Hitmen Barney's Barrier Reef

Australia, home of the possum, surfers,

strange lingo - "No worries mate, fair dinkum", and the Barrier Reef.

It's the biggest, most spectacular coral reef in the world.

And every creature is linked to another.

Just imagine one huge family tree dating back 18 million years.

From the minuscule to the mammoth to the miraculous,

they're all connected in Barney's Barrier Reef.

Ah, the Great Barrier Reef.

I've got the sun, the sea.

I'm surrounded by beautiful fish, coral and creatures. So peaceful.

I think I'll have a bit of a snooze. Ah, yes.

-What's going on?! What are you doing?

-There's no time for snoozing.

If I was a Barrier Reef hitman, you'd be in real trouble by now.

OK, what's your point?

Look, all the creatures out in the Reef may look cute and colourful

but out there in the ocean, it's every fish for itself.

There are dangerous hitmen round every watery corner,

-so you have to be prepared.

-Hitmen? Gem, fish aren't hitmen.

Er, yes they are.

-They're biters, spearers, and boxers.

-OK, give me that.

OK, it's time to face our scary predators.

Hitmen, armed and dangerous.

-Introducing our first ocean hitman, the tiger shark.

-Bonjour.

Sleek, shiny and stealthy.

Heavyweight of the sea and granddaddy of the ocean.

You can see why they've been around for more than 400 million years.

400 million years? He looks good on it, if a little scary.

He doesn't even have to try. He was born a predator and he knows it.

He doesn't look much like a tiger.

He's called the tiger shark because of his side stripes.

The largest one found was over 7 metres long.

Hang on a minute -

that's the length of three-and a-half Peter Crouches.

Is that a rotting turtle that he's eating? Gross!

Yeah, and he's got pretty filthy eating habits.

They call him the garbage man of the sea cos he'll eat anything.

This rotting, stinking turtle is perfect for him.

Who else has the jaws to crunch through a turtle shell?

Apparently, they've found all sorts in this garbage guts.

Licence plates, tyres, bottles, tin cans, tennis shoes,

plastic bags, a human head.

-A human head? What?!

-Ha-ha-ha!

Yep, you name it, it's been found in a tiger shark's belly.

In our interconnected Barrier Reef family,

who's connected to this greedy guts? Enter our next hitman.

SOUND OF ELECTRIC SAW

-Excuse me.

-Yo, wassup?

Help!

He's a flat-faced prowler, skulking around the forest of night.

-Meet the sawfish.

-What's for dinner?

Whoah, look at that snout! You can see where he gets his name.

He can't need that many teeth, surely?

He uses his serrated snout like a metal detector.

Well, more like a metal detector, vacuum cleaner and baseball bat

rolled into one.

He's the ocean slasher.

The electro-sensory pores in his saw snout can detect movement

and heartbeats from a distance.

-One slash is all it takes to bring the victim down.

-G'day, mate.

Or he simply uses his suction snout to swallow his victim whole.

Impressive stuff.

-Ha-ha-ha!

-Oh-oh!

So, the sawfish attacks by shaking its toothy snout,

and the tiger shark shakes its entire body to tear off food.

Our slashing shaker, the sawfish, is connected to our tearing shaker,

the tiger shark, because they're both shaking hitmen.

Aw, what a pretty shell! I'm sure I've seen these on Blackpool Beach.

He's not a great mover, is he? In your own time, love.

Well, he may look sweet and innocent, but he's not.

He's a true sea stalker.

He hunts at night. Silent but deadly,

-he creeps along the ocean floor, until...

-I'm gonna get you!

Well, until it's too late.

Yeah, maybe you don't get them in Blackpool after all.

Did you see his tongue? On the end, there's at tooth.

But not just any ordinary tooth,

a barbed tooth that stabs its prey like a poisoned dart.

The speed of attack and his deadly venom

mean he's not someone you'd want to cross or make cross.

Am I missing something, here?

-Deadly venom? But it's a snail?

-I know, but he has

one of the most deadly venoms in the ocean, capable of killing people.

Yep, that's pretty deadly.

And he can start digesting his food before his prey have even died.

You mean he's chewing them and killing them at the same time?

All this from something that's basically a sea snail.

So, what do you think connects this shell to the sawfish?

The sawfish has hundreds of teeth on the outside, but the cone shell

-has just one deadly spearing tooth. The connection is teeth.

