page_title: South Pacific (TV series)
section_title: 5. "Strange Islands"
hierarchical_section_title: South Pacific (TV series) / Episodes / 5. "Strange Islands"
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Sechs von den 15 Ahu Tongariki Moais English: Six of the 15 Ahu Tongariki Moais
context_page_description: South Pacific is a British nature documentary series from the BBC Natural History Unit, which began airing on BBC Two on 10 May 2009. The six-part series surveys the natural history of the islands of the South Pacific region, including many of the coral atolls and New Zealand. It was filmed entirely in high-definition. South Pacific was co-produced by the Discovery Channel and the series producer was Huw Cordey. It is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. Filming took place over 18 months in a variety of remote locations around the Pacific including: Anuta, Banks Islands, French Frigate Shoals, Papua New Guinea, Palmyra, Kingman Reef, Tuvalu, Palau, Caroline Islands, Tuamotus and Tanna Island in Vanuatu.
  On 6 May 2009, BBC Worldwide released a short clip of big wave surfer Dylan Longbottom surfing in slow motion, high-definition footage as a preview of the series, attracting extremely positive reactions on the video sharing website YouTube.
  The series was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on 15 June 2009. At the end of each fifty-minute episode, a ten-minute featurette takes a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of filming the series.
context_section_description: The fifth programme looks at the unusual animal life of the South Pacific. Species have evolved new behaviour to take advantage of ecological niches. On New Guinea, kangaroos such as the dingiso have become arboreal, taking the place of monkeys. The lack of predators on the ground has resulted in more flightless birds than anywhere else on Earth, including the kagu from New Caledonia. The Solomon Islands are home to the monkey-tailed skink, the largest of its kind. Unlike any of its relatives, it has a prehensile tail, forms social bonds and has turned vegetarian. The differing bill shapes of Hawaii's honeycreepers are used to illustrate how one colonising species can evolve into many specialists. In New Zealand, Fiordland crested penguins raise their chicks in the forests and short-tailed bats behave more like mice, hunting wetas on the ground. The fate of some New Zealand animals illustrates the fragility of island life. The kakapo, once a successful and abundant herbivore, was defenceless against Māori hunters and introduced predators. There are now 70 million Australian possums in New Zealand's forests, where they out-compete native wildlife. Controlling introduced species is a huge problem across the South Pacific. Wild tuataras can still be found on Stephens Island, but the flightless wren was not so lucky – the last of its kind were killed by pet cats before it was declared a new species. The collapse of the Rapanui civilization on Easter Island shows that human beings are not immune to this precarious existence.
caption: The giant stone Moai of Easter Island are a solemn reminder of a fallen civilization
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