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00:00To be continued...
07:56Insects are everywhere.
07:58There seems to be no limit to the variety of their shapes and their colours.
08:02Some prey on others.
08:04Most derive their sustenance from the trees.
08:06Collecting the seeds, sipping the nectar, sucking the sap and munching the leaves.
08:12Weaver ants use the leaves as walls for their nests.
08:36Workers with their feet hooked on one leaf lock their jaws on the edge of another and haul the two together.
08:42While they hold the leaves in position, other workers use the colony's grubs as tubes of glue, gently squeezing them so that they produce threads of sticky silk which they weave back and forth across the junction.
08:55Eventually they produce an enclosed globe within which they can rear their young.
09:04The insubstantial green terraces of the canopy are the pastures of the jungle and a multitude of creatures graze on them.
09:11These in South America are squirrel monkeys, but every jungle has its monkey troops that scamper with total confidence through the branches, fastidiously selecting the right kind of tree, the juiciest bud, or the particular shoot that most takes their fancy.
09:27There are no seasonal changes here comparable to winter and summer farther north, so there's no one time for the shedding and the renewal of leaves.
09:45Neither is there any particular season for flowering.
09:48In this eternal summer, trees vary greatly in their flowering cycles. Some bloom every 10 months, others every 14. A few may only flower once in a decade, but the rhythm is far from haphazard.
10:03For all the individuals of one species in the forest produce their flowers at about the same time as they must if they are to cross-pollinate one another.
10:18With so little breeze within the canopy, the trees can't rely on the wind to do the work of pollination. Most depends on insects and other animals, bribing them with lavish feasts of pollen and nectar.
10:33Bigger creatures have to be persuaded to transport the heavier seeds. Their rewards are the fruits. Birds do much of this work during the day, swallowing the entire fruit, digesting the flesh and voiding the seeds later and elsewhere.
10:56At night, other creatures take on the job.
11:00The majority of bats eat insects, but in the tropics, many have specialised in collecting fruit and live on nothing else.
11:11There are a great number of different kinds of figs in the jungle, each with its own fruiting rhythm.
11:29Since the bats are such accomplished fliers, they can range far over the jungle and can always find figs of some kind ripe somewhere.
11:38Some feast on them in the trees. Many prefer to carry them away and feed in the familiar safety of their roosts.
11:45Trees can be cropped in many different ways. The pygmy marmoset has specialised in collecting sap. The front teeth in its lower jaw project forward and with them it scrapes away the bark, causing the sap to run.
12:10Marmosets live in families, each with its own territory in the branches, and each has at least one of these sap wells, which the family carefully keeps open and productive and vigorously defends.
12:37Still though the air is, it carries the microscopic spores of ferns and mosses, which lodge in the crevices of the tree bark and sprout.
12:52As they flourish and decay, their remains accumulate into a compost on which other plants can grow.
12:59Their dangling roots collect moisture from the humid air. And so the broad branches become balconies loaded with orchids and bromeliads.
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13:23Bromelians are relations of the pineapple, and each one has its own population of animal lodges.
13:53The rosette of leaves forms a chalice that is always full of water, a useful drinking
14:05place for the canopy animals.
14:19For some frogs, it's more than that.
14:21It's a nursery.
14:23This little female arrow poison frog laid her eggs on a leaf.
14:27As they hatched, she allowed a tadpole to wriggle up onto her moist back.
14:32Now she must find a pond for it to swim in.
14:55She reverses into the water and allows the surface tension to pull her tadpole off.
15:03Several species of arrow poison frog use bromeliads like this, and most regard their parental responsibilities
15:08as being over at this stage.
15:10Titos are likely to lay here, so with luck, there should be some wriggling larvae for
15:14the tadpole to feed on.
15:17But this frog doesn't take that chance.
15:20Every three or four days, she returns to every plant where she left the tadpole, and in each,
15:26she lays more eggs.
15:34But these are not fertile, they are food for the tadpole, and will sustain it until it's
15:38big enough to catch insects for itself.
