Beast Legends (2010) s01e03 Episode Script
Megajaws
In this episode of Beast Legends: The team scoured the deep water of the south Pacific.
Whoa! Look at the size of that thing.
Looking for a gigantic sea monster.
You know, if you bug the guy, he's going to eat you.
That's the bottom line.
Worshipped as a god It's so scary.
If you ever see that out in the ocean Man.
Rumored to be real.
The shark god, Dakuwaqa.
Stories of terrifying monsters are told the world over.
Some are myths but others are believed to be real.
Now a team of investigators will track down clues and find evidence for the beast behind the legend.
The quest, to build the creature, bring it to life and unleash it on the modern world.
Steve and Kathryn are on a small Fijian island to penetrate the secrecy surrounding a shark god called Dakuwaqa.
You know, Fijian culture, it's extremely complex.
The rest of the team are gathered in the Beast Lab searching for the origins of the legend.
Yeah, let's check this out.
On the south Pacific islands of Fiji, there are those who believe a titanic sea creature rules their waters.
It can change it's shape at will, appearing as a man or as a deadly sea snake, but most often a monstrous shark-like creature.
It is all-seeing and all-knowing.
It protects the innocent.
It punishes the evildoers.
It's wrath is terrifying.
Dakuwaqa, the shark god.
All right, so what am I building here? Is it a man? Is it a snake? Is it a shark? Well, this one's going to be a tough one because Dakuwaqa, of course, is not just a beast.
He's a god.
And, you know, Dakuwaqa has Really commands respect.
People are very often afraid of him.
Yeah, it can't just look like a shark.
It needs to have a little more oomph.
I think we can do it.
I think we can start with some of the shark species that are in Fijian waters.
I mean, for example, they've got lots of tiger sharks and bull sharks and reef sharks.
There's lot of different choices of sharks to start with there.
Tiger sharks are probably not going to be around.
I mean, they're migratory.
They're going to mostly be in Australia around this time.
But bull sharks and reef sharks, those are a good bet.
They're pretty common and we really need to get some good looks at those.
A shark god makes total sense in Fiji, a country of islands where everyone is deeply connected to the sea.
And this sea is brimming with predatory sharks.
Curving around this bay, it's called the shark corridor.
So, obviously, this is where the action's at.
Right.
I'm just picturing Dakuwaqa.
It might be a whitetip, but then others seem to feel that it might be a bull.
We have to think back to what people would have traditionally known about sharks.
We're about to meet the people of Beqa, an island said to be the birthplace of Dakuwaqa.
We've come halfway around the world and now everything hinges on this village.
The legend has been passed down here for generations.
But I wonder if anyone will talk, because we're strangers here, and Dakuwaqa is sacred.
Our only he is to gain the trust of the elders.
So I think we need to put our soothers on.
Probably never seen anybody this pale.
Am I decent? Yeah, I think you look great.
We wanted to do the right thing.
Absolutely.
It all starts with this man.
Papa is like a village gatekeeper, assigned to keep a watchful eye on us.
So, it's time for the sevusevu.
Yes.
We're about to be formally introduced to the village through a ritual called the sevusevu.
If we get this right, maybe, just maybe, we can start asking questions about Dakuwaqa.
As always, it helps to bring just the right gift.
That's the plant from which the sacred drink is made.
Yeah, so it's customary to present that as a gift.
That plant root Kathryn brought is called Kava.
It's ground up to make a mind-blowing brew.
As the guests of honor, we're expected to drink.
And drink some more.
And some more.
I can't feel my tongue.
All so we can learn about Dakuwaqa.
Oh, it's me.
This is my kind of research.
Now the moment of truth.
From now on, you are one of the village.
You can build your house here.
That means we can start to unravel the mysteries of a powerful sea god.
The song is about Dakuwaqa himself.
It's a sacred song performed for generations in Dakuwaqa's honor.
Now, it's entrusted to us.
We're no longer guests.
We're fellow villagers and all doors are open to us.
How are we doing this morning? The next morning, after our Kava heads have cleared Good to see you.
Welcome on board.
How are you, Kathryn? Papa is ready to answer our questions about the legend of Dakuwaqa.
This sea god, he was just a human being.
Right.
He was just a human being.
He was a man.
A nice man, beautiful nice man.
When he died, many people who are still alive in those days, they worship his spirit.
Why? Because he was the leader of the fishermen.
Because they love him so much, they worship his spirit.
They worship, day and night.
Suddenly, he comes back.
All right? But not a human.
As a shark.
As shark.
Papa's a professional shark diver but he enters the water with no fear.
Dakuwaqa is always near.
We know that this god, he protect us.
Okay.
In the ocean, wherever He protect us.
Protects you.
I see hundreds of sharks.
"Hi! Hi, guys!" Just, "Hello!" Yeah, just like that.
You're not afraid of them, they're not afraid of you.
Clearly, this is more than a simple bedtime story.
People here have so much faith in their sea god, they're willing to risk their lives every day.
I'm hoping Dakuwaqa has our backs too.
We're about to get up close and personal with the biggest, most vicious sharks around.
We need to decide which species to use as a starting point for building our 3D Dakuwaqa.
You have a lot of sharks around you.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
What's the biggest one you've seen there? How big? 6½ m? Yeah.
6½ m? Scarface? Scarface.
If you're going down too quickly, I will basically hang on to you.
This is Kathryn's first time diving with sharks.
In just a few minutes, she'll be surrounded by them.
How many sharks, did you say? How many sharks are down there? Yeah.
Of which species? The grand total.
The grand total, maybe 100.
100, 100 sharks.
But you won't even look at the small ones.
No.
Once you've seen the big ones.
This is insane.
Is it a bad thing to be shaking? I'm going to bring this little camera with us.
Oh, good.
And we'll be able to send that back to the guys.
All right, are we ready? Aye.
Let's go.
We have no cages, nothing but wetsuits between us and the sharks' teeth.
These sharks are used to being fed by local divers, but they are wild animals and unpredictable.
Can you hear me? I can hear you.
Can you hear me? I hear you.
30' from the surface, we're in the shark zone.
I really want to see some bull sharks.
They're one of the most aggressive shark species in the world.
Worse even than great whites.
