They prance and trot around the wolves, their gait like an ancient dance, as if to show off their strength and speed. The largest females sometimes surround the wolves by running around them in circles. The caribou keep themselves to open ground for visibility of their predators. Throughout this journey, their constant companions the wolf packs trail them ceaselessly. The males, without antlers at this time of year, follow the lead of the females. As winter sets in in the Northern tundra, the female caribou with their antlers, eight weeks pregnant, guide the herd to begin the annual pilgrimage. The senior female members are the leaders of the matriarchic society that are the caribou. Driven by the demands of motherhood, they travel 3000 miles on a trek from their winter range at the edge of the northern forests to calving grounds and back again.

Are these the long lost ancestors of the Pharaoh's crocodiles - alive and well?Īcross the top of North America, millions of caribou are led on their never-ending journey by the mothers of the herd. Or so it was thought.Then there came mysterious sightings of crocodiles emerging from strange places in north Africa away from the Egyptian Nile. I'd found a temple to Sebek - the crocodileheaded deity.' Despite their revered status in ancient Egypt, the crocodiles in the river Nile were all hunted out by the 1800s, and the Pharaoh's crocodiles were lost forever. 'They emerged from the eggs, to be reared in the pool before being sacrificed and mummified. 'The temple was a nursery for sacred crocodiles,' she says incredulously. And right next to it, in a small depression hewn into the floor - thirty perfectly preserved crocodile eggs. Last year, while excavating a 5,000 year old temple buried by Egyptian sands, archaeologist Edda Bresciani unearthed a sacred chamber - with an unexpected secret.There in the center of the room, gleamed an iridescent pool of emerald water. Life in Mikumi National Park is certainly not easy but their inherited hierarchy means there is little need for these baboons to fight. Research into the lives of these 'wild women' of Viramba shows that living in a group can work if all members cooperate. To see how the young might cope when taking their mothers' places at the top and bottom of the troop, we follow the pregnancies of both Kitovu and Heshima. Interestingly, female offspring automatically inherit their mother's rank. Young Kibete faces one catastrophe after another with amazing resilience. Old Heshima, humble in her position at the bottom of the ladder, is the guide of the family and leads the troop to the best sources of food and water in the dry season. She discovered that they had established a strict hierarchy in order to keep daily life running smoothly. Researcher Holly Carroll has come to understand the troop, which is controlled by its female members. Almost every day for the past 25 years, the Viramba troop of yellow baboons have been accompanied by scientists in one of the most extensive primate research projects ever conducted.

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