Nature's Strangest Mysteries: Solved (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Held Hostage by a Humpback - full transcript
A humpback whale holds a diver hostage. A stash of acorns disrupts a town.
Narrator: Ever wondered how
1.5 million animals
Can hide from the world,
undiscovered?
This is
absolutely incredible footage.
Narrator: Why an ocean giant
would hold a diver hostage?
And he was not going to
let me get away.
Narrator:
And what mystery critter
Would hoard acorns
in the weirdest of places?
50 gallons of acorns
came pouring out
In a great nutty avalanche.
♪
Narrator:
Nature is awe-inspiring.
But sometimes,
it just doesn't make sense.
Man: I have never, ever seen
anything like this!
Narrator:
Strange animal behavior,
Unexpected events
captured on camera.
[ Both screeching ]
The truth behind them
is astonishing.
Man: My god!
Narrator: Nature's
greatest mysteries solved.
The cook islands
in the south pacific ocean.
A hot spot for migrating
humpback whales,
And a study site for
whale biologist nan hauser.
♪
In September 2017, nan heads out
On what should've been
a routine research trip.
Yet almost three decades
of working with whales
Could not have prepared her
for what was about to happen.
It was a beautiful day.
I was hoping that I could catch
Some underwater behavior
of these whales.
♪
I never approach the whale
or get too close to it.
[ Whale sings ]
Narrator: Nan uses a camera
to film the whale's behavior
To analyze later.
She is already recording when
events take a dramatic turn.
One of the whales looked up
and saw me...
...And he came right for me.
♪
He didn't stop.
♪
I didn't want to get rammed
by a whale, so I put my arm out.
I knew I couldn't push
A 50,000-pound whale
out of the way.
If they hit you with their fin,
They'll break your bones
and rupture your organs.
I kept trying to get away,
And he was not going to
let me get away.
Narrator:
Her diving partner also catches
The whale's strange behavior
on camera.
Nan has only a snorkel
to breathe through.
No air tanks.
Hauser:
He kept trying to hold me
And hide me
under his pectoral fin.
And I was frightened,
very, very, very scared.
Narrator: The whale's behavior
becomes even more bizarre.
Hauser: He even lifted me up,
out of the water,
And I was screaming
to everyone on the boat,
"somebody, come save me!"
[ laughs ]
Narrator: By now,
nan has been struggling
With the whale
for 10 long minutes.
Humpbacks reach up to
52 feet long.
Any wild animal this size
is dangerous.
It could easily kill a human.
I think I was in such shock
That I didn't even
put it together right away.
He was pushing me towards
the boat the whole time.
I was completely baffled
by this behavior.
Narrator: The whale allows nan
to get back on the boat.
And she is elated to have
survived the alarming encounter.
I love you, too!
♪
Narrator: But why did
a 50,000-pound whale
Lift nan out of the water
and push her towards the boat?
Clues may be found in the way
That humpbacks behave
with other species.
[ Ice cracking ]
In 2009, in antarctica,
Marine scientists were filming
killer whale behavior
When humpbacks suddenly
got involved.
Pitman: Killer whales were
attacking seals on ice floes.
They are the largest
apex predator we have
On the planet today.
They hunt cooperatively, much
more so than other predators.
They group together
and create a wave
That'll wash the seals
off the ice floe.
♪
Humpback whales would come in
And start swimming around
and seem to be agitated.
Weren't sure what was
going on there.
Narrator:
It seems that the humpbacks
Were deliberately
going out of their way
To help the seal escape from
the killer whales.
One of 'em rolled over
And lifted the seal
up out of the water.
And you could see
the humpback lift up
This one-ton flipper
and nudge this seal
To the top of its chest.
Narrator: You can just
see the seal center of frame,
Nestled in the safety
of the humpback's chest.
And at that moment,
we understood
That those humpbacks
were there to break up
This predation event
and to protect the seal.
In their minds,
they wanna stop this attack.
Narrator: But what can this
tell us about nan's encounter?
Could the humpback have also
been trying to help her?
It's not without precedent
That humpbacks have intervened
To protect other species
from potential threats.
Humpback whales
have been seen to come in
And interfere with killer whales
attacking seals,
Sea lions, whale calves,
And maybe, in the case of nan,
a human being.