The way they attack is that they tend to circle and bump into their prey and that can be humans as well.
Their sizing them up and then they'll just take a big lump out of you.
And they'll just keep circling, coming back and nailing you and nailing you.
Whoa, bull sharks, over there! They coming right at us! Kathryn and I are in very deep water, here in the South Pacific, as some 15' bull sharks head right for us.
Whoa! Look at that! We're here to investigate the shark god, Dakuwaqa.
These guys will put the fear of god in anyone.
Dakuwaqa is supposed to be a powerful looking animal.
You can't get much more powerful than these.
They're very chunky.
They're not very hydrodynamic.
They don't look like they can swim particularly quick.
But if one of these things came up and bumped you, oh my God, you would just absolutely crap yourself.
We need a good look at the teeth.
Dakuwaqa should have the most ferocious jaws in the ocean.
Oh yeah, look at the size of that mouth.
That's enormous.
Cool.
All right, so I guess that's where we start.
I think it's a great place to start.
They're massive.
They feel like they're really heavy.
The teeth is really important.
It's hard to see the teeth sometimes because they're so busy going after these fish.
We'll figure out the teeth later.
For now, let's go with the bull shark body.
I mean, I like the girth and the weight that is has on it.
But it's not just any bull shark.
It has to be different.
This is the chosen one of sharks, you know.
This is the one.
I think Francis is on the right track.
According to the legend, Dakuwaqa is far more than a shark.
He's bigger, stronger, smarter.
An all-powerful arbiter of the ocean.
Kathryn and I have decided to divide and conquer to find out more about his godly powers.
What can you tell me about Dakuwaqa, in terms of powers? By biting them in the sea? Okay, it can be sent after people Yeah.
Okay.
Good, good, good, good, good.
The Shark God.
" And this is what all the children learn.
So, the young woman reading to me from this textbook talks about the story where there's a war between clans, a war between gods and the upshot is a guy from another place, a Tongan, mouths off to Dakuwaqa, he insults Dakuwaqa, who had actually been busy protecting people, and then Dakuwaqa eats him.
"Dakuwaqa never forgets an insult.
" You know, if you bug the guy, he's going to eat you.
That's the bottom line.
So, basically, Dakuwaqa is like an all-seeing, all-knowing god.
He just patrols the ocean and just sees everything that's going on in it.
It's almost like he's super smart in that he can pick and choose who he goes after.
Well, sharks are pretty smart.
I mean, I'm not saying they can discriminate between good and evil, but they're actually very good at sizing up their prey and knowing when to go and when not to.
And that's partly because they have such amazing senses.
I mean, they can sense more than humans can.
So, we got to give this shark some super powered senses to make him the ultimate predator.
I think what we need to do then is see these senses in action.
And I know just the place, somewhere we can get our hands on some sharks, literally: A remote research station on a small island in the Bahamas called Bimini.
In the past 20 years, this tiny place has built a worldwide reputation for research into the biology of sharks.
It's one of the world's centers for shark research.
We need to learn about the different kinds of senses.
I mean, it's really the senses that make sharks the amazing predators they are.
And Doc Gruber is just legendary for his expertise about sharks, his knowledge about shark diversity.
Hello, gentlemen.
You must be Doc Gruber.
Last time I checked.
Are we ready to go play with sharks? We are.
Let's get to it.
Sharks have an uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere when there's prey.
That could have given rise to a shark god that is all-seeing and all-knowing.
And there's a biological basis.
Sharks have super senses that were designed to detect moving things in the water.
Even if they can't see us, they know we're there, something the Navy figured out long ago.
During the Cold War, Canadian and American Navies had submarines out there that had eyes and ears which were long towed acoustical arrays that put out electric fields.
So, these guys would just barrel at the submarine? They don't barrel at the submarine.
They detect the submarine from some distance away because the submarine produces a huge electric field and they'd bite it.
Living creatures emit electrical fields too, which sharks use to find us.
With Doc Gruber, we've designed a device to show exactly how this super power works.
Smelly fish juice will come out one end and electric field will come out the other.
Sharks are like swimming noses.
They have an exquisite sense of smell.
But up close, an electric field may be an even bigger draw.
To a shark, it means live prey.
But first, we have to attract the sharks with something that emits electricity.
Apparently, that's me.
Actually, this is a good time for me to tell you I can't swim.
You can't swim? I can't swim.
Oh, that's ridiculous.
It's time to go in the water.
That sounds like a challenge, so I'm going in.
Doc Gruber swears these sharks rarely attack humans, which is not all that comforting right now.
Just go right over to the line, you're okay.
Go to the line.
Just go right over to the line, you're okay.
Go to the line.
Francis can't swim, but he has bigger things to worry about.
Help him.
Help him, Sean.
He's getting all freaked out.
Bimini has reef sharks.
Stay in there, guys, stay in there.
Stay in there.
Stay together.
Stay close together.
Francis, stay close together to Scott.
They're bumping us, they're bumping the camera.
They're being drawn in by the weak electric field we've produced.
You can't help but think that if it was Dakuwaqa coming at me, I would be freaking my pants, dude.
You weren't doing a bad job your pants with a little 8' reef shark either.
Now that we've attracted the shark's attention, we can get to the real experiment.
We're going to look at a hierarchy of senses: Smell versus electric field.
All right, the apparatus is going in.
That's it.
First, some fish juice.
Wow, that stuff is really visible.
It's so pink! Okay, let's send some electricity down the device.
Let's push that button.
Turn the thing on and let's see what happens.
Okay, it's on.
Yeah, he went to it.
Wow, that's amazing.
They're going for the electric field instead of the fish juice.
Bite the electrodes.
Okay, that was pretty good.
Whoa! They're biting at the camera because the camera puts out a nice little electric field.
The sharks are using an amazing sense that's completely alien to humans.
Tiny electro receptors, so small you can't even see them, are built into the snout.
They send signals to the brain, telling the shark exactly where to attack in close range.
That's the kind of super power that would inspire a god.
Uo, what I was thinking for Dakuwaqa is that to visually really show these electrodes working, you know, maybe protruding the snout a little more just to exaggerate the front part of the head.
Dakuwaqa is a shark god.
So, it has powers that no other creature has.
You can have the snout expand, you can have the shark become more alert.
