Mysterious Planet

In a tropical sea

halfway between Asia and Australia,

is a mysterious world of islands.

Sounds nice, right?

A paradise, but with a difference.

There are monsters here.

And not just your run-of-the-mill monster--

a Komodo dragon, over 10 feet long, excluding the drool.

A dragon king, I'm pretty sure, but I'm not

picking up that tail to look.

And that's not all.

This is just one island in the land

of the strange, each island home to more extraordinary life--

aww.

But why do dragons exist only here?

And how did these islands come to be so different?

To answer these questions is to take the first steps on an epic

journey, a journey through space and time,

revealing the forces that shape life

and uncovering the mysteries of the wild.

Hi, I'm David Schwimmer.

Don't touch Komodo dragons.

This is "Mysterious Planet: Islands of the Dragon King."

That's what I just said.

The island of Komodo is famous as the place

where dragons really do exist.

And it's the place where I once lost my luggage.

But why here?

A Komodo dragon searching for a meal.

It's the dry season, and water is

confined to just a few pools.

Water buffalo come to the pools to cool off.

Komodo dragons come here for water buffalo.

This is what's known as a Komodo singles bar.

Well, hello there.

The buffalo is three times the size of the dragon.

But the dragon has a secret weapon, confidence

and a venomous bite, a lethal potion that causes sudden shock

and inhibits the clotting of blood,

like too many gin and tonics.

One bite, and the buffalo's fate will be sealed.

Yeah, got him, got him.

That's the-- OK.

That's more than one bite.

That's-- oh, it's a party.

But all is not as it seems.

Though the dragon has been killing this way for millennia,

buffalo are not its natural prey.

Buffalo were brought to Komodo just a few hundred years ago

by people.

So what was this natural born killer designed to kill?

Hopefully, not actors.

Well, certain actors.

The answer is hidden in the dragon's past

and is a clue to solving the mystery

of how it came to be here.

Other islands hide further mysteries.

Komodo is just one in a sea of thousands of islands

here in the heart of Indonesia.

And they are all extraordinary.

Right in the middle is Sulawesi, like a giant letter

K, covered in impenetrable forest, tipped with volcanoes.

Home to more unique life.

A crested macaque, a monkey native to just this island

that has found ways to survive.

I peel my gourds the same way, except I use more foot.

It's resourceful, like any island castaway,

but it has other, more surprising characteristics.

Crested macaques live in some of the largest

groups of any monkey.

And they all have the same punk hairdo,

because they all love product, and uniquely expressive faces.

Group sizes can reach as much as 100,

so getting on with each other has become a priority.

And that is where the faces come in.

They have an expression for every occasion.

Hey, don't mess.

I'm strong.

But I'm friendly too.

I'm really friendly.

Hey, let's play.

Hey, stay back.

I'm not in the mood.

Did you touch the thermostat?

All these faces diffuse social tension

and have helped make these monkeys some

of the most peaceful on Earth.

Then again, there's not that much to fight about here.

They got lucky on Sulawesi, which might be

the title of a Steely Dan song.

Crested macaques eat all kinds of food,

but fruit is their favorite.

And there's an abundance of it here,

so long as you can reach it.

But luckily, they're monkeys, and they can climb and stuff.

On the slopes of Sulawesi's volcanoes

nurtured by its volcanic soils, this forest

is rich with some of the highest densities

of fruit trees found anywhere.

It's this super abundance of food that makes living

in such large troupes possible.

But there's something else going on, something more mysterious.

On islands to the west of here, the trees are

alive with the song of gibbons.

Orangutans crash through the canopy.

Here, though, there are none.

It's great for the macaques, as they

had the fruit to themselves, but they

are all alone, like monkey pioneers

in a land that time forgot.

Beautiful, peaceful, but strange.

As the sun sets on Sulawesi's forest,

things are about to get even stranger.

And nothing gets weirder than Sulawesi after dark.

As night falls on Sulawesi's mysterious forest,

something is stirring inside an old strangler

fig tree, something besides my feelings of being terrified.

A spectral tarsier, gremlin of the night--

or gremlin or any other time of day, if you think about it.

By day, it huddles up with its family inside the old tree,

like we all do.

Now they are just waking up.

Aww, cute.

These tarsiers are tiny, less than 4 ounces.

They would fit in the palm of your hand.

But their eyes are huge.

Each eye is bigger than its brain,

leaving no room for the eyes to move in their sockets.

So when the tarsier wants to look around,

it swivels its head up to 180 degrees like an owl.

Don't try that at home.

It hurts.

The huge eyes are so sensitive they

can see night like we see day.

They can see moonlight in color.

And although their eyes may see everything,

their tiny brains will never understand irony.

But don't be misled by their cutesy appearance.

These little gremlins are the world's only

entirely carnivorous primate--

great.

Beware, all bugs of the Sulawesi night.

This bloodthirsty family is at large.

Powerful legs propel them into the forest, 40 times

their body length in a single jump.

Guided by owl eyes, leaping with frog-like legs,

gripping with alien fingers, thinking with tiny brains.

And when the prey tries to hide, they

lock on with ultrasensitive ears, like a bat.

They are the perfect hunting machine, like a mini furry

shark of the jungle.

But the tarsier is not the only predator here.

A Sulawesi python, the biggest python on Earth.

Time to call in the family before they become the victim.

But tarsiers have one more trick up their sleeve.

It's recently been discovered that many of their calls

are ultrasonic.

One theory is that it acts as a secret alert,

warning each other of danger but too high for predators to hear,

so they don't give their position away.

The world's biggest python moves on.

The world's most carnivorous primate returns to the safety

of the family tree.

Enough excitement for one night.

Aww, and now they read "Goodnight Moon."

They're just so cuddly and vicious.

Venture further into the forest and encounter

more mysterious life.

The babirusa-- not as cuddly.

A pig with tusks that grow right through its upper jaw,

sometimes even piercing its own head,

taking piercing to a whole new level.

Another creature unique to Sulawesi.

But quite a mouthful, even for a python.

Without the tusks, he might give it a try.

And these streams are scorching hot, heated

from beneath by volcanic power.

From the hot earth, zombie life emerges.

OK, what is-- what's happening?

The-- what?

What is that?

OK, that's an eye.

That's an eye.

What the heck?

Oh.

Oh.

Hello.

A bird.

A baby malleefowl.

Its mother abandoned it as an egg

to incubate in the thermal ground,

causing many years of future therapy.

It's just hatched, and already it's in danger.

Thanks a lot, mom.

Yeah, that's a snake.

But the zombie chick is born flight ready.

Whew, just in time.

This forest is strange, stranger perhaps than any on Earth.

But why?

It's another mystery lost in the past,