Narrator: Nan was in
the whale's environment.
She could easily have been hurt
because of its sheer size.
But the whale was careful to
help her, not hurt her.
What we're seeing with this
diver and the humpback whale
Could very well be
some form of altruism.
Pitman: Altruism is sort of
loosely defined as a behavior
Where the individual that's
providing the behavior
Gets less out of it than
the recipient.
Nosal: It may just be
instinctual in the sense that
The humpback would normally
do this behavior
To protect its own offspring.
But even in the absence of
one of its own calves,
It still feels that
overarching urge to protect.
Narrator: If this behavior
is, in fact, altruism,
A form of protection,
What was the humpback trying
to protect nan from?
♪
There were no killer whales
in the area.
But towards the end
of the encounter,
Nan spots something even more
terrifying swimming close by.
The tail wasn't going like this.
It was going like this.
Oh, my gosh. That's a shark.
There's a huge tiger shark
right there.
Narrator: Tiger sharks
are second only to great whites
In the number of
recorded attacks on humans.
Did the whale spot
the tiger shark
Before nan did and protect her?
♪
Was the humpback really
trying to protect the diver
From a tiger shark?
It's certainly possible.
After the encounter,
the whale took off,
And so I just figured
I'd never see him again.
But a year later,
the whale came back,
And I screamed.
[ laughing ]
I saw the tail fluke,
and it looked just like
The whale that I knew from
this encounter.
Narrator: Each humpback whale's
tail fluke pattern
Is unique, like a fingerprint.
He came right to
the side of the boat
And looked and me,
and I looked at him,
And I just couldn't believe
it was him.
[ Whale sings ]
He nuzzled me,
and I rubbed his face,
And we had a really nice
little reunion.
Narrator: We may never know for
sure what was really going on,
But it seems that this was
yet another incredible example
Of a humpback whale saving
the life of another species.
♪
January 2009.
Bear creek, california.
Residents complain that their
tv signal has stopped working.
[ Static crackles ]
An engineer arrives to try
and fix the microwave antenna.
When he opens it up to
investigate...
♪
50 gallons of acorns...
500 pounds of acorns...
Came pouring out
in a great nutty avalanche.
Narrator: Hardly surprising that
it wasn't working.
It's like a tsunami of nuts
coming out of this antenna.
♪
And so the question is,
who or what would ever do this?
♪
♪
Narrator: In california,
a faulty television antenna
Is found filled to the brim
with acorns.
But whodunit?
♪
There's a prime suspect
in the frame.
Squirrels. Obviously, squirrels.
♪
High level nut smugglers,
the gray squirrel can stash away
Over 10,000 acorns in
a single season.
Narrator: But did they store
these acorns in the antenna?
Who better to help us
figure it out
Than a scientist
who spends her days
With these fluffy nut thieves?
I study the types of
decision making processes
That animals make
in order to survive.
Narrator: Stashing nuts is
Part of a squirrel's
winter survival strategy.
And they're very picky about
which nuts make the grade.
They'll check them over
for cracks or holes,
Weigh them to make sure
there's something inside.
And if it all checks out,
they're gonna take it
To a location that they think
is a little bit secretive.
And then what they're gonna do
is they're gonna dig a hole
About an inch deep,
and then they're gonna push
The food item into
the side wall of that hole.
And they they'll grab leaves
and other dirt
To camouflage
to bury it for the future.
Narrator: Squirrels are great
at hide and seek,
But did they fill the antenna?
We know grey squirrels
are more than capable
Of achieving that volume
of acorns over time,
But there's one big problem.
Most of them
scatter their acorns
In many different hiding places.
They don't cache them into
one single location.
Narrator: They use their memory
and sense of smell
To find them again, although
some are too well hidden
And never get found.
Scattering grey squirrels
are not our culprits.
But another squirrel species
could still be a suspect...
The red squirrel.
Greive: They do store their food
in a single place,
In a midden, sometimes
of enormous size,
Up to 20 feet long
and 5 feet high.
Narrator: The world over,
all red squirrels
Are location hoarders.
It brings all the food it's
found and places it in one spot.
This mountain is food,
not only for them,
But generations after them.