The electro receptors are a start but they only work in close range.
Dakuwaqa can track prey down from a distance.
There's a biological explanation for that too: Another god-like sensory ability of sharks.
We're looking for something called the lateral lines.
Is there, like, any visual markings Yes, yes.
Right, lateral line is a jelly-filled canal that runs the whole length of the body.
And then these little ts feed that canal.
Now, if you look very closely at that, you can see little pores and you can see it go down the body.
Yeah, I see that, all along there.
Little black dots, black dots, black dots.
There, there, there, there, there.
Those tiny dots are filled with sensory cells that pick up minute vibrations in the water.
In combination with an acute sense of hearing, they tell the shark where the prey is and which way it's moving.
So, even at a distance, a shark can hunt you down.
So, to enhance certain things on him for our Dakuwaqa, we would have to go skin deep Well, it might not show up in the morphology.
It may show up more in the behavior.
Yeah, but you could make Dakuwaqa have a big, elaborate lateral line.
The lateral line would be It's quite faint, you know.
It's not very visible.
And I think if we just exaggerate the way it looks by making it larger, perhaps it will be just more menacing.
You know, so, do a bunch.
So, Dakuwaqa now has an awesome sensory surveillance system.
If you're out there, he'll find you, no doubt.
But the scariest part the attack.
And that is all about the teeth.
That's their only weapon, really, sharks.
It's all teeth.
It's all teeth, yeah.
On our last dive, we gave Dakuwaqa the basic body plan of a bull shark.
But we didn't get a detailed look at the teeth.
So, we're going down to the ocean floor to find some.
Then we can decide if bull shark teeth are the best bet for our beast.
There are fish bones, bits of a carcass.
It's like a veritable graveyard.
A-ha, there we go.
Take a look at that.
That's a top tooth.
That's a cutting tooth.
That's a good start.
There's another one here.
That is a That's a bottom tooth.
So, we've got the matching pair there.
They don't look worthy of a shark god in size or form, do they? Let's check this out.
Yeah, I don't think these teeth are right for Dakuwaqa.
That's kind of the most important part.
That's the scariest part of them, those big, sawing teeth.
They need to be the size of my head, at least.
Exactly.
We need bigger, more ferocious teeth for Dakuwaqa.
Scott and I are in Gainesville, FL, shopping for the biggest, baddest shark teeth on the planet, teeth to fit the most fearsome beast in Fijian waters: The shark god Dakuwaqa.
If we're talking Mega Jaws, this museum is the place to be.
Oh, we got sharks, that's for sure.
Oh, wow.
This is amazing.
It is one of the world's largest collections of sharks' teeth.
And this is the guy to talk to.
George runs the International Shark Attack File.
Basically, if a shark bites a human, he figures out who did it.
I've never seen this many shark jaws in one place.
It turns out every shark species has slightly different teeth.
George uses them like a fingerprint I.
D.
This is a bull here.
This is what Steve and Kathryn were looking at in Fiji.
Boy, look at the serrations on those teeth.
These big species, like whites and tigers and bulls, they all have serrations on the teeth.
Those teeth are like little steak knife edges on 'em.
You could imagine, when this thing goes like this, that becomes saw-like.
I like the triangular shape, but I'm not sure these are powerful enough for Dakuwaqa.
So many rows of teeth.
It's incredible.
What happens is each of these rows rotates outwards.
It's like a conveyor belt.
So, when this thing breaks, these thing just rotate out? Precisely.
This is, like, pretty cool but is there something, like, bigger.
Well, we do have a recreation of a megalodon jaw.
That sounds like it might be what we're looking for.
Can we go see that? Yeah.
Megalodon was the biggest, deadliest shark that ever lived, a vicious apex predator that ruled the oceans until it went extinct about 2 million years ago.
Some scientists estimate it weighed 150,000 lbs.
, 30 times the weight of a great white.
This is more like it.
No one knows exactly how big it was, or what it looked like.
Virtually all we have are the teeth.
These are massive teeth.
These are real teeth.
These were real fossils, each and every one.
These aren't recreations out of plastic or anything.
I notice too that it's not serrated like the No, there's a little serration here.
There's some fine serrations.
But what happens, remember, over time, those things kind of get worn off, because these are fossils.
Some of these teeth are 7" long, the biggest shark teeth ever found, six times the size of a bull shark's.
They're perfect for Dakuwaqa.
Using the jaw as a guide, we can scale up our beast.
I want to stay within the size limits dictated by biology.
So, Dakuwaqa shouldn't be any bigger than Megalodon.
How big is this? That's 6½' across.
Okay, 6½' across.
6½'? So, it's 6' up, right? What would the length of This shark would be? This would be about 60' long.
We'll go with a bull shark's body shape, scaled up to the size of a Megalodon.
It's opening kind of You've got to go like that.
We're going to have to look carefully at proportions.
It's got to have a bit of a belly.
Plus, you have a dorsal fin, a big, tall dorsal fin.
There's another, smaller fin there, a second dorsal fin.
And then, of course, you've got a pair of fins, one on each side over here, that actually come back like this, along the side.
Oh, okay, it comes more sideways.
Yeah, there you go.
Megalodon fed on whales, dolphins and other fast moving prey, so it must have moved fairly quickly.
I'm thinking it had a really big tail fin.
This shape is important because the difference between a bull shark tail and that of a white shark or a megalodon would be the megalodon or white would have had an equal size lower lobe.
That's the sign of an animal that can move very fast.
If you were, like, creating something bad-ass, you would probably want to give it something like that.
Why not? Put afterburners on it.
See, now we're thinking the same thing, right? What we really need now, I think, we need to visualize this thing.
We have a good idea of its dimensions.
What we need now is to, um, really make it material, make it real so we can get an idea of exactly how big it was.
My plan is to build our Dakuwaqa in the sand, exactly to scale, to see just how scary it must look.
This looks like a good spot for us too get the sculpture going.
I wonder if I can park here.
All right, let's go to it.
All right.
So, that's yours.
I know I came up with the idea, but 10' of sand going up is kind of It's a lot of digging.
Now that Scott and Francis have sized up the beast, my plan is to find out where our 60' shark god lives.
