Correct answer above; explanation here:

Your regex uses .*. Expressed in language other than the technically correct form what you'll find (and you should) in perldoc perlretut and friends: that's a 'greedy' form -- it matches anything, any number of times, until it gets to the LAST data which would match the NEXT element in the regex. The addition of the ? changes the rule -- in this case, to match anything any number of times but AS FEW AS POSSIBLE before any instance of the NEXT element in the regex.

Hope this helps.