[00:00.650]Out in the open ocean, they hatch into larvae
[00:04.650]and become part of the vast plankton soup
[00:09.300]And it's not just fish that depend on the whim of the open ocean to disperse their larvae
[00:14.130]Land crabs and other crustaceans do too
[00:18.980]But there's a deadline They each have a set number of days to reach new islands
[00:25.780]Astonishingly,these larvae are able to home in on the smells and sounds of distant reefs
[00:33.480]Out of the millions of larvae that set off only a small fraction will succeed in colonising new islands
[00:40.610]Curiously, some freshwater fish also spawn at sea
[00:45.500]and use the sea to help their larvae colonise rivers
[00:49.990]These freshwater eels in the Solomons began their lives hundreds of miles away
[00:55.040]possibly in a deep sea trench off New Guinea
[00:58.430]Yet as larvae and then elvers,they made their way into these freshwater pools
[01:06.220]and over 40 years,grew into two-metre giants