15:44For such frogs, like so many creatures up here, the canopy is a complete world, suspended
15:49above the surface of the earth that they never need leave.
15:58When you descend from the canopy, you leave behind the most densely populated part of the
16:03jungle, and enter a kind of aerial halfway house with spindly saplings, hanging lianas,
16:10and bare branchless trunks.
16:18Here I'm about halfway down, about 70 feet above the floor, midway between the seening
16:25of leaves in the canopy and the carpet of leaves down below.
16:31Up here there are very few leaves.
16:32These huge tree trunks don't sprout very many.
16:36There's nothing much but empty space.
16:39So very few creatures come here to feed.
16:42And apart from birds and some flying insects, the only creatures I'm likely to see are those
16:47that use these huge tree trunks and the dangling lianas as vertical highways between the world above and the world below.
16:59Snakes with no legs and claws with which to hold on might not seem to be well suited to climbing, but in fact some can ascend the vertical trunks with astonishing ease.
17:10The paradise tree snake of Borneo maintains its grip by pressing sideways with its coils and propels itself upwards by sending ripples down the line of angled backward pointing scales on its underside.
17:22But it has an even more unexpected accomplishment.
17:39By pulling its ribs forward, it fattens its body turning it from a rod into a ribbon so that it catches the air and by waving its coils it can to some extent control the direction of its glide.
17:58But in these Borneo forests there are even better gliders.
18:11This squirrel has a cloak of furry skin that stretches from its wrist to its ankle.
18:23When it's about its normal business, the skin looks a bit untidy, as though the animal were rather sloppily dressed.
18:29But when the squirrel leaps, then it becomes the very summit of gliding grace.
18:59Most other mammals in this midway zone travel from tree to tree along the lianas.
19:08Marmosets are capable jumpers and confidently leap a yard or so.
19:14But they're not always convinced that they can make it.
19:39The wakari is not nearly so athletic.
19:42It sometimes avoids too big a jump by throwing its weight back and forth on a sapling so that it sways and carries it across to the next tree.
20:03Few large creatures visit this middle part of the jungle to feed, for there are comparatively few leaves here.
20:09But lizards scuttle up and down the trunks, for there, as almost everywhere else, there are insects to be collected.
20:20Spiders hunt here too.
20:21These termites collected their food from rotting vegetation on the ground.
20:37They're laboriously carrying it all up here because it's up here within the trunks that they have built their nest.
20:43Other termites hang their nests from branches, and these are often commandeered by others.
20:58A bird originally dug this hole, but the bat took it over and now uses the termites' work as a convenient roost from which to hawk for insects.
21:07The pillar-like trunks of the huge trees provide homes for a few birds.
21:19A big bird, like a macaw, needs a nice open approach to its nest, and a hole here is relatively safe, for few non-flying robbers can reach it.
21:40This hole started when a dead branch fell, but the macaws have enlarged it greatly.
21:51They usually have just two chicks, but keeping them properly fed is a considerable labor, for they will stay in the nest hole for over three months.
21:59Like all parrots, macaws feed their young by regurgitating chewed up fruit from their crop.
22:21Both parents labor away, bringing loads of fruit throughout the day for its bulky food, and the youngsters need a great deal of it.
22:39Holes in tree trunks are very valuable properties.
22:52Only a few creatures can make them, but plenty will gladly move into them.
22:56So after one family has left, other creatures soon turn up to inspect the vacant property.
23:02The golden lion marmoset, like all its family, is incurably inquisitive.
23:10They may already have a hole of their own, but it's always worth inspecting alternative accommodation.
23:21And their curiosity has paid off.
23:23The hole contains a meal, a few cockroaches.
23:26As it approaches the ground, the huge creeper-swathed trunk of the kapok flares out into buttresses,
23:54which the tree needs for its stability, for its roots are very shallow.
24:02The fact is that the forest floor is not a very fertile place.