-Of course.

This is how the most venomous animal in the world kills its victims.

Spring-loaded stingers in the tentacles shoot

through the skin and inject deadly toxins into the blood vessels.

But he's just a jellyfish!

He's silent, ghostly and pale.

Apparently, these guys are so hard to see that for years,

no-one even knew they existed.

Who'd have thought a creature made almost entirely of water

would turn out to be the deadliest animal on the planet?

An invisible hitman?

-Now that is scary.

-What's more, their prey have no chance.

The box jelly has 60 tentacles,

five thousand million stinging barbs,

can be up to four metres long and has 24 eyes.

People think they drift, but they actually swim with jet-like

propulsion and travel at a speed of 1.8 metres every second.

That's as quick as we can walk, not bad for something with no legs.

And they prefer shallow waters, just like paddlers and swimmers,

which is why they've killed more people than the Great White Shark.

Remind me to paddle in full protection next time.

Are these box jellyfish common?

No, not massively. They only exist in tropical waters,

so you won't bump into one in the UK or Europe this summer.

On a lighter note, they apparently have the 64 bottoms.

-Just as well they don't eat beans.

-64 bottoms? Don't they get confused?

The cone shell had deadly venom, too, like the box jellyfish.

Yes, the box jelly and cone shell are very definitely venomous hitmen.

So the connection between the box jelly and the cone shell is venom.

So which hitman is linked to our silent but deadly box jelly?

I like these. Some of the best lookers in the ocean.

Bright, colourful and graceful, like pretty flowers blowing in the breeze.

Don't be fooled, Gem, these aren't flowers.

-They're anemones.

-I'm scared!

Living animals who set up camp on coral and rock,

and some anemones are best kept at arm's length.

I don't believe you. Anemones aren't dangerous, they're lovely.

But this is an extreme anemone. You wouldn't want to sniff this flower.

Its tentacles are filled with venom.

One sniff and the victim is a goner.

-No way. How?

-Well, these buttons hardly move.

They don't have to.

They stop fish in their tracks with their pretty but deadly tentacles.

Now you see it, now you don't.

The fish gets swallowed whole.

And there's more.

An anemone's mouth doubles up as its bottom.

So, they eat their prey whole through their hole?

Whole through their hole, get it?

They are some of the weirdest venomous creatures ever.

One minute as pretty as a picture, the next, Jabba the Hut.

Ha-ha-ha!

So they have a vicious venom cocktail

-just like the invisible box jellyfish?

-Ah-ha! Of course.

The anemone and deadly box jellyfish are connected by venom.

-A crab? Surely he's not that dangerous?

-Not really,

but this crafty dude is a little different.

Hang on a minute, what's he got on his hands, I mean pincers?

The boxer crab hasn't got his own stinging cells

so he has to nick them. Pretty cheeky, eh?

He borrows little anemones to ward off predators.

It's a mutualistic friendship - there are many in the Reef.

Animals form a mutually beneficial relationship -

they support each other to help them both survive.

So, basically, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?

Yep, and in this case, the crab gets to ward off predators

but he also uses his flowery hands to mop up leftovers,

so the anemone gets to eat as well.

So he's a bit of a geezer hitman -

ducking and diving to keep away enemies with his anemones.

Clever, or what?

Yes, but do you think he knows how ridiculous he looks?

He looks a bit like a cheerleader crab.

"Give me a C, give me an R, give me an A, give me a B!

"What do you get? Crab!"

Oh, yes. More!

So, you see, the harmless boxer crab uses our venomous anemone

to turn itself into a bit of a hitman.

OK, I get it. Basically, our boxer crab and anemone are connected

as he pinches the anemone's sting with his pinching pincers.

Hey, amigos.

Look at him cleaning out his hole.

This shrimp is very house-proud. At first glance, a real cutie...

-if a little alien like.

-It's called the mantis shrimp because

he looks a bit like a praying mantis.

He's got quite a few nicknames.

He's been called a sea grasshopper, prawn killer, thumb splitter...

Thumb splitter? That doesn't sound sweet and innocent.

Are you talking about human thumbs?

Mr Mantis Shrimp clubs his victims to death with a punch

as fast as a 22 calibre bullet.

Not bad for shrimp!

In the red corner, we have Super Shrimp.

In the blue corner, we have Courageous Crab.