So they could be feeding
their great-great-great grandkid
Off this giant mountain
that they've built.
Narrator: What's more,
red squirrels have a reputation
For stashing their food
in weird places.
There is a story
in north michigan
Of a guy who was
driving down the road,
And his car was making all
these sort of bizarre noises.
So he pulls over
and lifts up the hood,
And in the engine,
he finds 50 pounds of food.
So what could've put that there?
The red squirrel.
Narrator: It's looking like
the red squirrel
Is a likely candidate
to have filled the antenna.
But...
American red squirrels have
a very simple diet.
They're just
not that into acorns.
They don't eat acorns.
Almost always,
they eat pine cones.
Narrator:
Squirrels are off the hook.
So who else could it be?
It's time
to widen the investigation.
Man: When I pulled
the insulation off,
The walls are just filled
with holes.
Narrator: Weird acorn stashes
have appeared before.
In california, another hoarder
has borrowed a pool house
To use as a food store.
Man:
That's a lot of acorns.
Narrator:
Could this stash help identify
Our antenna-hoarding culprit?
♪
♪
Narrator: In california,
a faulty tv antenna
Is filled to the brim
with acorns.
The usual suspects are
in the clear
When another crime scene
provides a vital clue.
The wall is
just all these holes in it.
It looks like there's been
a mafia hit.
Narrator: Could this evidence
match our original case?
If you look at the cover
of the antenna,
It's covered in
all these tiny little holes.
Man: That's real, folks.
Greive: The numerous holes
lead us to one key suspect...
The woodpecker.
Narrator: Woodpeckers...
The most determined birds
of the natural world.
♪
Professor walt koenig
has a good idea
Which woodpecker
could be responsible.
He's studied these birds
for over 40 years.
A lot of woodpeckers
are mainly insectivorous,
Or almost exclusively
insectivorous,
And they often will go
deep into the wood,
Looking for grubs
and larval insects.
But then when it's cold
and wet and rainy,
They'll go for other things.
Narrator:
Other things like acorns.
There's only one that we know of
That stores
a large number of nuts...
The acorn woodpecker.
Narrator: The aptly named
acorn woodpecker.
Go figure.
Acorn woodpeckers
can just go to the granary,
Pick out an acorn, chop it up,
And feed little bits of it
to their young.
So, they can do pretty well
Even when conditions are
fairly marginal.
Here we have
an acorn woodpecker granary
In a beautiful valley oak,
Somewhere around 500 years old.
Narrator:
A granary is a store cupboard
That will last the whole winter.
All these holes are drilled
by acorn woodpeckers,
And each one of them
could be filled
By an acorn during the fall,
When they're harvesting
the acorns and storing them.
It's extraordinary when
you see a tree
That has been used as a granary
by these woodpeckers
Because they're just
full of holes.
In fact, the biggest one
ever found
Had over 50,000 holes in it.
Narrator: They reuse these
granaries season after season.
Acorn woodpeckers,
they work collectively
In families of up to 15 birds.
Narrator:
But the acorns in the antenna
Would've been impossible for
the woodpeckers to retrieve,
As they were trapped behind
a metal casing.
So why did the woodpeckers go
so nuts pushing them in there?
Acorn woodpeckers are
not real good
At sort of figuring out
where acorns go
If they go into a hole
and disappear.
So I think you have young birds
That put these acorns
in these holes.
And if they disappear,
they don't really care.
They just go get another acorn
and keep putting 'em in there.
Narrator:
There you have it.
Hoarding woodpeckers are
The acorn-obsessed
trouble makers.
♪
March 2014.
A nasa satellite orbiting earth
picks up strange patterns
Off the coast of antarctica.
Computer algorithms
alert scientists,
Who deploy a drone
to investigate.
They discover black dots,
Stretching as far
as the eye can see.
The dots turn out to be...
Penguins.
In one of the most remarkable
natural history discoveries
In recent years,
1 1/2 million adélie penguins
Suddenly appeared on
danger island,
Off the east coast
of the antarctic peninsula.
Narrator:
The big question is,
How come we didn't know
they were there?
♪
♪
Narrator: On the danger islands
in antarctica,
Satellite images
and drone investigation
Revealed a colony
of 1.5 million adélie penguins,
Hiding in plain sight.
