大太平洋（2017）

or communicate with other squid.
不管怎样 科学家都感到困惑
Either way, scientists are stumped.
就像童话一样 星星和月亮照耀着大地
Like a fairytale, the stars and moon shine down
萤火鱿也照耀着大地
and the fireflies shine back.
渔民们聚集在一起
And the fishermen gather.
几个世纪以来 萤火鱿一直是日本的美味佳肴
For centuries, firefly squid have been a Japanese delicacy-
油炸 水煮或生食
fried, boiled or raw.
如果放在盘子里仍然能发光 那就更好了
All the better if they still glow as they hit the plate.
渔民们正在争分夺秒
The fishermen are running against the clock
以确保鱼获是新鲜的
to ensure their catch is fresh
因为所有这些萤火鱿
because all these squid
都是按程序在产卵后死亡
are programmed to die after spawning.
是时候了
And it's that time.
每一只都是雌萤火鱿
Every one is a female.
在上升时 就会释放受精卵
As they rise, they release their fertilised eggs.
长一米的串珠项链
Beaded necklaces a metre long.
每条链上有两万颗卵
With up to 20,000 eggs per chain,
每颗卵都是如此的小 以至于都能滑过渔民的网
each egg is so tiny it slips through the fishermen's nets.
再过八♥九♥天 就会在大太平洋中孵化
In eight or nine days, they'll hatch in the big Pacific.
一年之后 就会蜂拥回到
And a year from now they will return
这个海湾 繁殖 然后死亡
to swarm this bay, multiply and die.
完成一个短暂而又辉煌的生命周期
Completing a life cycle as brief as it is brilliant.
在遥远的南方 还有一个耀眼的谜团
Far to the south lies another dazzling mystery.
但是这一个是人为的
But this one is man-made.
波尔斯金字塔 澳大利亚
离澳大利亚海岸五百六十公里处
560km off the coast of Australia,
有一座孤岛在守夜
a lone island stands vigil.
比帝国大厦还要高
Taller than the Empire State Building,
波尔斯金字塔尖顶令人望而生畏
Ball's Pyramid is a forbidding spire.
拒绝居住和无视探索
It resists habitation and defies exploration.
是像金字塔一样孤独而神秘的
It's home to a species as lonely and mysterious
物种的家园
as the pyramid itself.
这个奇怪故事始于二十公里外的另一个岛上
But this strange tale begins 20km away on another island.
豪勋爵岛非常偏远 直到1788年才被发现
Lord Howe Island is so remote, it sat undiscovered until 1788.
这是七百万年前从海洋中喷发
It's a garden paradise that erupted from the ocean
出来的花♥园♥天堂
seven million years ago.
完全与世隔绝
Never part of any landmass.
居住着一群独特的物种
Inhabited by a unique population
鸟类 蜥蜴和昆虫
of birds, lizards and insects.
所有物种到达岛上通过海风 海浪或飞行
Each transported to the island by wind, waves or wing.
其中最奇特的是豪勋爵岛竹节虫
One of the strangest was the Lord Howe stick insect.
早期水手称之为树龙虾
The tree lobster, as early sailors called it.
体长十六厘米
16cm long,
沉重 结实 缓慢
heavy, solid and slow...
在郁郁葱葱的植被上自♥由♥进餐
...dining unfettered on the lush vegetation...
直到1918年一场海难释放的黑鼠
...until a shipwreck in 1918 released rats.
老鼠狼吞虎咽横扫豪勋爵森林
They gorged their way through the Lord Howe forests,
吃掉能找到的每一只无助的树龙虾
eating every helpless tree lobster they found.
有几百万年历史的生物
A creature millions of years old
在两年内就灭绝了
gone in two years.
1920年是最后一次看到
1920 was the last recorded sighting
活着的豪勋爵岛竹节虫的记录
of a living Lord Howe stick insect.
有传闻竹节虫幸存了下来
But they survived in rumour,
暗示着事情还没有结束
hints that their story wasn't over.
多年来
Throughout the years,
试图征服波尔斯金字塔的探险家
explorers who tried to conquer Ball's Pyramid
声称他们看到了新近死去的竹节虫尸体
claimed they saw the corpses of stick insects recently dead.
金字塔能容纳大量的漂流者
Could the pyramid harbour a population of castaways?
在消失近八十年后
Almost 80 years after it was lost,
2001年攀岩者重新发现了
the living insect was rediscovered by rock climbers
这种活昆虫
in 2001...
在太平洋上空六十五米高的悬崖上
...clinging to a cliff 65m above the Pacific.
物种的领地
The species' territory?
一丛灌木
A single bush.
种群的数量
Its population?
二十四只
Just 24 animals.