According to the locals, Dakuwaqa left his birthplace on Beqa and now rules the waters around the island of Taveuni.
Right, I'm flying solo today.
Kathryn developed an inner ear problem on our last dive, so she'll catch up with me later.
Okay, so I landed on the island of Taveuni and we're going to a village of Somosomo.
I'm struggling to remember all of these names.
But that's the village that belongs to the people that some refer to as the shark clan.
Dakuwaqa is said to have followed fishermen to this region hundreds of years ago.
He made a home near the village and has been their protector ever since.
They call themselves the shark clan in his honor.
I need to find out exactly where their shark god lives.
It'll take about 150 tons of Florida sand to build our big beach Dakuwaqa.
How do you move that much sand with just a couple of shovels? You don't.
This is awesome.
I brought some help.
This is amazing.
You can still keep shoveling though.
So, this is Dave.
We need the bulldozer, but the guy who came with it is just as important.
How do you build a giant shark fin out of sand anyway? It's going to slope.
Exactly.
I'm happy with that height there.
Since we're drawing a crowd, I figure we might as well sign up some recruits.
Hey, you guys want to help us sculpt a shark? Do we have any more volunteers over there? All right, here we go.
What about you guys? Can we put the Labrador to work? If we can just pour the water in here This will be a massive tail fin.
More water.
How you guys doing back there? More water.
It's not even a matter of when we're going to get it done or think we're going to get it done.
We have to get it done.
The question is how.
The tide is moving in fast.
We have one hour to get the job done before the waves are on top of us, destroying our beast.
We need to add a bit more around the dorsal fin, slim that down.
So our ace team of volunteers is picking up the pace and putting in the hard labor so we can finish off this beast in time.
This is like the pyramids of Egypt, thousands of people.
I've made it to the edge of the shark clan's village.
Dakuwaqa is said to live in the waters nearby.
Now I need to convince the elders to take me to his home.
I know what that means, another sevusevu ceremony.
Few people speak English on a remote island like this, so I brought a translator to state my case.
Hang on this doesn't look anything like the last ceremony: No dancing, no drinking.
I think this means my request will be granted and one of the villagers will take me to Dakuwaqa's home.
That looks great.
I think we did awesome.
It's nice to see it from here, but I think it would be even nicer to get a true sense of scale, to see it from up there.
How are you going to get that perspective? I'm going to borrow that lady's board and parachute up.
No.
We'll figure something out.
Scott, come in.
Can you hear me? I can hear you, Francis.
What do you want me to do to get some scale on this shark? Scott, why don't you get down in front of its mouth and pretend like it's about to eat you.
Nice.
That looks so freaking awesome, dude.
It is so scary, dude.
If you ever see that out in the ocean Man.
Wouldn't want to see this thing live, that's for sure.
I'm heading towards the place locals revere as Dakuwaqa's home.
My guide is a village elder named Charlie.
Round island.
Just a round island.
This doesn't look like a sea god's home.
It's nowhere near as impressive as I'd hoped.
We go there.
Yeah.
But an island makes some sense.
Dakuwaqa does leave his shark form behind at times.
This must be his home on land.
Here, come here.
Okay.
Come and see the sea snake.
Oh, yes.
It's a black-banded sea krait, one of the world's most venomous snakes.
Now, that is interesting because that fits the story.
According to legend, Dakuwaqa is a shape shifter.
He can be a man or a snake, /E as well as a shark.
In his snake form, this species fits the bill.
Up to 12' long, its bite can kill you in as little as 15 minutes.
They have flattened tails to enable them to swim.
It slips into the water, hunts amongst the coral.
But we're building Dakuwaqa in his shark form, his main incarnation.
Charlie tells me that, as a shark, Dakuwaqa lives in an underwater cave nearby.
He agrees to take me there.
Okay, it's time to size up our beast.
Can you make the human lie down? Because I was lying down.
Yeah, not a problem.
So, if we put him right up close Okay.
Yeah, that's about the right scale.
I would not want to be lying there if this was on the beach.
Scott did.
Pull it down so that we can recreate what I saw.
It's like that.
Look how huge that is! That's about right.
That's what I saw from up there.
Yeah, I can imagine.
So, it looks like we have our scale.
Absolutely.
It's looking really good.
All right, now we need to know where he lives so I can bring him to life in his natural environment.
So, this is the moment I've been waiting for.
I'm finally heading to Dakuwaqa's underwater home.
And Kathryn has caught up with me just in time.
This underwater sort of cave, trench, hole, whatever it is, could be the spot to have a look at.
Okay.
A cave makes sense to me.
Lots of big sharks rest in caves, including bull sharks.
They'll return to the same cave time and again.
That sounds like home to me.
So, who knows what we'll find tucked away in some dark corner of the ocean.
Oh, I'm so jealous.
Kathryn still isn't cleared to dive, so it's all up to me.
Steve, can you hear me okay down there? Yes, I can hear you.
Can you hear me? Over.
Absolutely.
You're coming in loud and clear.
Over.
See any sharks? Bit thin on the shark front at the moment.
Dakuwaqa's cave should have a strong current to keep water moving over the gills.
It's good for the sharks because they can breathe without moving much.
Not so good for me though.
I could get sucked right in.
Kathryn? Kathryn, can you hear me? Steve, can you hear me okay down there? Can you hear me now, Kathryn? Yes, I can.
There we go.
I think I've found the legendary cave where locals say the shark god Dakuwaqa lives.
It's big, it's hidden away, but what's inside? It sounds like the perfect place for a shark to hang out.
He can relax and rest up before a hunt.
So, finally, we've figured out where Dakuwaqa lives, the last piece of our puzzle.
So, it's farewell Fiji.
We've got a beast movie to watch.
I'm picking up a biologic, sir, heading straight at us.
It's huge! Could pass for a whale.
What is that thing? Begin countdown.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Whoa! Damage report! Port ballast ruptured! Launch second torpedo.
Get that thing out of here.
Starboard, 45°.
Bring her about.
Bring her about.
He's coming at us! Brace for impact.
Communications down.
Launch emergency transponder.
We're going down! We're going down! Nice.
That's all right.
I think we nailed it, guys.
The key to building this beast: making it unlike any other shark known to man.