Until 2014, we had no idea
they existed here.
In the western antarctic
peninsula,
Adélie numbers are plummeting
due to climate change.
But now it turns out
that the tiny danger islands,
Just beyond its tip, are home
to more adélie penguins
Than the rest of
the peninsula combined.
The question is,
how did we miss them?
Burke: Did the colony spring up
in record time?
Could this be a new colony
of adélie penguins
That has enjoyed
an explosive birth rate?
Narrator: Probably not.
Penguins are
relatively slow breeders.
[ Both calling ]
A female will lay
one to two eggs a year,
And those eggs are incubated
over 30 to 40 days.
So these aren't exactly
baby boomers in bird terms.
[ Calling ]
Adélies generally only have
one chick a year,
And one-quarter of those chicks
don't make it to adulthood.
Therefore, it would take
many centuries
To reach a colony size of
1.5 million penguins.
Narrator: It seems they didn't
populate over night.
Have they recently moved here?
Could these adélie penguins
have migrated from elsewhere?
I mean, it's certainly possible.
Penguins have been
known to cover
Some really vast distances.
Narrator:
At only 27 inches tall,
Adélies are one of the smallest
penguins in antarctica,
But they're tougher than
they look.
Every year, they travel up to
11,000 miles
In search of food.
They're not exactly elegant
on land.
But in the water,
they transform.
Burke: In theory, the adélies
could have migrated there,
But there's a vital clue
right underneath
The scientists' feet.
So scientists radio carbon dated
The remains
of eggshells and bones
That they found on the island,
and what they discovered is that
This adélie penguin colony
had been there
For over 2,5000 years.
They were always there.
Burke: With new technology,
With satellite imagery,
and also drone technology,
It meant that we can explore
these really remote islands
To discover that the penguins
were there all along.
We still wouldn't have
found them
If not for nasa satellites
Spotting their guano
from outer space.
Narrator: "guano" is the fancy
scientific word
For bird droppings,
The strange marks on
the landscape were penguin poop,
Which gave away
the adélies' hiding place.
Modern technology
is revealing just how much
There is left to discover
about our planet.
Captions paid for by
discovery communications
♪
1.5 million animals
Can hide from the world,
undiscovered?
This is
absolutely incredible footage.
Narrator: Why an ocean giant
would hold a diver hostage?
And he was not going to
let me get away.
Narrator:
And what mystery critter
Would hoard acorns
in the weirdest of places?
50 gallons of acorns
came pouring out
In a great nutty avalanche.
♪
Narrator:
Nature is awe-inspiring.
But sometimes,
it just doesn't make sense.
Man: I have never, ever seen
anything like this!
Narrator:
Strange animal behavior,
Unexpected events
captured on camera.
[ Both screeching ]
The truth behind them
is astonishing.
Man: My god!
Narrator: Nature's
greatest mysteries solved.
The cook islands
in the south pacific ocean.
A hot spot for migrating
humpback whales,
And a study site for
whale biologist nan hauser.
♪
In September 2017, nan heads out
On what should've been
a routine research trip.
Yet almost three decades
of working with whales
Could not have prepared her
for what was about to happen.
It was a beautiful day.
I was hoping that I could catch
Some underwater behavior
of these whales.
♪
I never approach the whale
or get too close to it.
[ Whale sings ]
Narrator: Nan uses a camera
to film the whale's behavior
To analyze later.
She is already recording when
events take a dramatic turn.
One of the whales looked up
and saw me...
...And he came right for me.
♪
He didn't stop.
♪
I didn't want to get rammed
by a whale, so I put my arm out.
I knew I couldn't push
A 50,000-pound whale
out of the way.
If they hit you with their fin,
They'll break your bones
and rupture your organs.
I kept trying to get away,
And he was not going to
let me get away.
Narrator:
Her diving partner also catches
The whale's strange behavior
on camera.
Nan has only a snorkel
to breathe through.
No air tanks.
Hauser:
He kept trying to hold me
And hide me
under his pectoral fin.
And I was frightened,
very, very, very scared.
Narrator: The whale's behavior
becomes even more bizarre.
