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03:58They come in all kinds of different colors and sizes.
04:02There's so many questions.
04:04Every time I look at an insect, I wonder, what is it doing?
04:07What is it thinking?
04:19So this one right here is a fritillary butterfly.
04:23These butterflies pollinate nettle, which is a purplish flower that's very common here.
04:30And when we're looking for butterflies, we try to focus on that plant because it's a very good place to find butterflies.
04:38This one is a species that's found in Mount Fuji area and this particular kind of habitat.
04:44It's really nice to see this here.
04:49Here in the shadow of Mount Fuji, the butterflies bring a message that something is changing.
04:55While some familiar species are nowhere to be found, a few newcomers signal a change in the environment.
05:04This is a northern Kichou.
05:06It's called Kichou because it's a yellow butterfly.
05:08It's a little worrisome because they are not really supposed to be here.
05:13And what's happening is most likely because of temperature change.
05:16These are southern species that are moving northward from the south.
05:20It's surprising to see some butterflies that I had not seen here at all when I was a child.
05:24The intrusion of southern species points to how a warming climate is triggering a shift change in the environment.
05:33As temperatures rise, hardy survivors move north, while some resident species die out.
05:40Talking to some colleagues, they've told me that some species are declining by about 50% from the previous year, which is significant.
05:47Just to think about that, it's kind of eye-opening.
05:51In Japan, like the rest of the world, insects are in danger.
06:00But unlike anywhere else, here, a deep appreciation for bugs has long made them a cornerstone of culture.
06:09I grew up half my life in Tokyo, in Japan, and the other half in the United States.
06:15And that childhood experience allowed me to be exposed to the culture of insects in Japan.
06:21Insects are really loved in Japan in so many different ways.
06:27You can buy beetles in department stores and just grow them yourself.
06:31A lot of Japanese poetry, a lot of literature.
06:34This is something that's been going on for a long time, and it's deeply rooted in the history.
06:39In a world where bugs are widely considered pests, Japan's culture of bug appreciation starts at an early age, at places like an insect hotel, a retreat for insect enthusiasts.
06:53We're at the Pension Suzerun, which is a special bug hotel in Yamanashi prefecture, in the central part of Japan.
07:02My father brought me to this insect hotel because he was interested in making sure that I would learn about insects.
07:08When I was a little kid, I actually really didn't like bugs, and my father thought that was a problem.
07:29And to get me excited about nature and understanding what nature means, he thought it would be great to bring me to places like this.
07:37And it was really an amazing experience, just seeing other children like myself, looking at insects and just getting excited about it.
07:47So right now, we're showing the kids these stag beetles, which are very popular in Japan.
07:54These kids love it, and they're not scared of them at all. They're just picking them up.
07:58They all want to keep them, actually. They asked me if they could take them home.
08:00At this hotel, there's a lot of parents that show their kids what insects are.
08:13It's really kind of magical and really interesting to see both the parents and the kids excited about it.
08:25Oh, that's good!
08:26Oh, that's good!
08:27Oh, that's good!
08:28Wait, wait, wait!
08:29So now, I live in the United States, and I have two kids, and it's very important for me to bring them back to Japan to show them this culture that exists.
08:40Loving insects is a wonderful thing.
08:44Is this okay?
08:44Yes, okay.
08:45Let's go.
08:47Okay.
08:48Okay.
08:48Now it's okay.
08:49Now it's okay.
08:50Now it's okay.
08:51Now it's okay.
08:52Now it's okay.
08:53Now it's okay.
08:54Now it's okay.
08:55Now it's okay.
08:56Now it's okay.
08:57Now it's okay.
08:58Now it's okay.
08:59Now it's okay.
09:00Now it's okay.
09:00Now it's okay.
09:01Now it's okay.
09:02This is...
09:03Uh, the chrysozyphorus.
09:04Oh, the chrysozyphorus.
09:05Chrysozyphorus.
09:06I've never caught this butterfly in my life, so I'm very excited.
09:09And there's still things to find, even at my age.
09:14It brings back so many memories.
09:16When I was a kid, my dad and I used to go look for these butterflies.
09:19Not long ago, the seasonal abundance of butterflies was simply taken for granted.
09:35There seemed to be little need to collect scientific data beyond appreciating their beauty.
09:41Now, even an amateur childhood collection is a treasure of detailed evidence and an invaluable
09:48window into the past.
