panama.

Cats walked into South
America for the first time.

Much of the southern continent
was covered in dense rainforest,

teeming with marsupials,
distant relatives of the opossum.

Cats were now skillful
ambush predators

and they set to work
on South America's

somewhat naive prey.

Many marsupials
lived high in the trees,

beyond the reach
of most predators.

For a cat that could climb,
there was a great prize.

One cat conquered the
canopy like no other...

the margay.

The earliest cats,
clouded leopards,

evolved in the rainforests
of Southeast Asia.

Now, in a completely
different part of the world,

margays regained the
tools they needed to climb.

Like feline tightrope
walkers, they use their long,

maneuverable tails
as a counterbalance.

They independently evolved
flexible joints in their ankles

so they, too, could come
down trees headfirst.

♪♪

And, like clouded leopards,
margays were nocturnal hunters,

catching birds and small
mammals in the dark.

♪♪

The reflected layer at
the back of their retinas

bounces light
back like a mirror,

so the light-sensitive cells

have a second
chance to absorb it.

It's what gives margays
and our pet cats

that unmistakable eye
shine and means they can see

6 times better than
we can in low light.

♪♪

But when it comes
to catching prey,

margays don't
just use their eyes.

They use their
extra-long whiskers.

It's a trick they share
with our pet cats.

♪♪

Cats have excellent
long-distance vision.

But anything less than 1
foot away appears blurred.

So, when it comes to
delivering the deadly bite,

they're not using their
eyes, but their whiskers.

♪♪

Muscles at the base of the
whiskers can move them forward

to surround their
prey in an instant.

Each of the whiskers works
out the orientation of the prey,

so the cats know where
to deliver the deadly bite.

It's how domestic
cats and margays

catch prey in total darkness.

There were other challenges

for the pioneering
South American cats.

The climate was warmer
and wetter than it is today.

For solitary cats that
communicate with each other

by leaving scent marks,
this was a problem.

Their scent was
constantly washed away.

But the margay's
closest relative

came up with an ingenious plan.

The ocelot became one of
the smelliest cats in the world.

To mark territory and
advertise for a mate,

ocelots produce a pungent odor.

It's so powerful, it
can still be sniffed out

after a torrential downpour.

It contains pheromones,

chemicals packed with
sensory information,

such as whether a
female is in estrus.

Sniffing out these pheromones
is how these solitary cats

find a mate in the
vastness of the rainforest.

And this will be crucial
for one young ocelot

at a rescue center in Costa Rica

when he's released
back into the wild.

Namu!

Dexter Lewis Miller

- Namu!
- Has been looking after Namu,

a 1-year-old male ocelot,
since he was a kitten.

And this is Namu.

Namu.

¿Tienes hambre, ah?

♪♪

Dexter is preparing
the young ocelot

for life in the wild.

Namu is learning fast.

He's becoming an
accomplished hunter.

But Dexter wants to test
whether Namu will be able

to sniff out a mate
in the rainforest.

So he's setting up a
bizarre experiment...

to test the young
ocelot's sense of smell.

Today, we're gonna be testing,

Estée Lauder,

Calvin Klein, and Chanel.

No one's quite sure

why an ocelot would react
to certain brands of perfume.

It's the mysterious
power of chemistry.

Namu!

But which one will Namu go for?

He's not keen on the first one.

But this one has
certainly taken his fancy.

The log had the
perfume of Estée Lauder.

He like it very much.

So much so, he doesn't
even get to the Chanel.

But, for Dexter, the
most important thing

is how Namu detects the perfume.

He doesn't just smell it
through his nose, as we do.

Namu uses his
tongue to flick particles

to a special scent
detector inside his mouth.

Our pet cats have this, too.

If a tomcat comes across
the scent of a female,

he'll open his mouth
and taste the air.

It's how cats
communicate through scent.

When Namu is
released into the jungle,

this super sense should help
sniff out the perfect partner.

Namu will use this
technique to try to find a love.

Namu!

Namu!

The ancestors of
ocelots and margays

were some of the earliest

and most successful
South American felines.

But cats weren't
the only predators

to have come down the
newly formed isthmus

from North to South America.

♪♪

Just as in cats,

the dog's sense of smell
was crucial to their success.

They evolved long, pointed noses

that maximize their
sensitivity to scent.