Hauser: He even lifted me up,
out of the water,
And I was screaming
to everyone on the boat,
"somebody, come save me!"
[ laughs ]
Narrator: By now,
nan has been struggling
With the whale
for 10 long minutes.
Humpbacks reach up to
52 feet long.
Any wild animal this size
is dangerous.
It could easily kill a human.
I think I was in such shock
That I didn't even
put it together right away.
He was pushing me towards
the boat the whole time.
I was completely baffled
by this behavior.
Narrator: The whale allows nan
to get back on the boat.
And she is elated to have
survived the alarming encounter.
I love you, too!
♪
Narrator: But why did
a 50,000-pound whale
Lift nan out of the water
and push her towards the boat?
Clues may be found in the way
That humpbacks behave
with other species.
[ Ice cracking ]
In 2009, in antarctica,
Marine scientists were filming
killer whale behavior
When humpbacks suddenly
got involved.
Pitman: Killer whales were
attacking seals on ice floes.
They are the largest
apex predator we have
On the planet today.
They hunt cooperatively, much
more so than other predators.
They group together
and create a wave
That'll wash the seals
off the ice floe.
♪
Humpback whales would come in
And start swimming around
and seem to be agitated.
Weren't sure what was
going on there.
Narrator:
It seems that the humpbacks
Were deliberately
going out of their way
To help the seal escape from
the killer whales.
One of 'em rolled over
And lifted the seal
up out of the water.
And you could see
the humpback lift up
This one-ton flipper
and nudge this seal
To the top of its chest.
Narrator: You can just
see the seal center of frame,
Nestled in the safety
of the humpback's chest.
And at that moment,
we understood
That those humpbacks
were there to break up
This predation event
and to protect the seal.
In their minds,
they wanna stop this attack.
Narrator: But what can this
tell us about nan's encounter?
Could the humpback have also
been trying to help her?
It's not without precedent
That humpbacks have intervened
To protect other species
from potential threats.
Humpback whales
have been seen to come in
And interfere with killer whales
attacking seals,
Sea lions, whale calves,
And maybe, in the case of nan,
a human being.
Narrator: Nan was in
the whale's environment.
She could easily have been hurt
because of its sheer size.
But the whale was careful to
help her, not hurt her.
What we're seeing with this
diver and the humpback whale
Could very well be
some form of altruism.
Pitman: Altruism is sort of
loosely defined as a behavior
Where the individual that's
providing the behavior
Gets less out of it than
the recipient.
Nosal: It may just be
instinctual in the sense that
The humpback would normally
do this behavior
To protect its own offspring.
But even in the absence of
one of its own calves,
It still feels that
overarching urge to protect.
Narrator: If this behavior
is, in fact, altruism,
A form of protection,
What was the humpback trying
to protect nan from?
♪
There were no killer whales
in the area.
But towards the end
of the encounter,
Nan spots something even more
terrifying swimming close by.
The tail wasn't going like this.
It was going like this.
Oh, my gosh. That's a shark.
There's a huge tiger shark
right there.
Narrator: Tiger sharks
are second only to great whites
In the number of
recorded attacks on humans.
Did the whale spot
the tiger shark
Before nan did and protect her?
♪
Was the humpback really
trying to protect the diver
From a tiger shark?
It's certainly possible.
After the encounter,
the whale took off,
And so I just figured
I'd never see him again.
But a year later,
the whale came back,
And I screamed.
[ laughing ]
I saw the tail fluke,
and it looked just like
The whale that I knew from
this encounter.
Narrator: Each humpback whale's
tail fluke pattern
Is unique, like a fingerprint.
He came right to
the side of the boat
And looked and me,
and I looked at him,
And I just couldn't believe
it was him.
[ Whale sings ]
He nuzzled me,
and I rubbed his face,
And we had a really nice
little reunion.
Narrator: We may never know for
sure what was really going on,
But it seems that this was
yet another incredible example
Of a humpback whale saving
the life of another species.
♪
January 2009.
Bear creek, california.
Residents complain that their
tv signal has stopped working.
[ Static crackles ]
An engineer arrives to try
and fix the microwave antenna.
When he opens it up to
investigate...
♪
50 gallons of acorns...
500 pounds of acorns...
Came pouring out
in a great nutty avalanche.