09:50This is my father-in-law.
09:51This is my father-in-law.
09:52This is my father-in-law.
09:54My collection that I have here in Japan is something that I started with my dad when
09:59I was about eight years old.
10:02Right about the age of my daughter right now.
10:06My dad and I would go collecting, and we'd come back, we'd look at all the specimens, and
10:10we'd try to identify them, and so forth.
10:12Look at this, there's a lot of people in there, and so forth.
10:18The collection itself has grown quite a bit.
10:21I don't know exactly how many specimens are in there, but it's probably around 10,000
10:24specimens or so, I think.
10:26This is amazing.
10:29It's beautiful, right?
10:31This is called the National Butterfly of Japan.
10:36My collection has a lot of scientific value, but it has more personal memory, and it's
10:42more like a diary to me.
10:46I can remember where I was, what I was doing, who I was with, what the weather was like.
11:04It's unfortunate that a lot of the insects that used to be very common have disappeared.
11:09What's happening essentially is that for many different reasons, mostly human-driven, the
11:15insects are not what it used to be.
11:17So I think about my children a lot, and what is their future going to look like, and I think
11:23that this is something that we all should be thinking about, and how we can change this.
11:28The disappearance of butterflies isn't simply a cause for nostalgia.
11:35It's the vanishing of a natural workforce, critical for the survival of flowering plants
11:41and all life.
11:43Pollinating insects are one of the most important assemblages of insects out there.
11:48Without these pollinators, many of the plants can't sexually reproduce, they can't produce
11:54seeds.
11:55Rooted in the ground, plants can't travel to find a mate.
12:01Instead, they need tiny animal partners to move pollen, their genetic material, to fertilize
12:07other flowers.
12:08To enlist the pollinators, the plants offer a sweet reward of sugary nectar and protein-packed
12:19pollen.
12:22Insects like butterflies and bees have evolved, along with flowers, to be perfectly engineered
12:27for the job.
12:29Flowers developed nectar tubes to fit the probing proboscis of their insect partners.
12:35What's important is that a lot of times the flower has evolved a particular morphological
12:41shape that is a lock and key system with that particular moth or butterfly.
12:46And so if you lose that butterfly or moth, that plant can't actually be pollinated because
12:51no other organism on the planet can fit into that particular flower shape.
12:58Other insects like bees are less particular, and when bees are drawn to a flower, its sticky
13:03pollen is drawn to them.
13:06A static charge in a bee's hairs causes pollen to jump onto the bee's body.
13:14Of the 20,000 species of bees in the world, perhaps the most well-known is the premier pollinator,
13:21Apis mellifera, the honeybee.
13:24The honeybee is what's called a social bee and lives in large colonies.
13:35A single hive can pollinate up to 250 million flowers in a day.
13:43This hive structure makes honeybees easy to domesticate in transportable colonies to pollinate
13:49some of our most important crops, and to produce their signature product.
13:56All right, here we arrive on the plateau of Val-en-Sol, obviously to try to make the leaves of lavender.
14:05It begins more or less between the 15th of July and the 15th of July.
14:12Here we arrive on the plateau of Val-en-Sol, obviously to try to make the leaves of lavender,
14:18the honeybee society is made up of a single queen, a few males and thousands of female workers.
14:41To make honey, the workers deploy an array of extraordinary capabilities.
14:47They can tell time, navigate long distances, and communicate complex concepts to their sisters
14:54through a unique form of language using only their bodies.
14:59Honeybees have a great form of communication.
15:02So a worker finds a great pollinator garden with lots of nectar and flower resources.
15:07That worker bee will fly back to the colony and do something called a waggle dance.
15:12Based on a certain orientation, it positions its body on a particular angle, and then waggles.
15:18The waggle is the quality of the food source, and the amount of time and distance that it moves
15:25is the distance that the food source is.
15:27And then the angle by which the bee positions its body is the vector that the sisters need to follow
15:34to go find that food source.
15:38A worker bee will drink the nectar from a flower, which is basically sugar in a lot of water,
15:43and they'll bring it back to the hive.
15:45And honeybees will then pass that sugary, watery nectar from bee to bee.
15:53And as they pass it from worker to worker, they dehydrate the nectar.
15:58And so they concentrate it into a really thick, viscous liquid, and that's honey.
