The Explorers Page #7

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Something's wrong with

the Everglades

It's an ecosystem in peril

It's dying

And the alligator is

a crucial component

in that ecosystem

In the Everglades,

the 'gators breed less

frequently

their growth is stunted

To find out why

he's exploring the belly

of the beast, literally

You have to know

what's important in

the alligator's diet

before you can get a handle

on the bigger picture

you know,

what's really happening with

these alligators out here

To investigate their

culinary habits

Brady must first find

and catch one of these swamp

dwellers; no easy task

Scary situations are just

part of the job

just the nature of

the situation

and what I do and

where I go

If you're gonna work

on something

that can eat you or bite

you and kill you

I mean that's just

there's no way to get away

from the danger

It's just a part of

the business

Right there!

Okay, try to keep

the light right on it

I'm gonna try to move up

to it

Oh yeah, I got him,

I got him

See that?

Okay, now are you ready

to give it a try?

Now, when I tell you to move

move fast

Okay! It's always a little

nerve-racking

to tape the jaws up

This alligator's not

that big

I've always been fascinated

with alligators

even as a small child

But I grew up in the

cornfields of southern Indiana

There weren't many

alligators there

I went to graduate school

in south Florida

where there were a lot of

alligators

And I saw these large

carnivores

living in close contact

with humans

His explorations are

proving that

this close contact is toxic

for the alligator

Alligators in the Everglades

grow very, very slowly

A seven-foot animal 100

miles north of here

on Lake Okeechobee might

be eight years old

A seven-foot alligator

here in the Everglades

this alligator? might be

Maybe it's mercury

poisoning

maybe it's quality of

the diet

That's what we're looking

into

Maybe it's pollution

Changes in hydrology have

changed

what the alligator is

eating

It's a complicated picture

and, you know

hopefully we'll shed

a little light on it

with this stomach content

data

We're going to put

this garden hose into

the mouth of the alligator

down into the stomach

fill it with water and

then May Lynn's going to

give it

the Heimlich maneuver just

like a choking person

Hit it hard.

Everything you got

I'm gonna pull the hose

this time

One, two, three, go!

I didn't feel anything

come out

Look at this

There's a seven-foot

alligator

and here's the contents

of its stomach

One snail with the tissue

still attached

And here is two, three

remains of four snails

Before we started this

research

people said, "Oh, alligators

eat birds and fish and

you know, pull down deer."

We're finding they eat a

lot of snakes and

believe it or not,

they also eat snails

That's how these alligators

are making a living

out here in the Everglades

It's a tough place to live

If I was an alligator

I wouldn't want to live in

the Everglades

Paul Sereno is famous

one of the most famous bone

hunters in the world

Just 41 years old

he's already made more

significant discoveries

than most paleontologists

make in a lifetime

Time and again

Sereno has headed out into

the unknown

and come back with

the bones of dinosaurs

that no one has seen before

For Sereno, 1,000 years

is a blip in time

His finds allow us

to imagine history on

a geological scale

history that is more than

How many chances

do you have to make a mark

in the world

to change the way we look

at a continent

the way the world was

With one expedition

we really have the chance

And the only way that

we can do that is

really, by performing beyond

what we think we can do

This time Sereno is

on an expedition deep into

the Sahara

It's a harsh landscape

Sand storms, relentless

heat and gun-toting bandits

will make the next four

months a brutal experience

Paleontology often finds

the most remote places

because they are places

that are raw earth

places difficult to live in

places often unexplored

And the more unexplored

the better

the better chance you have

of finding something

that nobody's ever seen

before

Just getting to

the fossil beds

is a grueling cross-country

road trip

The journey is not

just arduous

it's potentially lethal

A civil war in this area

ended recently

Travelers were killed on

this road the week before

I have told you that

we might require an armed

guard before we left

I didn't know the details

of it

I didn't know what happened

last week

That was in the future then

We have items that people

want

items that they have

killed people for

It's a personal risk

going out there

There's no question

about it

If something happens

or if people feel that

whatever their obligations are

whatever their personal

feelings are

that they've reached that

point and want to go back

I don't blame anybody for

that circumstance

I will help you leave, you

know, in a timely fashion

It's the classic explorer's

dilemma:

How much are you willing to

risk to achieve your goal?

Are you willing to risk

your life?

Although the team will

need armed guards

no one abandons

the expedition

no one wants to pass up

the chance of making

a major find

After five days and 14 flat

tires

they finally reach their

destination

Okay, show me the money

Where're the bones?

Although the world Sereno

explores vanished millions

of years ago

it still lives in

his imagination

You've got to look at

something

that doesn't look like a

lake and imagine back to

what it was like as a lake

What this little fragment

here is telling you is that

there were fish there

There were trees

This was an area

where there was a chance

that your prize possession

a dinosaur or a crocodile or

whatever you're looking for

could have gotten buried

there

I think I inspire in part

by example in the field

I wouldn't ask anybody

to do anything

that I wouldn't be doing

myself

I can take the heat

so I'll work right through

the middle of the day

at 120 degrees out

on the site

the bone actually reaching

really, really hot

I really find that exploring

back in time is

one of the most fulfilling

things

because it forces you to

imagine

And at first, imagination

sounds unscientific

After all, we're observers

of hard evidence

But, in fact, imagination

is what

I think is the essence

of science

Dig by dig, explorers like

Sereno have transformed

pure imagination into

scientific fact

The team has been working

in heat often over

And beneath tons of

rock... a revelation.

We have a couple of

skeletons mixed at this site

That's a conclusion we've

drawn after a lot of work

What we discovered

when we first started

peeling back the mound here

is the hip region

and back bone of a very

large sauropod

Here's the vertebrae here

Sereno thinks the animals

were the victims of

a huge flood

The surging water piled

their multi-ton bodies

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