在这里生存的可能性
Odds of survival here?
百万分之一
A million to one.
一场风暴就可能摧毁竹节虫的家园
A single storm could have wiped out their home.
树龙虾的交♥配♥行为
In a behaviour rare among insects,
在昆虫中很少见
tree lobsters pair off
看起来是一夫一妻制
in breeding couples that seem monogamous
而且产卵量很大
and they produce eggs prolifically.
多亏了世界各地动物园的密集繁殖
Thanks to intensive breeding at zoos around the world,
这二十四个幸存者的卵成倍增加
eggs from those 24 survivors multiplied...
在十五年里变成了超过一万三千只树龙虾
...and in 15 years became more than 13,000 tree lobsters.
这个物种现在已经获救
The species is now rescued.
复活的拉撒路物种
A Lazarus species back from the dead.
究竟是如何到达这些岛屿的呢
But how did it get to these islands at all?
是经过二十公里的水路到达波尔斯金字塔
It travelled 20 watery kilometres to Ball's Pyramid
从豪勋爵岛来
from Lord Howe.
更大的谜团是竹节虫最初
But the larger mystery is how did the stick insects
是如何到达豪勋爵岛的
get to Lord Howe Island in the first place?
其DNA表明是从澳大利亚来 旅行了六百五十公里
Its DNA suggests it travelled 650km from Australia,
可能通过浮木
maybe on driftwood.
一次非凡的而又难以解释的旅程
A journey as extraordinary as it is inexplicable.
这种树龙虾已经被发现两次了
The tree lobster has been discovered twice.
在二十一世纪
In the 21st century,
发现的步伐揭开了更多的谜团
the pace of discovery unveils more mysteries.
温哥华 加拿大
一位深海探险的世界领先者
A world leader in deep ocean exploration
正准备踏上寻找
prepares for a journey to find
地球上最古老生物的征程
the oldest living creatures on Earth.
菲尔·纽顿是海洋版的莱特兄弟
Phil Nuytten is the marine version of a Wright brother.
莱特兄弟带我们上天堂 菲尔带我们进深渊
They took us to the heavens. He takes us into the abyss.
四十年来
For 40 years,
菲尔设计了潜水器和硬壳潜水服
Phil has engineered submersibles and hard suits
使用者从美国航♥空♥航♥天♥局到美国海军
used by everyone from NASA to the US Navy
再到寻宝者
to treasure hunters.
菲尔和他的机器已经
He and his machines have made
完成了世界上最深的潜水
some of the world's deepest dives...
揭示了我们从未见过的东西
...revealing things we've never seen before.
收到
Roger that, roger that.
水箱注水 继续下潜
Flooding tanks, proceeding to bottom.
水瓶座潜水器
The "Aquarius" submersible
可以载三个人下潜超过三百米
can carry three people to a depth of over 300m.
在一百五十米以下 阳光几乎照射不到
Beyond 150m down, a place that sunlight barely touches.
曾经有人认为几乎没有什么东西能在这里生存
It was once thought that almost nothing could live here.
但他们错了
But we were wrong.
这个陌生无阳光的世界一样适宜生存
This alien and sunless world is habitable.
我们的目的地又深了三十米
Our destination is another 30m deeper.
菲尔的目标是三十多公里长的海绵礁
Phil's goal- a reef more than 30km long.
这里有个罕见的奇观
Home to a rare spectacle,
是地球上最早的生物之一
one of the first creatures to ever inhabit the Earth.
玻璃海绵
Glass sponges.
在地球上生活了超过五亿年
They've lived on Earth more than 500 million years.
比人类最早的祖先还要早一百倍
A hundred times older than mankind's earliest ancestor.
也许是所有复杂动物的祖先
Perhaps the ancestor of all complex animals.
这就是地球上第一批多细胞生命体
This is what Earth's first multicellular lifeforms
就这样子
looked like.
和树龙虾一样 也被认为已经灭绝了
Like the tree lobster, they were thought extinct.
我们只能从化石记录中了解
We knew them only from the fossil record
直到1987年的一次深海潜水发现了活化石
until a deep dive in 1987 turned up living fossils.
我第一次开始潜水的时候
We didn't know a whole lot about them
并不很了解海绵
when I first started scuba diving
因为海绵生存环境非常深
'cause, of course, they are fairly deep.
在这里不同地方可以看到成群的海绵
You see them in clumps in various places around here.
但要下到海绵礁上 绝对不可思议
But to get down onto a sponge reef, absolutely incredible.
像菲尔这样的探险家
Explorers like Phil have found
在所有的海洋中都发现了稀有
rare remnant populations of glass sponges
玻璃海绵残余种群
in all our oceans.
玻璃海绵是滤食动物