Shrimp gets in there, but Courageous is braver than he looks.

Good left hook, Courageous. Round one to Courageous Crab.

Super Shrimp delivers a painful blow, Crab hanging on in there.

What stamina this young fellow has!

Oh, it's all over. Courageous Crab has had enough of this onslaught.

Shrimp is left with the prize, the crab's pincer.

As well as a punch as fast as a speeding bullet,

he also has awesome eyesight.

Each eye has the three pupils

and he can see colour more than three times better than we can.

Three pupils and three times better colour vision than us?

I guess it might be like watching HDTV in 3D vision?

Something like that. He's got strength, agility,

speed and vision and can attack prey much bigger than he is.

He's the Amir Khan of the sea world. Small but deadly, a true mini hitman.

Another boxing hitman, which connects him to the boxer crab

with his stinging boxing gloves.

Exactly, Mr Mantis Shrimp packs a punch

which links him to the bonkers boxer crab.

Wow, you're right, they are a scary bunch.

I'm not sure I want to be reminded.

Too bad, because it's time for a Reef-cap.

How did we get from our tiger shark all the way to our mantis shrimp

in our hitmen line-up?

The tiger shark's shake is linked to the sawfish,

who slashes and shakes with his toothy snout.

His weapon of choice is teeth,

along with the cone shell with his deadly spearing tooth.

Lethal venom links him to our ghostly but deadly box jellyfish.

They look like pretty flowers,

but don't sniff the anemone, they have deadly stinging tentacles.

Which Mr Boxer Crab nicks and puts on his pincers

to make himself a ready-made hitman.

Just a shame he ends up looking like a cheerleader.

His stinging right hook links him to our other punching hitman,

the mantis shrimp.

-Whatever next?

-You haven't seen anything yet.

Get yourself ready for one of the deadliest hitmen in the ocean.

-Take this.

-What? A water pistol?

What good's a water pistol against a tiger shark?

Gem, don't leave me!

-So, who's this, then?

-A blue-ringed octopus.

He's a bit of a looker! One of the better looking octopuses I've seen.

Not that I think a lot about how good-looking octopuses are.

Hold on, did he just change colour? Play that again.

Yep, and he looks prettier when he's angry.

When he's threatened, flashing blue spots appear all over his body.

I have a feeling that crab may not have long to live.

Yep, he's on the hunt.

See, I knew that crab wouldn't make it through this sequence.

And now he's got him, it's time to spew his deadly venom.

Despite being the size of a tennis ball,

-he has enough venom to kill 26 humans within minutes.

-Hang on.

You said that so casually, Gem.

Did you just say enough venom to kill 26 humans? That's impossible.

Not when he has another trick up his eight sleeves.

You've seen him squirt, but then there's also the bite.

Octopuses do not have teeth!

Worse than that, he's got a razor-sharp beak.

-Of course he has!

-He delivers his toxic saliva to paralyse the pray

so he doesn't get hurt by the crab's pincers,

and he can bring down and paralyse a human just as quickly.

So what on earth connects the shrimp and octopus?

They both have an obsession with destroying crabs.

-Obviously.

-He swims like an eel, but looks like a snake.

What's going on here?

He's a sea snake, just like his relatives the land snakes,

-but with a paddle as a tail.

-That's evolution for you. Pretty cool, eh?

It looks like this one is sunbathing.

No, he's just come up for a breath of fresh air.

They live in the water but they're reptiles, and so instead of gills,

they have a lung and need to come up regularly to the surface to breathe.

When they're running low, they can also obtain oxygen from their skin,

particularly their bottom where the skin is thin.

Breathing through your bottom! I like it.

So why does he qualify as a hitman?

Not all snakes are dangerous, and he looks quite friendly.

Oh no, he's actually highly venomous.

-What?!

-He may only inject a little bit of venom,

but it's very, very strong stuff.

But he's a selective hitman.

He only uses his venom when he's really angry, and will often

give a non-venomous little bite first to warn off his predators.

And they love to look in nooks and crannies for their prey?

Yep, and they're the perfect shape for squeezing into tight spaces,

but snakes have bad eyesight so they smell for their prey instead.

-Oh no!

-He's pinned him against the wall, that's cheating!

When they find their victim, they don't waste any time.

He bites, delivers the venom and then, it's lunchtime.

I don't know what's worse,

being bitten by a sea snake or by a razor-sharp octopus beak.