By giving our Dakuwaqa a bull shark's body, a Megalodon size and super senses, we got ourselves a beast legend.
Whoa! Look at the size of that thing.
Looking for a gigantic sea monster.
You know, if you bug the guy, he's going to eat you.
That's the bottom line.
Worshipped as a god It's so scary.
If you ever see that out in the ocean Man.
Rumored to be real.
The shark god, Dakuwaqa.
Stories of terrifying monsters are told the world over.
Some are myths but others are believed to be real.
Now a team of investigators will track down clues and find evidence for the beast behind the legend.
The quest, to build the creature, bring it to life and unleash it on the modern world.
Steve and Kathryn are on a small Fijian island to penetrate the secrecy surrounding a shark god called Dakuwaqa.
You know, Fijian culture, it's extremely complex.
The rest of the team are gathered in the Beast Lab searching for the origins of the legend.
Yeah, let's check this out.
On the south Pacific islands of Fiji, there are those who believe a titanic sea creature rules their waters.
It can change it's shape at will, appearing as a man or as a deadly sea snake, but most often a monstrous shark-like creature.
It is all-seeing and all-knowing.
It protects the innocent.
It punishes the evildoers.
It's wrath is terrifying.
Dakuwaqa, the shark god.
All right, so what am I building here? Is it a man? Is it a snake? Is it a shark? Well, this one's going to be a tough one because Dakuwaqa, of course, is not just a beast.
He's a god.
And, you know, Dakuwaqa has Really commands respect.
People are very often afraid of him.
Yeah, it can't just look like a shark.
It needs to have a little more oomph.
I think we can do it.
I think we can start with some of the shark species that are in Fijian waters.
I mean, for example, they've got lots of tiger sharks and bull sharks and reef sharks.
There's lot of different choices of sharks to start with there.
Tiger sharks are probably not going to be around.
I mean, they're migratory.
They're going to mostly be in Australia around this time.
But bull sharks and reef sharks, those are a good bet.
They're pretty common and we really need to get some good looks at those.
A shark god makes total sense in Fiji, a country of islands where everyone is deeply connected to the sea.
And this sea is brimming with predatory sharks.
Curving around this bay, it's called the shark corridor.
So, obviously, this is where the action's at.
Right.
I'm just picturing Dakuwaqa.
It might be a whitetip, but then others seem to feel that it might be a bull.
We have to think back to what people would have traditionally known about sharks.
We're about to meet the people of Beqa, an island said to be the birthplace of Dakuwaqa.
We've come halfway around the world and now everything hinges on this village.
The legend has been passed down here for generations.
But I wonder if anyone will talk, because we're strangers here, and Dakuwaqa is sacred.
Our only he is to gain the trust of the elders.
So I think we need to put our soothers on.
Probably never seen anybody this pale.
Am I decent? Yeah, I think you look great.
We wanted to do the right thing.
Absolutely.
It all starts with this man.
Papa is like a village gatekeeper, assigned to keep a watchful eye on us.
So, it's time for the sevusevu.
Yes.
We're about to be formally introduced to the village through a ritual called the sevusevu.
If we get this right, maybe, just maybe, we can start asking questions about Dakuwaqa.
As always, it helps to bring just the right gift.
That's the plant from which the sacred drink is made.
Yeah, so it's customary to present that as a gift.
That plant root Kathryn brought is called Kava.
It's ground up to make a mind-blowing brew.
As the guests of honor, we're expected to drink.
And drink some more.
And some more.
I can't feel my tongue.
All so we can learn about Dakuwaqa.
Oh, it's me.
This is my kind of research.
Now the moment of truth.
From now on, you are one of the village.
You can build your house here.
That means we can start to unravel the mysteries of a powerful sea god.
The song is about Dakuwaqa himself.
It's a sacred song performed for generations in Dakuwaqa's honor.
Now, it's entrusted to us.
We're no longer guests.
We're fellow villagers and all doors are open to us.
How are we doing this morning? The next morning, after our Kava heads have cleared Good to see you.
Welcome on board.
How are you, Kathryn? Papa is ready to answer our questions about the legend of Dakuwaqa.
This sea god, he was just a human being.
Right.
He was just a human being.
He was a man.
A nice man, beautiful nice man.
When he died, many people who are still alive in those days, they worship his spirit.
Why? Because he was the leader of the fishermen.
Because they love him so much, they worship his spirit.
They worship, day and night.
Suddenly, he comes back.
All right? But not a human.
As a shark.
As shark.
Papa's a professional shark diver but he enters the water with no fear.
Dakuwaqa is always near.
We know that this god, he protect us.
Okay.
In the ocean, wherever He protect us.
Protects you.
I see hundreds of sharks.
"Hi! Hi, guys!" Just, "Hello!" Yeah, just like that.
You're not afraid of them, they're not afraid of you.
Clearly, this is more than a simple bedtime story.
People here have so much faith in their sea god, they're willing to risk their lives every day.
I'm hoping Dakuwaqa has our backs too.
We're about to get up close and personal with the biggest, most vicious sharks around.
We need to decide which species to use as a starting point for building our 3D Dakuwaqa.
You have a lot of sharks around you.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
What's the biggest one you've seen there? How big? 6½ m? Yeah.
6½ m? Scarface? Scarface.
If you're going down too quickly, I will basically hang on to you.
This is Kathryn's first time diving with sharks.
In just a few minutes, she'll be surrounded by them.
How many sharks, did you say? How many sharks are down there? Yeah.
Of which species? The grand total.
The grand total, maybe 100.
100, 100 sharks.
But you won't even look at the small ones.
No.
Once you've seen the big ones.
This is insane.
Is it a bad thing to be shaking? I'm going to bring this little camera with us.
Oh, good.
And we'll be able to send that back to the guys.
All right, are we ready? Aye.
Let's go.
We have no cages, nothing but wetsuits between us and the sharks' teeth.
These sharks are used to being fed by local divers, but they are wild animals and unpredictable.
Can you hear me? I can hear you.
Can you hear me? I hear you.
30' from the surface, we're in the shark zone.
I really want to see some bull sharks.
They're one of the most aggressive shark species in the world.
Worse even than great whites.
The way they attack is that they tend to circle and bump into their prey and that can be humans as well.