16:04It's just super-concentrated nectar.
16:08The stored honey feeds the bees year-round and supports the colony through the winter months,
16:13when no flowers are blooming.
16:16The texture and flavor depend on the flowers the bees are foraging.
16:21And one of the most prized varieties in the world is France's Miel de Lavonde, lavender honey.
16:46Well, the Miel de Lavonde has a very delicate taste, floral taste,
16:52and very cherished from the other countries.
16:59There are thousands and thousands of alvearies from all of France.
17:03I like it all.
17:05How many tourists come here?
17:06The only thing they want is the Miel de Lavonde.
17:09And there are a lot of other Mieles here in Provenza,
17:12very good ones, but what they sell the most is Miel de Lavonde.
17:18When it comes to the honeybees output,
17:21honey is just a drop in the bucket.
17:25No longer prized only for their sweet syrup,
17:28honeybees have now been harnessed as the pollinating workhorses of big agriculture.
17:35I was driving on Interstate 80 in the United States,
17:38and I saw a truck, and it was full of honeybee colonies.
17:51That's when I learned about the industrialization of pollination.
17:55We have this fantasy that there's just plants that grow,
18:01and bees go there to pollinate them.
18:04But a lot of agriculture relies on a volume of these domesticated bees
18:08that actually need to be purchased, rented,
18:11and shipped from one part of the country to the other.
18:14In the United States, honeybees now pollinate a whopping 80% of our food crops.
18:22Fruits, vegetables, nuts.
18:26A business worth more than $16 billion a year.
18:31Honeybees, let's say from Alabama, are then trucked to California
18:34when the almond trees are in bloom,
18:36and then once those flowers are done being pollinated,
18:39those hives are then trucked to another farm
18:41to pollinate things like blueberries or cherries or avocados.
18:46Many of these crops are not native to North America.
18:49They were brought from Europe, along with honeybees, hundreds of years ago.
18:55But because honeybees live in large colonies
18:57and need to constantly forage for pollen,
19:00they provide a highly efficient workforce.
19:03Commercial beekeepers divide and replicate transportable hives on a mass scale.
19:12Every year, up to 2 million honeybee colonies follow the bloom one farm at a time.
19:18And our lifestyle has evolved to depend on them.
19:22Without the honeybees that are pollinating all these crops,
19:24our food would be very, very expensive or very, very bland
19:28because we wouldn't be able to grow enough to feed ourselves.
19:31We've come on this reliance of honeybees to help feed us.
19:38There's a lot of risk in that
19:40when you've industrialized another species like that at this scale.
19:44Because if there is a collapse, then we don't really have alternatives.
19:49Honeybees are an essential part of American food production,
19:51but now they are dying off at an alarming rate.
19:54Nearly half of all colonies gone in the last year.
19:57That is a sharp increase from years past.
19:59Around 2006 and 2007, a lot of beekeepers started to discover
20:04that large portions of their colonies would simply disappear.
20:08So the adult bees would leave the colonies and just vanish.
20:13Researchers are calling it colony collapse disorder,
20:15and it's affecting billions of dollars' worth of crops.
20:18There has been a nationwide research effort to find the mysterious cause
20:21of what's been called bee colony collapse disorder, or CCD.
20:25It has decimated honeybee colonies across the nation.
20:29This massive decline in colonies during that winter
20:32was the first time we really saw insect declines in the headlines.
20:36and as a warning bell for something happening in our ecosystem
20:40that's impacting the insects that we really need.
20:45After a worldwide investigation, scientists determined there was no single cause of the collapse.
20:51It appeared insecticides, mites, viruses, and stress from constant relocation all formed a deadly combination.
21:06Some governments responded by restricting industrial pesticides,
21:10and new antibiotic treatments and beekeeping practices have helped honeybees stabilize, for now.
21:19I think colony collapse disorder was a good wake-up,
21:22because even if only for a moment, it made the average human think,
21:26insects aren't fungible, they're not disposable.
21:29There's a chance that we could lose them, and my food, my children's food, will be affected.
21:36And I think that was maybe a turning point to realize insects are animals,
21:41and maybe they do something behind the scenes that we've taken for granted.
21:48The ability to mass-produce new colonies means honeybees are unlikely to vanish anytime soon.
21:55But beekeepers still lose around 30% of their hives every year.