It gave dogs a better
sense of smell than cats,

but there was a compromise.

The longer muzzle meant canines

didn't have the bite
strength of felines.

That gave cats
the edge as killers.

One South American cat
pushed its bite strength to the limit.

The jaguar.

Size-for-size, it has the
most powerful bite of any cat.

A short snout and a
unique arrangement

of muscles in its jaw give
it phenomenal strength.

It can crunch down on prey

with a massive 700
pounds of pressure.

But why does it need
such awesome bite power?

When the jaguar's
ancestors first arrived here,

around 2 million years ago,

vast swaths of the Amazon
basin were covered in swamp.

There were rewards
for a cat that could swim.

♪♪

Jaguars have been known
to paddle hundreds of yards,

crossing open water
to get to tropical islands.

In captivity, they can dive
for more than 30 seconds,

even consuming food
while they're underwater.

With their aquatic
skills and powerful bite,

jaguars were able
to take on prey

their canine rivals
couldn't tackle.

The caiman, an
ancient crocodilian

that grows to more
than 12 feet long.

Their thick skin is protected
by an armor of bony plates.

For millions of years, caiman
had been the apex predator.

♪♪

Then, the hunter
became the hunted.

This extraordinary
act of predation

was filmed by a tourist
in Brazil's Pantanal.

It has become an
Internet sensation.

It shows what skillful
and audacious predators

cats can be.

As they spread
across the Americas,

it was their hunting prowess

that gave them the edge
over their canine rivals.

A recent study
of fossil evidence

shows cats played
a significant role

in the extinction
of 40 dog species.

From an evolutionary
perspective, at least,

cats are better than dogs.

For the next 2 million
years, cats thrived.

Some grew to colossal sizes.

Saber-toothed cats
weighing up to 900 pounds

were specialized
hunters of large prey,

like bison and mammoths.

The mighty American lion,

25 percent bigger than
today's African lions,

was one of the biggest
cats ever to have lived.

♪♪

Cats out-muscled
the competition.

But, 12,000 years
ago, disaster struck.

At the end of the last ice age,

three quarters of
the large mammals

in North and South
America were wiped out.

Exactly what
caused this cataclysm

remains a mystery to this day,

but it's believed a
combination of climate change

and hunting pressure
from early humans

drove many big
herbivores to extinction.

With nothing to feed on,
predators soon followed.

Cats were hit hard.

Some were lucky.

The mountain lion
was almost annihilated,

but a few individuals found
refuge in South America

and later recolonized the north.

And the cheetah
only avoided extinction

because it had escaped to
Africa millions of years earlier.

♪♪

Several large felines,
including the mighty

saber-toothed cats
and the American lion,

were lost from the
landscape forever.

But cats were on
the move once more...

making a U-turn
out of the Americas,

crossing the land
bridge back into Asia.

With large prey now scarce,

there were big
advantages in being small.

Small cats were inconspicuous
and a vast array of smaller prey

meant they could
vary their diet.

Today, one of the
tiniest cats of all

is found in the
forests of Sri Lanka...

the rusty-spotted cat.

It can weigh as
little as 2 pounds.

That's less than a third of the
weight of the average pet cat.

Biologist Chandika Jayaratne

is one of the only people
in the world studying them.

Being small, fast,
and well-camouflaged

means they're
incredibly hard to spot.

Don't be fooled by
their delicate frame.

Size-for-size,

rusty-spotted cats
are said to have

a stronger bite
than a snow leopard.

But it's what they eat
that surprised Chandika.

Rusty-spotted cats

are one of the few species
of insect-eating cats.

It's something pet cats
do occasionally, too.

In the jungles of Sri Lanka,

it's given this tiny
terror the edge.

By 10,000 years ago,

the cat's global conquest
was almost complete.

They were found in
almost every habitat

across Asia, Africa, and
North and South America.

♪♪

But then, something happened

that would change
the story of cats forever.

In an area of the Middle East
known as the Fertile Crescent,

humans started
growing and storing grain

for the first time.

And that attracted hoards of
hungry mice into our villages.

They had a huge
appetite for the grain,

and that made them
public enemy number one.

But one bold cat
came to our rescue:

the wildcat.

It stands about knee height
and has distinct mackerel stripes

still seen in many
domestic cats.