Their sizing them up and then they'll just take a big lump out of you.
And they'll just keep circling, coming back and nailing you and nailing you.
Whoa, bull sharks, over there! They coming right at us! Kathryn and I are in very deep water, here in the South Pacific, as some 15' bull sharks head right for us.
Whoa! Look at that! We're here to investigate the shark god, Dakuwaqa.
These guys will put the fear of god in anyone.
Dakuwaqa is supposed to be a powerful looking animal.
You can't get much more powerful than these.
They're very chunky.
They're not very hydrodynamic.
They don't look like they can swim particularly quick.
But if one of these things came up and bumped you, oh my God, you would just absolutely crap yourself.
We need a good look at the teeth.
Dakuwaqa should have the most ferocious jaws in the ocean.
Oh yeah, look at the size of that mouth.
That's enormous.
Cool.
All right, so I guess that's where we start.
I think it's a great place to start.
They're massive.
They feel like they're really heavy.
The teeth is really important.
It's hard to see the teeth sometimes because they're so busy going after these fish.
We'll figure out the teeth later.
For now, let's go with the bull shark body.
I mean, I like the girth and the weight that is has on it.
But it's not just any bull shark.
It has to be different.
This is the chosen one of sharks, you know.
This is the one.
I think Francis is on the right track.
According to the legend, Dakuwaqa is far more than a shark.
He's bigger, stronger, smarter.
An all-powerful arbiter of the ocean.
Kathryn and I have decided to divide and conquer to find out more about his godly powers.
What can you tell me about Dakuwaqa, in terms of powers? By biting them in the sea? Okay, it can be sent after people Yeah.
Okay.
Good, good, good, good, good.
The Shark God.
" And this is what all the children learn.
So, the young woman reading to me from this textbook talks about the story where there's a war between clans, a war between gods and the upshot is a guy from another place, a Tongan, mouths off to Dakuwaqa, he insults Dakuwaqa, who had actually been busy protecting people, and then Dakuwaqa eats him.
"Dakuwaqa never forgets an insult.
" You know, if you bug the guy, he's going to eat you.
That's the bottom line.
So, basically, Dakuwaqa is like an all-seeing, all-knowing god.
He just patrols the ocean and just sees everything that's going on in it.
It's almost like he's super smart in that he can pick and choose who he goes after.
Well, sharks are pretty smart.
I mean, I'm not saying they can discriminate between good and evil, but they're actually very good at sizing up their prey and knowing when to go and when not to.
And that's partly because they have such amazing senses.
I mean, they can sense more than humans can.
So, we got to give this shark some super powered senses to make him the ultimate predator.
I think what we need to do then is see these senses in action.
And I know just the place, somewhere we can get our hands on some sharks, literally: A remote research station on a small island in the Bahamas called Bimini.
In the past 20 years, this tiny place has built a worldwide reputation for research into the biology of sharks.
It's one of the world's centers for shark research.
We need to learn about the different kinds of senses.
I mean, it's really the senses that make sharks the amazing predators they are.
And Doc Gruber is just legendary for his expertise about sharks, his knowledge about shark diversity.
Hello, gentlemen.
You must be Doc Gruber.
Last time I checked.
Are we ready to go play with sharks? We are.
Let's get to it.
Sharks have an uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere when there's prey.
That could have given rise to a shark god that is all-seeing and all-knowing.
And there's a biological basis.
Sharks have super senses that were designed to detect moving things in the water.
Even if they can't see us, they know we're there, something the Navy figured out long ago.
During the Cold War, Canadian and American Navies had submarines out there that had eyes and ears which were long towed acoustical arrays that put out electric fields.
So, these guys would just barrel at the submarine? They don't barrel at the submarine.
They detect the submarine from some distance away because the submarine produces a huge electric field and they'd bite it.
Living creatures emit electrical fields too, which sharks use to find us.
With Doc Gruber, we've designed a device to show exactly how this super power works.
Smelly fish juice will come out one end and electric field will come out the other.
Sharks are like swimming noses.
They have an exquisite sense of smell.
But up close, an electric field may be an even bigger draw.
To a shark, it means live prey.
But first, we have to attract the sharks with something that emits electricity.
Apparently, that's me.
Actually, this is a good time for me to tell you I can't swim.
You can't swim? I can't swim.
Oh, that's ridiculous.
It's time to go in the water.
That sounds like a challenge, so I'm going in.
Doc Gruber swears these sharks rarely attack humans, which is not all that comforting right now.
Just go right over to the line, you're okay.
Go to the line.
Just go right over to the line, you're okay.
Go to the line.
Francis can't swim, but he has bigger things to worry about.
Help him.
Help him, Sean.
He's getting all freaked out.
Bimini has reef sharks.
Stay in there, guys, stay in there.
Stay in there.
Stay together.
Stay close together.
Francis, stay close together to Scott.
They're bumping us, they're bumping the camera.
They're being drawn in by the weak electric field we've produced.
You can't help but think that if it was Dakuwaqa coming at me, I would be freaking my pants, dude.
You weren't doing a bad job your pants with a little 8' reef shark either.
Now that we've attracted the shark's attention, we can get to the real experiment.
We're going to look at a hierarchy of senses: Smell versus electric field.
All right, the apparatus is going in.
That's it.
First, some fish juice.
Wow, that stuff is really visible.
It's so pink! Okay, let's send some electricity down the device.
Let's push that button.
Turn the thing on and let's see what happens.
Okay, it's on.
Yeah, he went to it.
Wow, that's amazing.
They're going for the electric field instead of the fish juice.
Bite the electrodes.
Okay, that was pretty good.
Whoa! They're biting at the camera because the camera puts out a nice little electric field.
The sharks are using an amazing sense that's completely alien to humans.
Tiny electro receptors, so small you can't even see them, are built into the snout.
They send signals to the brain, telling the shark exactly where to attack in close range.
That's the kind of super power that would inspire a god.
Uo, what I was thinking for Dakuwaqa is that to visually really show these electrodes working, you know, maybe protruding the snout a little more just to exaggerate the front part of the head.
Dakuwaqa is a shark god.
So, it has powers that no other creature has.
You can have the snout expand, you can have the shark become more alert.
The electro receptors are a start but they only work in close range.