22:03The threat of colony collapse disorder still looms as a warning of a larger crisis,
22:09one that has no easy solution.
22:13So honeybees went through this major scare of colony collapse disorder,
22:17but the disappearance of bees was just the first step in this process
22:20of understanding what's happening to insects.
22:23We also can't forget about the native bees.
22:26They are critically important because they pollinate native plants.
22:30And oftentimes native plants cannot be pollinated by honeybees.
22:36Native bees are wild bees that pollinate 80% of flowering plants around the world.
22:43And while honeybees make headlines, native bees have also been quietly disappearing.
22:49We really pay attention to honeybees because they're so economically important to humans.
22:55But there are more than 20,000 other species of bees that are responsible for pollinating many native plants around the world.
23:03And these are really important to maintain native ecosystems.
23:07And we're not really paying attention to those bees as much.
23:12Unlike honeybees, the majority of native bees nest alone in hollow trees or underground.
23:19The majority of bees are actually solitary.
23:23And so it's just one female who provisions a nest for her young, provides pollen and nectar for them,
23:28closes off their nest and doesn't see them anymore.
23:31The solitary lifestyle of native bees means they can't be mass-produced in colonies like their honey-making cousins.
23:40Saving native bees will require saving habitat or even creating new ones.
23:47In the heart of Cincinnati, a narrow stretch of concrete was recently transformed into a green oasis.
24:08Hey, Georgie, what's up? Oh my God, hey, what's up?
24:14Two years later, Sylvana Ross is working with a local organization, the Queen City Pollinator Project,
24:20to see if the newly wild strip of Citi is successfully drawing in insects.
24:26The project recruits citizen scientists to help search for native pollinators.
24:31Queen City Pollinator Project is a nonprofit.
24:34Our goal was to help out our native pollinators and also make people more aware that everyone can contribute to helping save our pollinators that are declining.
24:44We realize you don't have to be a fancy scientist with research experience to collect data on pollinators
24:50and contribute to the science that's helping preserve pollinators and biodiversity.
24:55Hello, everybody. Oh my God, I'm so excited. Thank you so much for coming out today.
25:00So you're going to get a clipboard with a couple of data sheets.
25:04And then once you get to your square, we're looking for flowers that are blooming.
25:08And so I like to say if a pollinator can eat off of that flower, then we're going to count that as a blooming flower.
25:13And then you can catch like a lot of insects that are on flowers.
25:17It's really easy to catch them when they're eating.
25:19I like to say you give them a little hug with the catch cup.
25:23So you put one on one side, the lid on the other and give them a nice big hug.
25:27Okay, everybody feeling good? All right.
25:29Let's get started.
25:30Cool, let's do this.
25:35We get all different types of people to come and count bugs.
25:38Is that a carpenter bee?
25:39It might be.
25:40I think it's a carpenter bee.
25:41Yeah, it's a carpenter bee.
25:42We got people who love insects and have been entwined with nature throughout their whole lives.
25:46Maybe have loved bugs their whole entire life and want to help contribute.
25:49A little tiny bug on this one.
25:51And then we also get community members that live in that area that see a bunch of people with insect nets in their phones out and say,
25:59Hey, what's going on?
26:00And you hand them an insect net and a little catch cup.
26:03And then now they've become a community scientist as well.
26:06Is that a little moth?
26:07We got three bees and a butterfly.
26:09Three bees and a butterfly.
26:10Look at our pollinators.
26:21It turns out, many of the insects attracted to the new park are native bees.
26:28And the most recognizable for its plump body, the bumblebee.
26:34Bumblebees are another type of social bee.
26:38They're also really important to our ecosystems because they're native and have particular relationships with certain flowers and certain plants that they're able to pollinate on a great scale.
26:48A bumblebee colony starts off with a queen bumblebee, finding a location to start her colony.
27:07When the queen lays her egg, she makes a little round comb and will put her eggs in those combs and close them off.
27:22The larvae take about a few weeks to go from egg to larva to pupa to adult.
27:42And then they'll use their mandibles to cut their way out of their little cell.
27:52Once they emerge, they're down to cleaning and then they'll move on to becoming a forager and collecting pollen and nectar for their bumblebee hive.
28:17The spring emergence of bumblebees coincides with the blooming of the flowers that feed them.
28:36But with a warming planet, the ancient partnership that has allowed them to thrive has now put them in peril.