24:07This is partly because it's so dark, much of the light having been cut off by the tears of leaves up in the canopy,
24:14and partly because the torrential rains wash away much of the nutriment that is in the soil.
24:21So the roots of the kapok tree, and indeed of any other plant that goes down here,
24:27have to find their sustenance not deep in the soil, but from up on the surface.
24:33From this, in fact.
24:35From the litter of dead leaves that's continuously falling down to ground from above.
24:41And the processes which release that sustenance are, in fact, very swift.
24:47For down here, there is very little wind, so it's extremely humid.
24:51It's also very warm.
24:52And those two factors together suit the processes of decay very well.
24:57Bacteria and moulds work unceasingly.
25:03Fungi proliferate, spreading their filaments through the litter.
25:07Within days of a leaf landing, they creep all over it, breaking down its tissues,
25:12and returning the nutrients it contains back to the soil,
25:15where the roots of the trees, close to the surface, quickly reclaim them.
25:19And as the fungi themselves flourish, so they put up their spikes and umbrellas,
25:24from which they spread their spores through the jungle.
25:30The most spectacular of all growths on the forest floor is not a fungus, but a parasite.
25:35To find it, you must first discover its host,
25:38a particular species of vine that grows in Sumatra.
25:41If the plant is infected, then a huge, solid bud will periodically emerge from its roots.
25:49When it's swollen to the size of a cabbage, it slowly, over a period of four days, opens.
25:55Rafflesia.
26:08Its body is a network of filaments that run through the tissues of the vine, absorbing its sap.
26:14It has no stem or leaves of its own.
26:17The only time it becomes visible is when it puts out these monstrous flowers,
26:21the largest in the world.
26:25The petals are leathery and covered in raised, wharfy patches.
26:31It gives off a powerful smell, which to our noses is revolting,
26:35for it's the stench of rotting flesh.
26:38The local name for it is Bunga Bankai, corpse flower.
26:42But that smell is irresistibly attractive to flies which feed on carrion,
26:46and they flock here.
26:48It's they that pollinate the flower.
26:50The seeds are small and probably carried through the jungle
26:53on the hooves of pig or deer that might tread on the flower inadvertently,
26:57and later elsewhere kick the bark of another trailing vine stem,
27:01and so infect that with another rafflesia.
27:05The forest floor is littered with the debris of trees,
27:13huge fallen trunks, branches ripped off by a storm,
27:17and leaves falling in a steady gentle rain.
27:20It's here that the termites collect their food, removing it particle by particle,
27:25and carrying it away for treatment in their nest.
27:28Their incessant labour, like the work of the fungi,
27:34is a crucial link in the life of the forest,
27:36for the termites are bringing the nutrients in the wood back into circulation.
27:40Few other creatures can eat dead wood and leaves,
27:43but lots can eat termites.
27:49The workers are guarded by soldiers.
27:51This particular kind have nozzles on their heads
27:54from which they can squirt a sticky repellent.
27:59But they can do little against attacks from above.
28:02Spiders sling silken ropes across the marching columns,
28:05and hanging from them, lasso the workers, one at a time,
28:08and haul them up to be eaten in mid-air.
28:12A whip scorpion.
28:37He doesn't have a sting like a true scorpion,
28:40but then it scarcely needs it.
28:43The tip of its long antennae tell it where there's prey.
29:10To the island, a part of the island is a very rare citizen.
29:14The island is a meri come.
29:15The island is actually a very rare creature,
29:16the island is also an ace,
29:17and its great resource for the island is in the sea.
29:18The island is an ace,
29:19and the island is also a very rare creature.
29:21A prelude of a hill in its smallantae.
29:22And a place where there's a different species,
29:23as it does have a sea.
29:24However, there is a stone to the island is an ace.
29:25One of the islands are a great friends.
29:26The island is a great food of the island.
29:28The island is an ace and a great buddy.
29:31The island of the island is an ace.
29:33Yet another varied population of creatures lives within the leaf litter.