Narrator: Hardly surprising that
it wasn't working.
It's like a tsunami of nuts
coming out of this antenna.
♪
And so the question is,
who or what would ever do this?
♪
♪
Narrator: In california,
a faulty television antenna
Is found filled to the brim
with acorns.
But whodunit?
♪
There's a prime suspect
in the frame.
Squirrels. Obviously, squirrels.
♪
High level nut smugglers,
the gray squirrel can stash away
Over 10,000 acorns in
a single season.
Narrator: But did they store
these acorns in the antenna?
Who better to help us
figure it out
Than a scientist
who spends her days
With these fluffy nut thieves?
I study the types of
decision making processes
That animals make
in order to survive.
Narrator: Stashing nuts is
Part of a squirrel's
winter survival strategy.
And they're very picky about
which nuts make the grade.
They'll check them over
for cracks or holes,
Weigh them to make sure
there's something inside.
And if it all checks out,
they're gonna take it
To a location that they think
is a little bit secretive.
And then what they're gonna do
is they're gonna dig a hole
About an inch deep,
and then they're gonna push
The food item into
the side wall of that hole.
And they they'll grab leaves
and other dirt
To camouflage
to bury it for the future.
Narrator: Squirrels are great
at hide and seek,
But did they fill the antenna?
We know grey squirrels
are more than capable
Of achieving that volume
of acorns over time,
But there's one big problem.
Most of them
scatter their acorns
In many different hiding places.
They don't cache them into
one single location.
Narrator: They use their memory
and sense of smell
To find them again, although
some are too well hidden
And never get found.
Scattering grey squirrels
are not our culprits.
But another squirrel species
could still be a suspect...
The red squirrel.
Greive: They do store their food
in a single place,
In a midden, sometimes
of enormous size,
Up to 20 feet long
and 5 feet high.
Narrator: The world over,
all red squirrels
Are location hoarders.
It brings all the food it's
found and places it in one spot.
This mountain is food,
not only for them,
But generations after them.
So they could be feeding
their great-great-great grandkid
Off this giant mountain
that they've built.
Narrator: What's more,
red squirrels have a reputation
For stashing their food
in weird places.
There is a story
in north michigan
Of a guy who was
driving down the road,
And his car was making all
these sort of bizarre noises.
So he pulls over
and lifts up the hood,
And in the engine,
he finds 50 pounds of food.
So what could've put that there?
The red squirrel.
Narrator: It's looking like
the red squirrel
Is a likely candidate
to have filled the antenna.
But...
American red squirrels have
a very simple diet.
They're just
not that into acorns.
They don't eat acorns.
Almost always,
they eat pine cones.
Narrator:
Squirrels are off the hook.
So who else could it be?
It's time
to widen the investigation.
Man: When I pulled
the insulation off,
The walls are just filled
with holes.
Narrator: Weird acorn stashes
have appeared before.
In california, another hoarder
has borrowed a pool house
To use as a food store.
Man:
That's a lot of acorns.
Narrator:
Could this stash help identify
Our antenna-hoarding culprit?
♪
♪
Narrator: In california,
a faulty tv antenna
Is filled to the brim
with acorns.
The usual suspects are
in the clear
When another crime scene
provides a vital clue.
The wall is
just all these holes in it.
It looks like there's been
a mafia hit.
Narrator: Could this evidence
match our original case?
If you look at the cover
of the antenna,
It's covered in
all these tiny little holes.
Man: That's real, folks.
Greive: The numerous holes
lead us to one key suspect...
The woodpecker.
Narrator: Woodpeckers...
The most determined birds
of the natural world.
♪
Professor walt koenig
has a good idea
Which woodpecker
could be responsible.
He's studied these birds
for over 40 years.
A lot of woodpeckers
are mainly insectivorous,
Or almost exclusively
insectivorous,
And they often will go
deep into the wood,
Looking for grubs
and larval insects.
But then when it's cold
and wet and rainy,
They'll go for other things.
Narrator:
Other things like acorns.
There's only one that we know of
That stores
a large number of nuts...
The acorn woodpecker.
Narrator: The aptly named
acorn woodpecker.
Go figure.
