lagoon attract feeding manta rays. The region's coral reefs are the richest in the world-–the pristine Kingman Reef, a sunken volcano, has over 200 kinds of coral alone. Underwater footage includes giant clams spawning, grey reef sharks hunting needlefish by night and a timelapse sequence of a Triton's trumpet engulfing a crown-of-thorns starfish. Reef fish are also agents of erosion-–the bumphead parrotfish chews through coral and excretes it as sand. The final scene shows huge swarms of jellyfish in the marine lakes of Palau, the jewel of Micronesia. This episode is titled "Rising Lands" on Region 1 DVD. 5. "Strange Islands" UK broadcast 7 June 2009, 2.15 million viewers (8.7% audience share) The fifth episode 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. 6. "Fragile Paradise" UK broadcast 14 June 2009, 1.99 million viewers (9.4% audience share) The final episode focuses on the environmental problems facing the South Pacific. Climate change threatens many islands, because they are low-lying and could be