28:43Because bumblebees have a mutualistic relationship with flowers, usually their timing is synced with when flowers are blooming.
28:52But because of climate change, flowers are blooming a lot earlier in the year.
28:56And so when the bumblebees emerge, the flowers that they typically might visit might already be done blooming.
29:02And so not only are the bumblebees losing out on a food resource, but now those flowers are losing out on finishing their reproductive cycle.
29:12And so this mismatch of these two mutualistic partners is now falling apart because of climate change.
29:18Climate change isn't only threatening their food sources.
29:23As temperatures rise, bees in mountainous areas move to higher altitudes to find cooler climates.
29:30But there's a limit to how high the bees can go.
29:34In the last few years, the American bumblebee population has plummeted by a staggering 90%.
29:43The creation of new green spaces and planting flower-rich gardens provides habitat that can help give bumblebees and other native pollinators a fighting chance.
29:55We really hope that the data we collect, we can share with the city to show that green spaces like this that support native pollinators with native plants are supporting a whole ecosystem.
30:08Having a diversity of native bees helps flowers become more diverse and have larger yields than just using honeybees.
30:18Around the world, the services pollinators provide are worth more than $3 trillion.
30:25But while bees get all the buzz, other insects, like butterflies, are also critical for pollination.
30:35As essential links in the food web, they maintain the plant diversity the ecosystem needs to thrive.
30:42And in Kenya's Arabuko Sokoke Forest, butterflies and humans are so closely intertwined, their relationship sustains whole communities, and the forest itself.
30:56Arabuko Sokoke is one of Kenya's most magnificent 420 square kilometers of coastal indigenous forests.
31:18Over a third of Kenya's butterflies are found in this forest.
31:22And butterflies have become a tool for the forest conservation.
31:29All around the forest, for over 30 years, farmers and traditional communities have reared butterflies through the Kipepeo Project.
31:40Kipepeo means butterfly in Kiswahili.
31:45Butterflies are collected, the caterpillars are reared, and the pupae are sold to butterfly houses and museums and gardens around the world.
31:57I am doing all over 30 years old, so many gardens.
31:59I have the opportunity to fall for the forest farmers.
32:03Even if I'm interested in the planting, I will be tranquilizing it directly.
32:08In the beginning, I will be full of questions, without having trouble.
32:10I can't find any other questions to communicate about their eyes with a bit.
32:15El pecho es el pecho.
32:45Once the butterflies are caught, they're released in an enclosure where they lay their eggs,
32:55setting off one of the most incredible life cycles in the natural world.
33:06The life cycle of a butterfly involves very distinct stages.
33:11A female butterfly lays an egg, a single egg often on a leaf, of a plant that's very specific to that species.
33:21All her hopes are going into that egg.
33:41A caterpillar hatches from an egg, and it turns into a little tube, and most of its body is dedicated to its gut.
33:58A caterpillar hatches from an egg, and it turns into a little tube, and most of its body is dedicated to its gut for digesting food.
34:15And it's such an innovation because the larva is specialized for the thing it needs to do.
34:20It needs to feed and grow.
34:21The organism needs to consume as much as it can, as fast as it can, because there's lots of predators out there that are also looking to eat caterpillars.
34:33These are stages of growth within the caterpillar, shedding the skin and growing bigger.
34:39Eventually, it molts and forms a pupa.
34:56Eventually, it molts and forms a pupa.
34:56And now something truly remarkable happens.
35:14This entire insect that has all these systems.
35:22A digestive system, an eating system, legs, changes and dissolves itself and reforms through metamorphosis, growing a digestive system, a reproductive system, growing legs and wings and eyes and all this complexity, all this color.
35:46And then, completely miraculously, the pupa splits open, and out pops this adult butterfly.
35:57First, looking completely monstrous and bedraggled, all crumpled up.
36:17And yet, within a couple of minutes, the abdomen liquid is pumped into the wings.
36:28These wings fold out.
36:30And a few minutes later, in the sunshine, the butterfly takes flight.
36:39Butterfly houses around the world showcase the beauty of these species, fostering a global appreciation and respect for butterflies.
37:02And these creatures, beloved for their metamorphosis, have a transformative effect on the women who rear them.
37:13They are a good number of people who are not going to be able to live in their hands.
37:22This is a beautiful, beautiful.