♪♪

Different species
of wildcat are found

from Southern Africa

to Scotland.

All are nimble,
nocturnal predators.

This footage, filmed with the
latest thermal-imaging camera,

shows a wildcat in the
Highlands of Scotland.

Like their ancestors,
they catch mice and rats,

but, tonight, this
wildcat is on the hunt

for rabbits.

Stalking its prey,

it uses the same ambushing
style as its big-cat cousins.

Tonight, the rabbit outruns him.

It was their hunting prowess

that first brought cats
and humans together.

As our grain stores
started to provide

a plague of mice to hunt,

a few brave wildcats came
closer and closer to our villages.

It was the tamest cats
that caught the most mice

and, over time, these wildcats
became milder and milder.

♪♪

It wasn't until 4,000 years
ago and the Ancient Egyptians

that we have the first evidence

of cats actually
living in our homes.

Hieroglyphs show cats

with the mackerel stripes
of their wildcat cousins

hunting birds and
vermin amongst the crops.

The Egyptians worshipped cats,

and even sacrificed
them as gifts for the gods.

Ancient Egypt was the launchpad

for domestic cats'
global conquest.

Brought onto trading
ships as mousers,

they started to
spread across Europe.

Domestic cats first
arrived in America

with European settlers
a few hundred years ago.

Now, there are only a
few islands, and Antarctica,

that are not home
to domestic cats.

As domestic cats
spread across the world,

they started to naturally change
and lose their stripey coats.

It was in Southeast
Asia, 600 years ago,

that a genetic mutation created
the first distinct feline breed.

The Siamese cat.

♪♪

They have pale bodies
and darker extremities.

Only the fur on the cooler
parts of the cat's body

produces any color pigment.

It means their warm
bodies are white,

but the cooler extremities,
like the ears, are black.

The same mutation made
their eyes an azure blue.

The naturally
occurring Siamese cat

began our passion for
ever-more exotic-looking felines.

200 years ago, -

we started breeding cats
for the features we liked.

♪♪

On today's catwalk,

there are more than 40
fantastic-looking felines.

Bengal cats are prized
for their exotic coats.

They were originally
hybrids of the domestic cat

and the wild Asian leopard cat.

The Selkirk Rex looks
like he's had a perm.

A genetic mutation
caused those curly locks.

♪♪

And, perhaps the
oddest of all breeds,

the Sphynx, was selectively
bred for its baldness.

In some cats, even
the whiskers are lost.

It was in our homes
that cats crossed paths

with their age-old
rivals once more.

Dogs.

Now, they weren't
just competing for food,

but for our attention.

Dogs have been domesticated

3 times longer -

and we've bred them to help
us with really specific tasks.

But the cat's independent nature

and their ability to
look after themselves

made them
low-maintenance house pets.

Today, there are 3 times
more domestic cats than dogs,

some 600 million worldwide.

In the battle for numbers,
cats win out, once more.

But there's a twist
in the cat's tale.

Because they've only
been living alongside us

for a relatively
short period of time,

they're still very
much wild at heart.

There's one natural trait

they're finding
hard to shake off:

their killer instinct.

In the United States, it's
estimated that domestic cats

kill more than 20
billion mammals a year.

Most hunters are free-ranging
cats, not owned pets.

Dr. John Bradshaw
is a world expert

on cat domestication.

I think the cat is almost
something of a paradox.

It's an animal which
we domesticated

for a very specific reason,
which was to hunt for us, and,

because of that, we
retained its intrinsic wildness

all the way through
domestication,

in a way that we haven't done
with any other domestic animal.

But, now,

John believes our demands
on the cat are changing.

Suddenly, in the
last 20 or 30 years,

we've decided that
we don't want our cats

to go hunting all the time.

I suspect that is grudgingly
going to be bred out of them

over the next few
decades or centuries.

The cat will be able to
change into an animal

which is much more suited
to urban living, particularly.

This is the latest
chapter in the story

of one of nature's most
successful predators.

By tweaking their
blueprint, cats have adapted

to each new situation
they've encountered.

Now, to conquer our
homes and our hearts,

domestic cats are making
the biggest change of all...

from fierce

to friend.

♪♪

To learn more about what you've
seen on this "Nature" program,

♪♪

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