29:52Down here it's always moist, so soft-bodied, wet-skinned creatures can survive very well.
29:57A planarian worm smooths its way by laying down a carpet of slime.
30:09Peripetus, halfway between a worm and a millipede, and a hunter of spiders.
30:26Beetles, one of the few creatures, apart from termites, that eat rotting wood.
30:41Such inhabitants of the litter are, in turn, food for hunters from beneath the soil.
30:51A blind, legless, burrowing lizard.
31:10Not all these leaf and wood feeders are defenseless.
31:14This phasmid, a large, flightless, prickly stick insect, has a powerful kick.
31:23It gives warning of its strength by rattling its useless wing covers.
31:35The smaller, less savage litter feeders are collected by little mammals that trot through
31:53the leaves, deftly snapping up a termite here, a beetle there.
31:58In the Madagascar rainforest, a tenrec, a more distant cousin of the European hedgehog than
32:04its count of prickles would suggest.
32:13In African forests, the elephant shrew, highly strung, skittish, prone to career off at suicidal
32:20speed if it's startled.
32:22Its long, sensitive trunk enables it to investigate the depths of the leaf litter with the minimum
32:26of noise and disturbance.
32:34But there is one inhabitant of the forest floor who makes more varied use of more parts of
32:38the jungle than any other.
32:45Human beings have lived here for tens of thousands of years, perfecting the techniques and accumulating
32:50the knowledge that enables them to meet all their needs from the jungle.
32:54The Huarani in Ecuador, or Auca as they used to be called, are among the few people left who
33:00have not abandoned any of their ancient skills.
33:03Their favourite fruit is chonta, a kind of palm, but its trunk is armoured with the most
33:08ferocious spines and impossible to climb.
33:12The Huarani know how to deal with that.
33:14Lash a small stick to the end of a pole with a strip of bark, put a ring of lianas around
33:19your ankles, and then climb a smooth-barked cecropia tree growing alongside the unscalable chonta.
33:26The cecropia doesn't grow next door to the chonta by accident.
33:48The Huarani plant one beside every chonta tree they find, clearing a space for it so that
33:54it can get sufficient sunshine to grow.
33:56Within only a few years, it's stout enough to be climbed.
34:08The Huarani know their individual chonta trees as well, if not better, than a fruit farmer
34:13knows those in his orchard.
34:15And they visit them regularly.
34:17They grow all over the jungle, and often the people have to make long journeys to collect
34:20their fruit and walk for hours carrying the heavy stems back to their huts.
34:29Chonta can be eaten in all kinds of ways, except one, raw.
34:33It has to be cooked.
34:36The Huarani now have a few metal cooking pots, but they still make some from clay, coiled
34:40and then baked in an open fire.
34:43Hammocks are woven from palm fibre, cups and basins made from gourds, and the hut itself
34:48from branches thatched with leaves.
34:53The pet parrot eats its chonta raw.
34:55The family are going to get theirs as a kind of alcoholic porridge, and the cook chews it,
35:01adding her own spittle so that it'll ferment.
35:07The pallet chicks also take their chonta, pre-chewed, from their foster parents' mouths, just as
35:12they would from the beaks of their real parents.
35:16The people traditionally are entirely naked, except for a string around their waist.
35:21In these temperatures, clothes are not needed for warmth.
35:24But the Huarani take great pride in their appearance, and need little excuse to decorate
35:28themselves.
35:30The seeds of the achiote plant, when squashed, produce a vivid red paint.
35:35Black comes from charcoal, mixed with the juice of the geniper plant.
35:42Face and body painting will last a long time, for like many Follis people, the Huarani sweat
35:48very little.
35:49In the humid air, sweat doesn't so readily evaporate and cool the body as it does for
35:53people elsewhere.
35:54And the Huarani's skin doesn't produce it in great quantity.
36:01A vine is the source of that famous poison curare, with which the Huarani tip their blowpike
36:07darts.