37:23Thank you.
37:24Thank you.
37:25Well, for all of you, I have a good friend.
37:28Thank you.
37:29Thank you.
37:30Thank you.
37:31All you have heard, thank you.
37:33Thank you.
37:34Thank you.
37:35Thank you.
37:36Thank you.
37:37Thank you.
37:38Thank you.
37:39Número 5.
37:41Número 5, ¿verdad?
37:42Sí, sí.
37:45El proyecto ya employs más de 800 familias,
37:57y los botarflías te da la comunidad a razón
37:59para asegurarse de que su hábitat está intacta.
38:03Instead de cortar árboles,
38:06ahora conserva las familias.
38:09En el mundo, los padres y sus padres,
38:11los padres, los padres, los padres,
38:13los padres, los padres, los padres,
38:17los padres, los padres, los padres,
38:19los padres, los padres.
38:24Cada uno de esos pupos contribuye directamente
38:27al la vivienda de una familia rural
38:30aquí en Kenia, alrededor del bosque,
38:32y proporciona un incentivo
38:34para conservar esta bosque.
38:39Los botarflos exportados
38:41traen mucha necesidad de atención
38:42a estos embattledos pollinadores,
38:44a un momento en que en algunas partes del mundo
38:47hasta 90% de los botarflos
38:49han simplemente desaparecido.
38:55La escala de la crisis
38:56ha sido recientemente claro
38:58con una de las más extraordinarias
39:00y de los insectos
39:02en el planeta.
39:04Monarch Butterflies
39:06In the high-altitude forests
39:23of Michoacán,
39:24clouds of monarch butterflies
39:26find a winter retreat
39:27in the region's rare fir trees
39:29called Oyamel.
39:34Most individual monarchs
39:35only live for about six weeks.
39:38But when spring arrives,
39:39they set off on a journey
39:41that takes four lifetimes.
39:43I really like the idea
39:45of the generation starship.
39:47This is a science fiction idea
39:49where a ship takes people
39:52on a journey to a distant planet,
39:54but the journey takes so long
39:55it takes multiple generations
39:56to get there.
39:57And this really exists
39:58in the world of insects.
40:00Monarch butterflies do this massive migration
40:05and take three generations
40:06to get from Mexico
40:07to eastern Canada.
40:09And then on the final generation
40:11they fly all the way back
40:13down to Mexico.
40:14Monarchs use air currents
40:16to fly up to 150 miles a day.
40:18They'll stop to lay their eggs
40:20on milk water,
40:21and they'll stop to lay their eggs
40:24on milk water.
40:25And then on the final generation
40:26they fly all the way back
40:27down to Mexico.
40:28Monarchs use air currents
40:29to take their eggs on milkweed,
40:31the only host plant
40:32their caterpillars can eat.
40:35Once the next generation emerges,
40:37the young monarchs
40:38continue the journey north.
40:45After spending the summer
40:46in Canada,
40:47the last generation lives
40:49a full eight months
40:50longer than its ancestors
40:53and makes the return flight
40:55all the way to Mexico.
40:59How does an organism
41:00that's less than a gram
41:02and less than four inches
41:04make it 2,000 miles
41:06in a couple of months
41:07to then arrive in a place
41:08that they've never been before?
41:09In fact,
41:10that their parents
41:11have never been before,
41:12their great-grandparents
41:13have never been before.
41:14The fact that it makes this journey
41:17across generations
41:18every single year
41:19is one of the coolest animal stories
41:22on the planet.
41:23We're trying to figure out,
41:25as entomologists,
41:26why and how they actually do that.
41:29And there's still a lot
41:30of mysteries in this process.
41:32Scientists speculate
41:34that an internal clock,
41:36the position of the sun,
41:37and genetic hardwiring
41:39all help with navigation.
41:41But no one knows exactly
41:42how the monarchs find their way
41:44back to the site
41:45of their only overwintering trees
41:47in Mexico.
41:51That culture
41:52is the one that said
41:53that the monarch of the monarch
41:55was the soul of the dead
41:56who came to visit the dead.
41:58So,
41:59that happened from generation
42:00to generation.
42:01Fortunately,
42:02this coincides
42:03because the monarch of the monarch
42:05begins to arrive
42:06on the 1st or 2nd of November,
42:07which is the date
42:08that we're celebrating
42:09to our loved ones.