Acorn woodpeckers
can just go to the granary,
Pick out an acorn, chop it up,
And feed little bits of it
to their young.
So, they can do pretty well
Even when conditions are
fairly marginal.
Here we have
an acorn woodpecker granary
In a beautiful valley oak,
Somewhere around 500 years old.
Narrator:
A granary is a store cupboard
That will last the whole winter.
All these holes are drilled
by acorn woodpeckers,
And each one of them
could be filled
By an acorn during the fall,
When they're harvesting
the acorns and storing them.
It's extraordinary when
you see a tree
That has been used as a granary
by these woodpeckers
Because they're just
full of holes.
In fact, the biggest one
ever found
Had over 50,000 holes in it.
Narrator: They reuse these
granaries season after season.
Acorn woodpeckers,
they work collectively
In families of up to 15 birds.
Narrator:
But the acorns in the antenna
Would've been impossible for
the woodpeckers to retrieve,
As they were trapped behind
a metal casing.
So why did the woodpeckers go
so nuts pushing them in there?
Acorn woodpeckers are
not real good
At sort of figuring out
where acorns go
If they go into a hole
and disappear.
So I think you have young birds
That put these acorns
in these holes.
And if they disappear,
they don't really care.
They just go get another acorn
and keep putting 'em in there.
Narrator:
There you have it.
Hoarding woodpeckers are
The acorn-obsessed
trouble makers.
♪
March 2014.
A nasa satellite orbiting earth
picks up strange patterns
Off the coast of antarctica.
Computer algorithms
alert scientists,
Who deploy a drone
to investigate.
They discover black dots,
Stretching as far
as the eye can see.
The dots turn out to be...
Penguins.
In one of the most remarkable
natural history discoveries
In recent years,
1 1/2 million adélie penguins
Suddenly appeared on
danger island,
Off the east coast
of the antarctic peninsula.
Narrator:
The big question is,
How come we didn't know
they were there?
♪
♪
Narrator: On the danger islands
in antarctica,
Satellite images
and drone investigation
Revealed a colony
of 1.5 million adélie penguins,
Hiding in plain sight.
Until 2014, we had no idea
they existed here.
In the western antarctic
peninsula,
Adélie numbers are plummeting
due to climate change.
But now it turns out
that the tiny danger islands,
Just beyond its tip, are home
to more adélie penguins
Than the rest of
the peninsula combined.
The question is,
how did we miss them?
Burke: Did the colony spring up
in record time?
Could this be a new colony
of adélie penguins
That has enjoyed
an explosive birth rate?
Narrator: Probably not.
Penguins are
relatively slow breeders.
[ Both calling ]
A female will lay
one to two eggs a year,
And those eggs are incubated
over 30 to 40 days.
So these aren't exactly
baby boomers in bird terms.
[ Calling ]
Adélies generally only have
one chick a year,
And one-quarter of those chicks
don't make it to adulthood.
Therefore, it would take
many centuries
To reach a colony size of
1.5 million penguins.
Narrator: It seems they didn't
populate over night.
Have they recently moved here?
Could these adélie penguins
have migrated from elsewhere?
I mean, it's certainly possible.
Penguins have been
known to cover
Some really vast distances.
Narrator:
At only 27 inches tall,
Adélies are one of the smallest
penguins in antarctica,
But they're tougher than
they look.
Every year, they travel up to
11,000 miles
In search of food.
They're not exactly elegant
on land.
But in the water,
they transform.
Burke: In theory, the adélies
could have migrated there,
But there's a vital clue
right underneath
The scientists' feet.
So scientists radio carbon dated
The remains
of eggshells and bones
That they found on the island,
and what they discovered is that
This adélie penguin colony
had been there
For over 2,5000 years.
They were always there.
Burke: With new technology,
With satellite imagery,
and also drone technology,
It meant that we can explore
these really remote islands
To discover that the penguins
were there all along.
We still wouldn't have
found them
If not for nasa satellites
Spotting their guano
from outer space.
Narrator: "guano" is the fancy
scientific word
For bird droppings,
The strange marks on
the landscape were penguin poop,
Which gave away
the adélies' hiding place.
Modern technology
is revealing just how much
There is left to discover
about our planet.
Captions paid for by
discovery communications
♪