36:08Scrapings from it are wrapped in leaves, and water poured through the mash to dissolve out
36:12poison.
36:19The darts are made from slivers of palm wood.
36:24An old steel knife has been obtained from outsiders by barter, and is a treasured possession.
36:29But even now, the Huarani may do this job with a stone blade, or an animal tooth.
36:42The curare has been boiled down into a sticky paste.
36:45Carefully, each dart is tipped with it, and then put in front of the fire to dry.
37:05Fibres from the seeds of the kapok tree, deftly twirled round the back end of the dart,
37:10will give it an airtight fit in the barrel of the blowpipe.
37:16In Huarani hands, it's lethally accurate.
37:26Hunters communicate with one another in the forest by using the buttresses of the giant trees.
37:31such thumps are audible for miles, and in forests where you can't see for more than a few yards
37:44around you, sound is much the best form of communication.
37:53The jungle animals certainly exploit it to proclaim their territorial rights and to summon their mates.
37:59whoopens the forest
38:03the jungle and to summon their enemies.
38:06To be able to summon their own animals.
38:09The jungle animals can watch.
38:12No.
38:14The jungle animals can keep wanting to fly if they run away.
38:17They're less thanapolis, and the jungle animals can still move.
38:20They have to stop.
38:21In each jungle, there's one mammal up in the canopy,
38:42which has become the champion singer.
38:45In Madagascar, the Indri lemur.
38:47In South America, the howler monkey.
38:49And in South East Asia, the gibbon.
38:54The Siamang, with a huge resonating throat sack to amplify its voice,
38:58has the loudest call of all gibbons.
39:01Families sing to one another across the valleys.
39:19Sound is not so effective beside a thundering waterfall.
39:36So one frog that lives in such a place in Borneo uses sign language.
39:40Tree lizards up in the branches, where they can easily see all over their small territory,
40:06use a flag on their throat.
40:08Many birds use both media, sound and vision.
40:19These calls echoing across the Borneo forest are invitations to one of the most spectacular theatrical performances
40:25in any jungle, anywhere.
40:27The display will take place on a stage that has been carefully cleared and cleaned by the dancer.
40:40It's an Argus pheasant.
40:51The cock has summoned a hen with his cause, and now he leads her to his display ground.
40:56The immense fans lined with eyespots are the greatly elongated feathers of his wing covers.
41:15now he's got his wing covers.
41:17He's got his wing covers.
41:27We've got his wing covers.
41:28ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS
41:58Some of the jungle floor come from another family, the Katingas,
42:01and one of them, the Cock of the Rock, performs in competitive groups.
42:07As many as 40 male birds assemble in one patch of the forest,
42:11but each has its own cleared arena on the ground beneath him.
42:15The performers squabble among themselves while they wait for their audience.
42:29And here it is, just one, a single drab female.
42:46The dancers descend, each to his own stage.
43:04The dance itself consists of little more than a few bobs and bounces
43:09in the shafts of sunshine that spotlight the stages,
43:13though there may be squabbles among the performers during the course of it.
43:22The dance itself consists of little more than a few bobs and bounces
43:26in the shafts of sunshine that spotlight the stages,
43:29though there may be squabbles among the performers during the course of it.
43:32The female may or may not be impressed by the relative merit of the costumes
43:48or the dance steps, but in some way she makes a selection.
44:04A tap on the back of the winner, and he claims his prize.
44:07The jungle is a very stable, unvarying place.
44:35There's no wind down here.
44:37The humidity and the temperature remains very much the same.
44:40Even the length of the days and the nights remains almost the same
44:44throughout the year down here on the equator.
44:46And what's more, it's a very ancient place, too.
44:50Mountains get eroded by glaciers within thousands of years.
44:55Plains turn into deserts inside centuries.
44:58Lakes fill up with mud and become swamps inside decades.
45:02But the jungle is millions of years old.
45:05And that may be an explanation of one of its most extraordinary characteristics,
45:09the great diversity of animals and plants that are found here.