42:10to our loved ones.
42:19In my particular case,
42:21on the day of the dead,
42:22I honor the memory of my father.
42:31Since he returned to the university,
42:33he focused on protecting the forests
42:35in the monarch of the monarch of the monarch
42:37because he always said
42:39if we have monarch monarchs,
42:40then tourism comes.
42:43In some way,
42:44the people of the community
42:45have a more source of income.
42:50The forests that today
42:51surround us here
42:52are important
42:53because, thanks to them,
42:54the monarch monarch monarch
42:55visits us year by year.
43:00Monarchs have been making
43:01this spectacular migration
43:03for as many as 10,000 years.
43:06But this ancient cycle
43:07appears on the verge
43:08of being broken
43:09as fewer and fewer
43:11return home each year.
43:14One of the things
43:15that's been especially
43:16conspicuous
43:17is the decrease
43:18in the numbers
43:19of migrating monarchs.
43:21In the last several years,
43:22the numbers have been
43:23terrifying, though.
43:24You know, down to a few
43:25thousand individuals
43:26in some of the counts.
43:29Deforestation,
43:30climate change,
43:32and loss of milkweed
43:33have had catastrophic effects
43:35on this natural spectacle.
43:38In recent years,
43:39the number of returning monarchs
43:41has plummeted
43:42by up to 60%.
43:45It may be that these
43:46highly adaptable creatures
43:47are running out of time.
43:52Throughout history,
43:53when new threats arose,
43:54insects evolved new behaviors
43:56to survive,
43:57and bodies honed over millions
44:00of years.
44:04If there's one insect
44:05that shows how clever
44:06these hardy survivors can be,
44:09it's the butterfly's
44:10nocturnal cousin,
44:12moths.
44:13When I was younger,
44:15I thought butterflies
44:16were really cool.
44:17Like, I thought,
44:18wow, these swallowtail butterflies,
44:19they're big,
44:20and they're gorgeous,
44:21flashy.
44:22So now I study moths more,
44:24and I've actually come
44:26to find moths quite cute.
44:34I've come to really like them a lot
44:35just because they're kind of,
44:37I don't know if adorable
44:38is the right word,
44:39but they're really wonderful.
44:42Something that a lot of people
44:45don't know about moths
44:46is that they're important pollinators.
44:51We know that there's lots of plants
44:52with flowers that bloom only
44:53during the nighttime,
44:54and the major pollinator
44:56for most of those flowers
44:57is moths.
45:01They may be the forgotten pollinators,
45:03but when it comes to adaptation,
45:05moths are masters of survival.
45:09For 240 million years,
45:11they ruled the night skies.
45:14Then, a new predator took to the wing.
45:18Bats.
45:22This deadly aerial threat
45:23triggered an evolutionary arms race
45:26and an explosion in moth defenses.
45:29Bats use echolocation.
45:32They scream out into the night
45:33and listen for the returning echoes,
45:35which shows them where big things are,
45:37like trees and cliffs,
45:40but also tiny insects that they hunt.
45:44So we think that when bats came on the planet,
45:46moths have had to undergo so many different kinds
45:49of evolutionary changes
45:50to be able to survive against their predators.
45:52The appearance of bats pushed moths
45:54to evolve a whole arsenal of defense tactics,
45:59hairy bodies to absorb sound,
46:02long tails to distract them,
46:05and the ability to hear and produce ultrasound.
46:09This ability allows them to defend themselves
46:12in different kinds of ways.
46:14When moths hear bats coming,
46:16they can spiral, loop, and dive to get away.
46:20But many do more than just use their motor behaviors
46:25to get away.
46:26They answer with their own ultrasonic reply.
46:29They can communicate and tell the bats
46:34that they're toxic, chemically defended.
46:43Others have the ability to jam the sonar.
46:45In other words, they're able to create a sound
46:48that's so loud that the bat can't actually find the moth
46:51in the night sky.
46:56We don't know anything about this process
46:57because everything is happening at night
46:59in this dark sky.
47:00But we have now the equipment
47:02to try to unravel this whole system.
47:06Sumaco, Ecuador is a lowland mountain in the Amazonian rainforest in the Andes.
47:18And we're going there because there's a really high diversity of moths.
47:23So we think that moths have been on the planet for more than 300 million years.