Dakuwaqa can track prey down from a distance.
There's a biological explanation for that too: Another god-like sensory ability of sharks.
We're looking for something called the lateral lines.
Is there, like, any visual markings Yes, yes.
Right, lateral line is a jelly-filled canal that runs the whole length of the body.
And then these little ts feed that canal.
Now, if you look very closely at that, you can see little pores and you can see it go down the body.
Yeah, I see that, all along there.
Little black dots, black dots, black dots.
There, there, there, there, there.
Those tiny dots are filled with sensory cells that pick up minute vibrations in the water.
In combination with an acute sense of hearing, they tell the shark where the prey is and which way it's moving.
So, even at a distance, a shark can hunt you down.
So, to enhance certain things on him for our Dakuwaqa, we would have to go skin deep Well, it might not show up in the morphology.
It may show up more in the behavior.
Yeah, but you could make Dakuwaqa have a big, elaborate lateral line.
The lateral line would be It's quite faint, you know.
It's not very visible.
And I think if we just exaggerate the way it looks by making it larger, perhaps it will be just more menacing.
You know, so, do a bunch.
So, Dakuwaqa now has an awesome sensory surveillance system.
If you're out there, he'll find you, no doubt.
But the scariest part the attack.
And that is all about the teeth.
That's their only weapon, really, sharks.
It's all teeth.
It's all teeth, yeah.
On our last dive, we gave Dakuwaqa the basic body plan of a bull shark.
But we didn't get a detailed look at the teeth.
So, we're going down to the ocean floor to find some.
Then we can decide if bull shark teeth are the best bet for our beast.
There are fish bones, bits of a carcass.
It's like a veritable graveyard.
A-ha, there we go.
Take a look at that.
That's a top tooth.
That's a cutting tooth.
That's a good start.
There's another one here.
That is a That's a bottom tooth.
So, we've got the matching pair there.
They don't look worthy of a shark god in size or form, do they? Let's check this out.
Yeah, I don't think these teeth are right for Dakuwaqa.
That's kind of the most important part.
That's the scariest part of them, those big, sawing teeth.
They need to be the size of my head, at least.
Exactly.
We need bigger, more ferocious teeth for Dakuwaqa.
Scott and I are in Gainesville, FL, shopping for the biggest, baddest shark teeth on the planet, teeth to fit the most fearsome beast in Fijian waters: The shark god Dakuwaqa.
If we're talking Mega Jaws, this museum is the place to be.
Oh, we got sharks, that's for sure.
Oh, wow.
This is amazing.
It is one of the world's largest collections of sharks' teeth.
And this is the guy to talk to.
George runs the International Shark Attack File.
Basically, if a shark bites a human, he figures out who did it.
I've never seen this many shark jaws in one place.
It turns out every shark species has slightly different teeth.
George uses them like a fingerprint I.
D.
This is a bull here.
This is what Steve and Kathryn were looking at in Fiji.
Boy, look at the serrations on those teeth.
These big species, like whites and tigers and bulls, they all have serrations on the teeth.
Those teeth are like little steak knife edges on 'em.
You could imagine, when this thing goes like this, that becomes saw-like.
I like the triangular shape, but I'm not sure these are powerful enough for Dakuwaqa.
So many rows of teeth.
It's incredible.
What happens is each of these rows rotates outwards.
It's like a conveyor belt.
So, when this thing breaks, these thing just rotate out? Precisely.
This is, like, pretty cool but is there something, like, bigger.
Well, we do have a recreation of a megalodon jaw.
That sounds like it might be what we're looking for.
Can we go see that? Yeah.
Megalodon was the biggest, deadliest shark that ever lived, a vicious apex predator that ruled the oceans until it went extinct about 2 million years ago.
Some scientists estimate it weighed 150,000 lbs.
, 30 times the weight of a great white.
This is more like it.
No one knows exactly how big it was, or what it looked like.
Virtually all we have are the teeth.
These are massive teeth.
These are real teeth.
These were real fossils, each and every one.
These aren't recreations out of plastic or anything.
I notice too that it's not serrated like the No, there's a little serration here.
There's some fine serrations.
But what happens, remember, over time, those things kind of get worn off, because these are fossils.
Some of these teeth are 7" long, the biggest shark teeth ever found, six times the size of a bull shark's.
They're perfect for Dakuwaqa.
Using the jaw as a guide, we can scale up our beast.
I want to stay within the size limits dictated by biology.
So, Dakuwaqa shouldn't be any bigger than Megalodon.
How big is this? That's 6½' across.
Okay, 6½' across.
6½'? So, it's 6' up, right? What would the length of This shark would be? This would be about 60' long.
We'll go with a bull shark's body shape, scaled up to the size of a Megalodon.
It's opening kind of You've got to go like that.
We're going to have to look carefully at proportions.
It's got to have a bit of a belly.
Plus, you have a dorsal fin, a big, tall dorsal fin.
There's another, smaller fin there, a second dorsal fin.
And then, of course, you've got a pair of fins, one on each side over here, that actually come back like this, along the side.
Oh, okay, it comes more sideways.
Yeah, there you go.
Megalodon fed on whales, dolphins and other fast moving prey, so it must have moved fairly quickly.
I'm thinking it had a really big tail fin.
This shape is important because the difference between a bull shark tail and that of a white shark or a megalodon would be the megalodon or white would have had an equal size lower lobe.
That's the sign of an animal that can move very fast.
If you were, like, creating something bad-ass, you would probably want to give it something like that.
Why not? Put afterburners on it.
See, now we're thinking the same thing, right? What we really need now, I think, we need to visualize this thing.
We have a good idea of its dimensions.
What we need now is to, um, really make it material, make it real so we can get an idea of exactly how big it was.
My plan is to build our Dakuwaqa in the sand, exactly to scale, to see just how scary it must look.
This looks like a good spot for us too get the sculpture going.
I wonder if I can park here.
All right, let's go to it.
All right.
So, that's yours.
I know I came up with the idea, but 10' of sand going up is kind of It's a lot of digging.
Now that Scott and Francis have sized up the beast, my plan is to find out where our 60' shark god lives.
According to the locals, Dakuwaqa left his birthplace on Beqa and now rules the waters around the island of Taveuni.