Our slinky sea snake and blue-ringed octopus

are both venomous biters.

Next up, the white tip reef shark.

-What? More sharks?

-Yep. On the Barrier Reef, there are

125 species in the shark family, and none of them are the same.

The white tip reef sharks are strong,

-agile and some of the hungriest hunters.

-What makes them different?

All sharks can hunt.

Yeah, all sharks can hunt, but white tips treat hunting as a team sport.

By day, they're hidden. But once night falls, the action begins.

They hunt together in gangs of three or four.

-OK, they're like the gangsters of the Reef?

-Yeah.

Prey can hide all they want but they have a hidden talent

which allows them to get into smaller crevices.

White tips have indestructible skin.

Coral don't look too bad, but they are razor-sharp.

They would slice our skin open like a cheese grater.

-But not the white tips.

-Super skin. That is awesome.

Once they have their loot, they don't share it, do they?

Now he's got the fish, he's decided it's every shark for himself.

Combine this with a super sense of smell, hearing and electro-sense,

if you're on this gang's menu, you won't make it through the night.

So, like most gangs, do they tend to stay in the 'hood, homey?

Unlike some other sharks, they aren't big travellers.

They don't like leaving their pack.

So they get homesick? That's sweet, kind of.

Glad you like this dangerous hunter.

Did you think our hunting sea snake was cute as well?

Maybe sweet was the wrong word.

Anyway, the white tip reef sharks

with their gang hunts and indestructible skin

are connected to the shifty sea snake by hunting.

Deadly snakes, boxer shrimps.

Whatever next? It's time for a Reef-cap.

How did we get from the mantis shrimp to the sea snake?

Our hitman shrimp is connected to the blue-ringed octopus because

they share an obsession for destroying crabs.

Bit of a random link.

Random, but very true. The scary, flashing blue-ringed octopus

is connected to the sea snake by their deadly venomous bites.

And the sea snake hunts for prey in nooks and crevices.

Who on earth are left? There can't be many more hitmen in the ocean?

Who's connected to the white tips?

-It must be some big, deadly, scary, venomous creature, surely?

-Not quite.

In fact, he's right in front of you.

MANIC LAUGHTER PLAYS ON SOUNDTRACK

What am I looking at?

-Er, cue hitman, please!

-He's there.

Well, what's this? The invisible hitman?

I'm looking and there's just some coral,

there's starfish, and that plankton-type stuff...

Our next hitman is the starfish, or sea star as the Aussies call them.

OK, this one I don't believe.

Starfish have to be the most harmless sea thing going.

They look like they should be on a Wish You Were Here postcard.

Dude, you are, like, so wrong.

They hunt in enormous numbers.

Once they're fully grown, they go on the rampage, eating coral.

There's no way a sea starfish can go on any rampage.

I mean, can they even walk?

Yeah, they've got more than 20 legs, and thousands of feet.

20 legs?! But I thought they only had five. Er, like a star?

No, you're thinking of those English stars.

Barrier Reef sea stars are a whole different ball game.

What's more, they've no brain but can still coordinate all

20 legs to walk in one direction.

Amazing! They still look too harmless to be a predator, though?

Well, looks can be deceiving. They may look sweet and innocent,

but sea stars are covered in a toxic gel that really stings.

Not to mention the spikes. Ouch.

They chomp their way through whole colonies of coral,

leaving just a ghostly white trail of destruction.

They eat in a huge army, devouring everything in sight.

Are you for real? That's so super sci-fi.

So it's another gang of hitmen, just like the white tip reef sharks?

Our spooky sci-fi crown of thorns is connected to our white tip gangs

because they hunt in gangs.

Onto one of the reef's most common and colourful characters.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

Look, this show is supposed to be about hitmen,

not pretty, harmless fish.

They don't scare me.

They've no venom, no stinging tentacles,

no claw that can punch like a heavyweight.

You still haven't learnt looks can be deceptive.

Well, welcome to the Barrier Reef.

Creatures that look cute can often be dangerous predators.

I thought you'd have picked up on that by now.

Well, come on, then. Sock it to me.

Firstly, why do you think he's called a parrot fish?

Because he's pretty and carries a mirror with him that he head-butts?

Wrong. It's because he has not one but two deadly sets of

jaws and teeth which they use to demolish their prey.

So their mouth looks like a parrots' mouth.