47:40What's interesting is that bats have only been on the planet for, we think, about 60 million years.
47:45So within the last 60 million years, these moths have had to evolve to survive.
47:51And it's allowed this incredible diversification of moths.
47:57Most of these moths we haven't seen before.
47:59A lot of hawk moths, a lot of Adhemarius, Xylophanes.
48:04A lot of tiger moths, too.
48:06The primary question we're driving at is what drives diversity of species on the planet.
48:13And bats are the second most diverse group of mammals.
48:16Moss and butterflies are one of the most diverse groups of insects.
48:20Understanding their interactions, their battles in the night sky,
48:24is unlocking many of the drivers of this diversity.
48:29This is a beautiful moth.
48:31Both of these guys should reflex bleed.
48:33It smells better.
48:35Did you smell it?
48:36Yeah.
48:37Oh, yeah.
48:38Very strong smell.
48:40We are looking for particular moths.
48:42Here's one that definitely makes sound, which we know about.
48:45Bertholdia.
48:46Oh, yeah.
48:47It's a very loud moth.
48:48The ones that we're interested in are the ones that we know produce ultrasound.
48:53We're also trying to understand other species that might be producing sounds.
48:58A lot of the moths have never been tested.
49:01So our goal is to understand what kinds of species are doing it, how they're doing it.
49:06Yeah, look at this.
49:07It's already damaged by a bat.
49:09It's amazing.
49:10Look at how the windows on the wings, they're clear.
49:15You can see through them.
49:16Beautiful.
49:17Being in Ecuador is amazing.
49:21It makes me super happy.
49:23I just love seeing this extraordinary diversity.
49:25And knowing that there are places on the planet which still harbor so many different kinds of insects.
49:30Okay, we're doing Molisi.
49:31Okay.
49:32Rolling.
49:33Part of what we do is playback recorded bat echolocation attack sequences to moths.
49:37And we try to see if the moths respond.
49:38There it is.
49:39Okay.
49:40Okay.
49:41Okay.
49:42We're doing Molisi.
49:43Okay.
49:44We're doing Molisi.
49:45Okay.
49:46Rolling.
49:47Part of what we do is playback recorded bat echolocation attack sequences to moths.
50:00And we try to see if the moths respond.
50:05There it is.
50:08That looks great.
50:09And it's making great sound.
50:12So that was 12, right?
50:13That was number 12?
50:14Bio 40 sound.
50:15Sorry, sorry.
50:16Moth number 12.
50:17Yep.
50:18Correct.
50:19Okay.
50:20One of the things that we're trying to do is to discover how they actually produce the
50:23sounds, because we don't actually know that very well.
50:27So through microscopes, we can look for the particular structures.
50:32She's using her chest, her thorax.
50:35Well, kind of the back segment actually.
50:37One way to imagine it is to think of like pushing in the side of a pop can that pops in
50:43and then sort of passively pops back out.
50:46And that's the way this works too.
50:47It requires muscles to pull in and then it passively pops back out.
50:52We've discovered that some species will produce sounds by rubbing their genitals together.
50:58And this produces ultrasound.
51:00And they shoot that sound at the bats while they're flying.
51:05Others will rub different parts of their bodies.
51:08They have clicking devices that produce sounds.
51:11All these are important in terms of talking to the bats in the night sky.
51:15I think of them as tiny little monsters because of their uniqueness.
51:22There's so much diversity.
51:24And you see incredible features doing some function that's helping that animal survive.
51:30And that's just the anti-bat side.
51:33They have really long tongues.
51:35And they're learning an entire landscape of different flowers to nectar from.
51:40They're incredibly important pollinators.
51:42And they underpin all ecosystems on land.
51:48And that's why their ongoing declines are so critical to understand.
51:52Because if we lose insects, we lose everything.
51:57For all their ingenuity, fast-adapting moths may be confronting new threats even they can't outwit.
52:06Rising temperatures and habitat loss have reduced many moth populations by nearly 50%.
52:14But their night battles with bats are a testament to the age-old will of insects to adapt and survive.
52:26And while some bugs have devised clever ways to avoid predation,
52:31others have evolved to become better predators themselves.
52:36Bugs That Rule The World is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
52:58Biop That deze
53:00Biop That Your Ayunt of Wonder
53:05Bugs.
53:05Please take this video to watch this video.
53:06Video great video.
53:13Media
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