Wild Caribbean reef fish anywhere in the Caribbean. The final island to be featured is Trinidad, cut off from South America by rising sea levels 2,000 years ago. Its island fauna include many mainland species such as red howler monkeys, capuchins and scarlet ibis. Coral reefs, which thrive in the warm, shallow waters around Caribbean Islands, are the subject of the second programme. Hard corals are the reef-builders, and grow their tough external skeletons by extracting nutrients from algae growing within them. Time-lapse footage shows coral polyps emerging at night to trap drifting plankton. Marine life featured includes Caribbean reef squid, octopus
Piracy in the Caribbean Florida, the Dutch West India Company settled a "factory" (commercial town) at New Amsterdam on the North American mainland in 1626 and at Curaçao in 1634, an island positioned right in the center of the Caribbean off the northern coast of Venezuela that was perfectly positioned to become a major maritime crossroads. The mid-17th century in the Caribbean was again shaped by events in far-off Europe. For the Dutch Netherlands, France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, the Thirty Years War being fought in Germany, the last great religious war in Europe, had degenerated into an outbreak of famine, plague