45:13It's as though this great age has enabled the forces of nature
45:17to produce specialised creatures to live in every tiny niche
45:22in this ancient and stable environment.
45:24Just consider, for example, how many creatures have developed
45:31not just a generalised camouflage, but a close and precise impersonation.
45:37A young stick insect looks like a poisonous ant.
45:50Yet, when it grows up, it becomes a prickly twig.
45:56A beetle has become a winged seed.
46:09A bug dresses itself in a costume of lichen.
46:13A mantis is a dead leaf.
46:20A lizard, dappled foliage.
46:28Leaves, twigs, tendrils and stems.
46:34Some fresh, some green, some apparently blotched with mould.
46:39None vegetable or animal.
46:43So as these wonderful plants do not have to become more human.
46:46So what about a unique animal?
46:50A solid plant is a21-158m plant.
46:52A 2021 plant, not only vegetable, but a tree,
46:55a plant is one of the seeds.
46:58A plant is a plant in a seed.
47:01It's a plant in a seed.
47:03The plant is a plant-beer.
47:05The plant is also a plant in a seed.
47:09It's a plant in a seed.
47:10It's a plant in a seed.
47:12A stump on a branch, no, a bird on its nest, a poitou.
47:36The fertility of the jungle depends not only on sunshine, but on rain.
47:41And nowhere does it fall more abundantly than here in the tropics.
47:45A big storm is preceded by a violent gale, which for a few minutes lashes the tall trees and rocks the canopy.
47:55The huge heavy drops begin to fall first slowly and then in drenching torrents.
48:11In places, the floor of the forest becomes a flood, sweeping in sheets through the trees down to the rivers.
48:25When the storm has passed, then the blessings of the water it has brought can be enjoyed.
48:49The jaguar is an excellent swimmer and seems positively to enjoy doing so, for it's seldom found far from water.
49:02It actually hunts as it wades, catching crocodiles and frogs and even fish.
49:08One of the small creatures which certainly doesn't enjoy a soaking manages to pass the storm in perfect dryness
49:27and is still snug in its remarkable shelter.
49:31The leaf of this heliconia is hanging in an unnaturally protective way.
49:37The creatures lodging beneath have bitten through the veins along the midrib
49:40so that the two sides flop down around it and keep out the splashes.
49:45It's a pair of white tent-making bats.
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50:14The storm has brought water to the thirsty.
50:33It has knocked down valuable fruit for the hungry,
50:37well worth storing for a later date.
50:39But it can also bring death to the aged.
50:46A giant kapok has fallen.
51:10Maybe it had lost one of its huge branches from decay
51:13and was already badly out of balance before the storm.
51:17The great weight of water hanging on its foliage
51:20was finally more than it could carry.
51:22The death of this old tree was the starting gun for a feverish race.
51:31The death of this old tree was the starting gun for a feverish race.
51:46The competitors are the spindly seedlings
51:50mostly buried under this wreckage of branches.
51:53Had this tree not fallen,
51:55they would have been doomed to an early death
51:57because once they had consumed the food in the big seeds
52:02from which they sprouted,
52:03there would have not been enough light down here
52:05for them to grow any further.
52:07But this tree fall has changed all that.
52:10The huge rent in the canopy above
52:12is both the prize and the finishing post of the race.
52:17Those seedlings that can grow fast and get up there quickest
52:20will have got their place in the sun,
52:22will have spread their branches, flower and set seed.
52:25But the rest will have no chance.
52:31The process is extraordinarily swift.
52:34To begin with, shrubs appear
52:36which specialise in open sites like these.
52:39They flower quickly and disperse their seeds
52:41to other temporary clearings.
52:43But in a year or so, the sapling trees have overtopped them.
52:46As they grow higher, some begin to flag.
53:00Eventually, only one or two complete the course to the sunlight
53:03where they will spread their branches.
53:06So the jungle floor once more becomes darkened by shadow
53:10and the green canopy is again complete.
53:13ambaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaanaana
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