Professor Habakuk Tibatong makes his home on a volcanic island with his adopted son Tim Tintenklecks and helps teach all the island animals the proper way to speak. One day, a glacier floats onto the island with an egg frozen inside of it. When the creature inside finally breaks his way out, the professor is excited to see a prehistoric creature, an Urmel, that was rumored to have lived but no evidence had ever been found of its existence. He had been studying the creature for quite some time and was therefore often ridiculed by the academic world. He sends a message to an arch rival academic of his to let him know that at long last proof of the Urmel has been found. The nemesis, Doctor Zwengelmann, immediately runs to his benefactor King Pumponell, an avid hunter of exotic animals. Excited at the prospect of a unique trophy, the king agrees to go in search of the Urmel to it bring back, dead or alive, for both to see. The members of the island have to race the clock to hide Urmel before it's too late.