#Blue planet seas life full

At dawn, one of the reef's most charismatic inhabitants, the green turtle, heads off to be cleaned at a special health spa. As these polyps grow and die they lay the limestone foundation for civilisations and superstructures so large that they can be seen from space.Ĭoral reef cities never sleep, they are constantly noisy worlds where a chorus of submarine song rings out from their many inhabitants. Filmed with super macro time-lapse, we bring them to life and reveal their hidden worlds. While they might appear to be nothing more than rocky substrate, each coral is in fact made up of hundreds to thousands of tiny, living coral creatures called polyps. On the Great Barrier Reef a remarkable grouper uses sign language, dubbed the headstand signal, to reach out to an entirely different creature, a reef octopus, to flush small fish out of their hiding holes and into the groupers waiting mouth. The broadclub cuttlefish has found its place by using a hypnotic display that apparently mesmerises its prey, causing it to let down its defences. For those that manage to establish themselves, there can be great rewards.

#Blue planet seas life full

There is fierce rivalry for space, for food and for a partner, but the reef is also a place full of opportunity. They are complex, infinitely varied structures providing all kinds of homes for their many residents. Their reefs occupy less than one tenth of one per cent of the ocean floor, yet they are home to a quarter of all known marine species. As we begin to understand the true complexity of the lives of our ocean creatures, so do we recognise the fragility of their home.Corals build themselves homes of limestone in the warm, clear, shallow seas of the tropics. But with rising temperatures, summer sea ice is retreating - their battles to survive are becoming ever harder. Deep in the polar north, we meet walrus mothers and their newborn calves, searching for an ice floe to rest on. But our ocean system, in relative equilibrium for millennia, is changing at a worrying rate. Ocean currents move heat around our planet and maintain a climate favourable for life. Here, in winter, pods of orcas use dramatic tail slaps to stun herring, and humpback whales follow the noises to find the feast. But in the Arctic, a warm current from the south keeps some Norwegian fjords ice-free all year round. Toward our planet's poles, the ocean's surface is locked in ice. Females change gender, and a new male challenges an older male to a face-off. But when a female reaches both a critical body size and age, it can undergo an extraordinary metamorphosis. At the start of summer a male mates with the females. In Japan, a kelp-covered shipwreck is home to the Asian sheepshead wrasse, or Kobudai. In temperate seas around the globe, spring brings greening oceans. But when they find them, the whales team up with the dolphins to form super-pods - a formidable army to take advantage of the bounty of these seasonal seas. Predatory false killer whales off the coast of New Zealand are in search of dolphins. Where the plankton thrive, fish thrive too, and ocean travellers will migrate thousands of miles to take advantage of these productive seas. Phytoplankton produce as much oxygen as all the plants on land and lie at the base of marine food chains everywhere. At night, in a previously unseen event, tiny organisms that light up when disturbed react to their wingbeats, creating an enchanting bioluminescent firework display. In spring thousands of mobula rays gather in Mexico's Sea of Cortez. Here, unlike the tropics, the seas change with the seasons. Sun heats the sea, creating rain, winds and huge storms that drive up towards higher latitudes. The tropical oceans drive our planet's weather.

Fledglings must eventually take to the wing, but danger lurks beneath the waves - metre-long giant trevally fish leap clear out of the water to snatch the birds. In the Seychelles, half a million terns nest on an island. On another reef, a tusk fish demonstrates a surprising level of ingenuity - tool use - as it uses corals as an anvil to break open clams.

Starting in the tropical coral reefs - the most diverse ocean habitat - a baby dolphin is taught the secrets of a coral reef, as its family rubs against a particular gorgonian which may have medicinal properties.

Using cutting-edge technology, One Ocean takes us on a journey from the intense heat of the tropics to our planet's frozen poles to reveal new worlds and extraordinary never-before-seen animal behaviours. In recent years, our knowledge of life beneath the waves has been transformed.