They've got the teeth of rabbits.

They should be called parrot-rabbit-fish!

What harm can they do? They're just fish?

Well, they may not qualify as a hitman, but more as hitmen.

These guys graze and graze and graze on algae,

which they scrape off rocks and coral.

They have rock-hard teeth so they can pulverise the bits of rock.

Sorry, still don't buy it. They're not hitmen.

Let me finish. The thing is, the parrot fish are greedy.

They need more and more algae, and to get the algae, they play dirty.

Take this area of the Reef, the home of the cute and gentle damsel fish.

The parrot fish decide they want peace of the action,

so they enlist the help of their mates by forming a huge, big gang

who then bully the damsel fish out of their home

and feed on their nice, lush algae, leaving a pretty empty area.

So they're like gang hitmen? Not scary on their own,

but when they're with their mates, they turn nasty.

So, not as innocent as he looks, the parrot fish

and his chomping posse are connected to the crown of thorns sea star

because they both gang up on coral.

SNORING Hey, wake up! That's better.

He's a true Aussie hitman, this one.

And probably the most deadly of all.

The Australian salt water croc, or salties, as the Aussies call them.

-Look at his skin! It looks prehistoric.

-Well, he practically is.

Salties have been around for more than 200 million years.

No wonder he looks a bit worn out.

I hear they've got quite a reputation in Australia?

Yeah, they're admired and feared at the same time,

especially in Oz, and the big ones can weigh up to 1,000 kilograms.

Hang on, that's the same as 15 people!

Yep, and they're masters of camouflage.

They lurk in the water, staying as still as a rock or branch

until they spot their prey.

-Oh! Bye-bye, cute animal.

-That was a wallaby.

You're right there, it WAS a wallaby.

The croc's most deadly attack is the death roll,

where he grabs his prey and rolls it powerfully under the water.

They eat pretty much everything, including buffalo, wallabies,

other reptiles, birds, sharks and humans.

Remind me not to go paddling in the croc creeks.

They don't really have a taste for humans, but they can be aggressive.

One croc hassled a fishermen so much he had to be locked up in a cell.

No way! Croc criminals!

His jaw is much bigger than the parrot fish's beak,

but they're both mega toughies in the mouth department.

Crocodiles are connected to parrot fish by their super-strong jaws.

They also shake their prey, which connects them to the tiger shark.

I wonder who'd win in that face off?

Are you sure it's safe to come out?

Yes, I've checked and double-checked the area.

There are no signs of shrimps, octopuses or jellyfish anywhere.

-Come on, Barney. Let's get on with the Reef-cap.

-OK.

I think we need to go over those connections again.

The tiger shark is linked to the slashing, shaking sawfish.

With his deadly sawing teeth, he's also connected to our sea stalker,

the cone shell with its deadly toothy spear.

Who would guess that something so innocent contains so much venom?

Which linked him to the deadly box jelly,

with his five thousand million stinging cells.

Our flowery anemone is also venomous, but not that scary.

How can you be scared of something that has a mouth that's a bottom?!

-You wouldn't say that if you were that blue fish.

-Probably not.

Anyway, the anemone is linked to the cheerleading boxer crab.

On his own, he's not so deadly,

but he borrows the anemone's stinging tentacles.

The boxer crab shares punching pincers with the mantis shrimp,

whose knockout right hook makes him tiny but deadly.

Especially to crabs. That links him to our venomous blue-ringed octopus.

Don't forget his deadly bite, which connects him to the sea snakes.

They can hunt down prey in any hole or corner,

which links them to the white tip reef sharks,

-whose super skin helps them find their dinner.

-They hunt in packs,

which ties them to our crown of thorn see stars who look harmless

their own, but in their starry army, they destroy any coral in their path.

Like the parrot fish, a scary gang of rock chompers who force

other reef creatures out of their homes.

Their super-strong jaws connect them to our fearsome croc,

the hitman that legends are made of.

Its weapon of choice is shaking, leading us back to the tiger shark.

Phew, what a line-up. There are some dangerous hitmen in there.

You know what, I think we're safe now.

We can put all our protective gear away.

Are you sure? You never know when you might need it.

Who's going to get us now?

It's the end of the show.

MANIC LAUGHTER ECHOES

-You can stop the scary laugh now, Barney.

-Um, Gem...

that's not me.

MANIC LAUGHTER

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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