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
Pilosans of the Caribbean of the other sloth family, that of the three-toed sloths, restricted to a small island in Panama. The record of a tamandua from Cozumel, off Mexico, was probably in error. The genera of Caribbean pilosans are classified as follows: Cuba is the largest of the Greater Antilles. A diverse assortment of sloths is known. Hispaniola, the second largest of the Greater Antilles, is divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It has a diverse sloth fauna. Tortuga is an island off northern Haiti. Gonâve is an island off southwestern Haiti. Only one sloth is known from the Quaternary of Puerto