David Attenborough’s – Life of Mammals 5 Meat Eaters

Once again dedicated to Nikunj.
(Full video at the bottom)

Yum yum! David starts by calling meat the muscles of mammals. The most energy packed food you can get. How humans have set aside great areas of the country side to produce it. So starts with sheep, moves on to rabbits and how rabbits are more in danger from another hunter. The stoat. Looks like an innocent mongoose… till it spots a rabbit. It’s smaller than the rabbit, the chase begins. Stoat does the job by stabbing its fangs on the neck thus crushing the back rabbits skull. Note: Orchestra’s background music is so in sync with the action. The rabbit weights 10 times the stoat but the stoat likes to eat in privacy so manages to carry it. What meat eaters have in common are their front big teeth and side triangular small teeth.

Next are the two great tribes of meat eaters. The cats and the dogs. Both skilled in stalking and lethal pounces. Amazing action footage. The serval (mini leopard or big pointy eared cat) is so athletic, it can sometimes bring down birds. What a jump! It’s one of the smallest of the cats, while the Siberian tiger is the biggest. 10 feet long from nose to tail. Earliest fossils of meat eating mammals were found in North America. Seems they lived in the trees hunting birds. The marten, one of their descendants, still does. Retractable claws give it better grip.

Apparently the dogs are the decendants of the tree dwellers, they just adjusted their bodies to suit their new area codes. The fennec is smallest of all the foxes. Huge ears though. Which help it avoid overheating in the Sahara and also help it detect itty bitty sounds. Dude takes on a desert viper… not too impressive coz its pretty small.

In colder areas the dogs have smaller ears to avoid frostbite… like the arctic fox. Now in winter its got a dense white fur coat for warmth and camouflage. But in summer it changes the coat to a thinner darker one. In summer there’s lots more food especially the seabirds nesting on the cliffs in thousands. Fox cant reach there but the young ones gotta make that first flight and that’s when the fox follows. That’s not fair. They got far more food that they can eat. Shot of fox having difficulties to even carry all that food. At least it doesn’t waste it, buries it for winter.

Over to the south western shores or Africa. Fur seals, David inches towards the pups and gets to stroke one. He retreats before someone raises the alarm. Oh and coz its so hot the moms have gone to cool off. Film crew finds a spot where you can see the whole colony plus parts of land where potential predators might come from. Sit and wait and here come the gangsters. Brown hyenas, they don’t even look like hyenas. Anyway so they feed on carrion mostly but they aint gonna refuse a defenceless seal pup. Aw man, dude takes meat back to share but fellow mates gotta identify each other by scent. These guys carry their scent in a pouch under their tail. When I say pouch I mean they lift their tail, something opens and this red balloon thing comes out. They also use their sent to ‘post notices’… usually every quarter of a mile or so. David shows us one of their post-its. Gets some on his and and casually states that the dark bits come from the anal gland. Now this first half of the message is for its fellow hyenas, the scent disappears quick so its like telling the others ‘I was there 30 minutes back so don’t bother didn’t find anything’. The other half of the message is for other animals to keep out. This other secretion was milky when first sprayed and its scent stays longer.

The Amazon is up next with its South American Bush dog. One of the least known dogs. Face of a skinny bear, body of a enlarged mongoose. They have a strict order where the females head the group headed by the most senior and the males obediently follow. While females spread their sent on stems as high as they can, the males do no more than cock a leg. Coz they like wet areas they’re the only dogs with webbed feet. The paths they use to move around are of rodents which are also their prey. Now water living animals hardly have a scent so these guys gotta use their eyes just as much as their nose. They may have a strict running order but when its chow time its more like a free-for-all.

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Moving on to the hunting dogs of Africa. They hunt together and sometimes up to 50 together. Think its is also in another Attenborough episode… they’re the most successful of all hunters. Stats: 80% or chases will end up in a kill. Pretty impressive for hunters that only got their teeth to do everthing. No claws or swiveling wrists. They gotta do it all on the low low and eat really quick coz if the lion hears it, he’s gonna chase em away. The other footage was more informative and action packed. While the alpha male and female are the only ones that will reproduce, the fellow uncles and brothers are the ones that come back to the cubs with grub. Sharing the food is normal for them to do through out their lives. Normal females help the alpha female look after the pups.

David’s on a hill in North America trying to communicate with the biggest of all the dog family which also live in packs. What do you know, quite a few wolves reply. The howls are for two reasons, to warn other packs to keep away and to reunite a scattered pack after a long hunt. You can see them delight and playfight in their company. Just like the hunting dogs they got a alpha pair that do the breeding. There’s a bonding sessions right before they go on a hunt… in a way to remind each other of their position in the team. Footage of the pack hunting elk. Coz its in snow and elk have longer feet to tackle the snow, their chase is on earlier and longer. Only 1 out of 10 attempts will be successful. The wolves have not choice but to follow the herd coz they aint had a munch in over a week. Finally a couple of wolves get a weakened female but still find it difficult till the backup arrives.

Time for the cats in Africa. Lions hunt at night coz during the day its too hot so that’s their nap time. Wow, David is so close to these lions. Its pitch black so the camera crew set up cameras and infrared lights which neither the peeps or the animals can see. Even their roars of communication are pretty passive they seem pretty chilling in that kinda darkness. They can see 8 times better than we can at night. The hunt begins… Lioness crouches and inches. Littlest sound freaks zebra out. The chase begins, lioness takes a hoof in the face, lioness catches hoof second time and its over. I’d seen or read somewhere that the lioness does the killing and waits for the lion to do the opening ceremony. As a family they take care of others kids even allowing other cubs to take their milk.

Not the same for the cheetah though. Sisters don’t help, no sign of the father so finding food for her and her baby aint all that easy. Especially coz the cubs are more of a hindrance during a kill. Impalas in the area codes. As long as the cheetah is more than 30 yards away from impala they can out run her. The cubs sense somethings about to kick up so they settle to watch. Wicked side profile shot of cheetah concentrating on what she’s seeing. Even better shot of the kill… gotta give props to the background beats. As cheetah gets speed her feet are hardly on the ground for half the time. Attention: Spotted bullet has just taken an impala down! Its so gracious that it can rival a gazelles swerves and turns. Second time round gets unusual as a second cheetah joins in the kill. Mama cheetah only tolerates that as its one of her cubs. Cheetahs gotta eat quick coz its got a slimmer body and bigger ones like lions can chase her off her kill.

There’s a cat that is found in lots of regions. It does its hunting at night and its one of the least seen. The leopard. David set up infrared light and remote control cameras to observe in his ‘operations control center’. A moving shadow is spotted. On the monitor he can see that this car is just outside his door when everyone was expecting it to go for the cattle. Stops for a sec, then passes by and leaves. Flocks are safe for the night. Ok I’ve already done the review on Davids leopards special. On a hunt it’s extra careful with stepping.

Straight on to the biggest of the cats. The tiger. And to the biggest of the tigers… the Siberian tiger. The most formidable hunter. The toppest killer until humans devised weapons. Nothing could threaten it, few could kill it. They were all over Asia at one time. Now most are in captivity… sort of.

Ends with a kill by tiger. The ultimate in lethal grace and beauty.

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