Right, I'm flying solo today.
Kathryn developed an inner ear problem on our last dive, so she'll catch up with me later.
Okay, so I landed on the island of Taveuni and we're going to a village of Somosomo.
I'm struggling to remember all of these names.
But that's the village that belongs to the people that some refer to as the shark clan.
Dakuwaqa is said to have followed fishermen to this region hundreds of years ago.
He made a home near the village and has been their protector ever since.
They call themselves the shark clan in his honor.
I need to find out exactly where their shark god lives.
It'll take about 150 tons of Florida sand to build our big beach Dakuwaqa.
How do you move that much sand with just a couple of shovels? You don't.
This is awesome.
I brought some help.
This is amazing.
You can still keep shoveling though.
So, this is Dave.
We need the bulldozer, but the guy who came with it is just as important.
How do you build a giant shark fin out of sand anyway? It's going to slope.
Exactly.
I'm happy with that height there.
Since we're drawing a crowd, I figure we might as well sign up some recruits.
Hey, you guys want to help us sculpt a shark? Do we have any more volunteers over there? All right, here we go.
What about you guys? Can we put the Labrador to work? If we can just pour the water in here This will be a massive tail fin.
More water.
How you guys doing back there? More water.
It's not even a matter of when we're going to get it done or think we're going to get it done.
We have to get it done.
The question is how.
The tide is moving in fast.
We have one hour to get the job done before the waves are on top of us, destroying our beast.
We need to add a bit more around the dorsal fin, slim that down.
So our ace team of volunteers is picking up the pace and putting in the hard labor so we can finish off this beast in time.
This is like the pyramids of Egypt, thousands of people.
I've made it to the edge of the shark clan's village.
Dakuwaqa is said to live in the waters nearby.
Now I need to convince the elders to take me to his home.
I know what that means, another sevusevu ceremony.
Few people speak English on a remote island like this, so I brought a translator to state my case.
Hang on this doesn't look anything like the last ceremony: No dancing, no drinking.
I think this means my request will be granted and one of the villagers will take me to Dakuwaqa's home.
That looks great.
I think we did awesome.
It's nice to see it from here, but I think it would be even nicer to get a true sense of scale, to see it from up there.
How are you going to get that perspective? I'm going to borrow that lady's board and parachute up.
No.
We'll figure something out.
Scott, come in.
Can you hear me? I can hear you, Francis.
What do you want me to do to get some scale on this shark? Scott, why don't you get down in front of its mouth and pretend like it's about to eat you.
Nice.
That looks so freaking awesome, dude.
It is so scary, dude.
If you ever see that out in the ocean Man.
Wouldn't want to see this thing live, that's for sure.
I'm heading towards the place locals revere as Dakuwaqa's home.
My guide is a village elder named Charlie.
Round island.
Just a round island.
This doesn't look like a sea god's home.
It's nowhere near as impressive as I'd hoped.
We go there.
Yeah.
But an island makes some sense.
Dakuwaqa does leave his shark form behind at times.
This must be his home on land.
Here, come here.
Okay.
Come and see the sea snake.
Oh, yes.
It's a black-banded sea krait, one of the world's most venomous snakes.
Now, that is interesting because that fits the story.
According to legend, Dakuwaqa is a shape shifter.
He can be a man or a snake, /E as well as a shark.
In his snake form, this species fits the bill.
Up to 12' long, its bite can kill you in as little as 15 minutes.
They have flattened tails to enable them to swim.
It slips into the water, hunts amongst the coral.
But we're building Dakuwaqa in his shark form, his main incarnation.
Charlie tells me that, as a shark, Dakuwaqa lives in an underwater cave nearby.
He agrees to take me there.
Okay, it's time to size up our beast.
Can you make the human lie down? Because I was lying down.
Yeah, not a problem.
So, if we put him right up close Okay.
Yeah, that's about the right scale.
I would not want to be lying there if this was on the beach.
Scott did.
Pull it down so that we can recreate what I saw.
It's like that.
Look how huge that is! That's about right.
That's what I saw from up there.
Yeah, I can imagine.
So, it looks like we have our scale.
Absolutely.
It's looking really good.
All right, now we need to know where he lives so I can bring him to life in his natural environment.
So, this is the moment I've been waiting for.
I'm finally heading to Dakuwaqa's underwater home.
And Kathryn has caught up with me just in time.
This underwater sort of cave, trench, hole, whatever it is, could be the spot to have a look at.
Okay.
A cave makes sense to me.
Lots of big sharks rest in caves, including bull sharks.
They'll return to the same cave time and again.
That sounds like home to me.
So, who knows what we'll find tucked away in some dark corner of the ocean.
Oh, I'm so jealous.
Kathryn still isn't cleared to dive, so it's all up to me.
Steve, can you hear me okay down there? Yes, I can hear you.
Can you hear me? Over.
Absolutely.
You're coming in loud and clear.
Over.
See any sharks? Bit thin on the shark front at the moment.
Dakuwaqa's cave should have a strong current to keep water moving over the gills.
It's good for the sharks because they can breathe without moving much.
Not so good for me though.
I could get sucked right in.
Kathryn? Kathryn, can you hear me? Steve, can you hear me okay down there? Can you hear me now, Kathryn? Yes, I can.
There we go.
I think I've found the legendary cave where locals say the shark god Dakuwaqa lives.
It's big, it's hidden away, but what's inside? It sounds like the perfect place for a shark to hang out.
He can relax and rest up before a hunt.
So, finally, we've figured out where Dakuwaqa lives, the last piece of our puzzle.
So, it's farewell Fiji.
We've got a beast movie to watch.
I'm picking up a biologic, sir, heading straight at us.
It's huge! Could pass for a whale.
What is that thing? Begin countdown.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Whoa! Damage report! Port ballast ruptured! Launch second torpedo.
Get that thing out of here.
Starboard, 45°.
Bring her about.
Bring her about.
He's coming at us! Brace for impact.
Communications down.
Launch emergency transponder.
We're going down! We're going down! Nice.
That's all right.
I think we nailed it, guys.
The key to building this beast: making it unlike any other shark known to man.
By giving our Dakuwaqa a bull shark's body, a Megalodon size and super senses, we got ourselves a beast legend.