- 2 days ago
Many insects are masters of flight. Consider some examples. Mosquitoes can fly upside down. Some can even fly through the rain without getting wet....
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00:02These touch-me-not balsam have sprung up to cover the woodland floor.
00:10Each night the leaves go limp as the balsam exudes any excess moisture.
00:16In the waterlogged soils of the Lake District this is a handy adaptation.
00:42Soon their blooms unfurl.
00:48As the petals of these strange shaped flowers drop off, seed pods begin to form.
01:00These pods are the favourite food of the netted carpet moth caterpillar.
01:13Although it was once thought to be extinct, the netted carpet moth survives here in the Lake District,
01:20its last remaining stronghold.
01:27Touch-me-not balsam is their only source of food.
01:32And then for everyone here in the Lake District they are covered in the unintended impact.
01:51Something is a nice cover of this merit.
01:51Then they have returned to color and look at the cake with the Raft of the trees.
01:53And these sands over here, they are more appropriate.
01:54After acerany during the pandemic, even though with the removal of plants adopted by aгу the fittest,
01:57they are this amazing shape.
01:57They are photographs.
02:00The HARFこの川There are seasons for coltiv flows of the dummies.
02:04These plants have a surprise in store.
02:08Their seed heads explode.
02:15It's how they became known as touch me not.
02:19But nobody told the caterpillars this.
02:37The caterpillars have no warning when these little bombs go off.
02:45It's not just seeds that get hurled across the forest floor.
02:59The Namib Desert, one of the most exposed places on earth.
03:09As the sun climbs high, everybody takes cover from the extreme heat.
03:18Everybody except the hot rod ant.
03:28As others take refuge, their day is just beginning.
03:37Cleaning out the nest.
03:45The sand can reach a scorching 70 centigrade.
03:50The ants' long legs raise their bodies above the surface, where it's 10 degrees cooler.
04:00But if they stand still, they will fry.
04:06They must keep moving, or risk the same fate as their quarry, the creatures that have collapsed from heat stroke.
04:14Too deeply buried, but a good place to cool off.
04:21Foraging decisions must be fast.
04:24Too big?
04:28Perfect.
04:32Back to the nest, before they also die.
04:42But they strayed into a minefield.
04:50Each of these strange cone-shaped pits is a death trap.
05:00With a brutal predator at its center.
05:04Here lie antlion larvae.
05:08Tiny ambush predators with venom-filled pincers.
05:34Some ants manage to escape.
05:36But the antlion has other tricks.
05:40Flinging sand into the air, it creates an avalanche.
05:49In this cone of death, the walls are so angled that the sand slips beneath the ants' feet.
05:59As boulders rain from the sky, escape seems almost impossible.
06:24An oog pister beetle in South Africa.
06:28He hunts ants.
06:39Eating ants may give him more than just nourishment.
06:43He may get something else from them that helps him fight his enemies.
06:58The ants launch a counterattack and nip his ankles.
07:04But he simply kicks them out of the way.
07:17The valiant ants drive him off.
07:20Straight into real danger.
07:27A mongoose.
07:33It's inquisitive.
07:37But it's also wary of the uch pister.
07:41A black and white pattern is a warning signal.
07:45The beetle takes aim.
07:51And fires formic acid straight at the mongoose's eyes and mouth.
08:00The beetle probably collected this acid from the ants.
08:04It certainly makes the beetle itself very distasteful.
08:07And that, in turn, makes it worth mimicking.
08:10This defenseless little lizard carries the beetle's warning pattern.
08:16It also imitates the way the beetle runs.
08:23Not particularly well, it's true, but well enough to fool predators into thinking it just might be an acid-firing
08:30beetle.
08:41All kinds of insects have developed chemical weapons.
08:48A pair of Devil Rider stick insects.
08:54They fire bitter-tasting oils, terpenes.
09:04European wood ants under attack from a hungry crow.
09:09They fire the sort of acid that gives nettles their sting.
09:13So this is like one of us falling into a nettle patch.
09:26But the master of chemical warfare is the bombardier beetle.
09:32It can create a chemical reaction within its body so violent,
09:36that boiling caustic liquid explodes out of its abdomen.
09:49By pulsing the jet 500 times a second,
09:53it keeps its rear end just cool enough to prevent it being cooked.
10:03The tasked wetter is New Zealand's equivalent of a mouse.
10:13And a worthy snack for a foraging pig.
10:35With pigs snuffling close behind, there is only one place to go.
10:41And it's the last place you would expect.
11:14anybody's lung out there or防太小?
11:34This weather is an escape artist.
11:42The pigs can't see or smell him when he's underwater.
12:07He can stay under for up to ten minutes.
12:19The pigs can stay under for up to ten minutes.
12:43And now, the coast is clear.
12:48Eighty million years of isolation have endowed this ancient creature with extraordinary survival skills.
12:59The army ant.
13:05This may look like a ball of a million individuals.
13:08But make no mistake.
13:11The colony acts as one.
13:16A super organism with a sensory system of two million antennae.
13:23A skeleton made from the living bodies of workers.
13:31A defense system of soldier ants.
13:35Ready to act at any sign of danger.
13:40A digestive system processing piles of food deep inside.
13:48Even a coordinated system for dealing with all the waste.
13:56These are insects that, by working together, transcend individual size.
14:04The colony can search the entire jungle.
14:09And flush out its wildlife.
14:19Each day, it sends out a silent probe into the forest.
14:23In quest of food.
14:32It doesn't use scouts like other ants.
14:39Instead, a vast search party pushes into virgin territory.
14:49Seeking out the signs of anything alive.
15:04They spread out along a ten-meter front.
15:08Sweeping across the forest floor.
15:13To find prey, the ants must first touch it.
15:18The irony is that this, the most successful hide-and-seek player in the forest,
15:23is almost completely blind.
15:28It distinguishes the living only by their movement.
15:35As long as an animal remains still, it is safe.
15:42But the slightest twitch will give it away.
15:50Within seconds, the prey is pinned down.
15:56Within minutes, it's torn apart at its joints.
16:04The more the prey struggles, the more the ants engage.
16:13Right across the raid front, prey of all sizes are driven from their hiding places.
16:23Even wasps must abandon their homes when the ants arrive.
16:32Everything alive in the path of the raiders, overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
16:44To survive here, you have to be prepared to die here.
17:01But the sun can return as quickly as the storm arrived.
17:07And a rise of just a few degrees is enough to spark a thaw, even underground.
17:13A部分 through the road.
17:42It's because of the Engineers
17:43Frozen solid, a mountain stone wetter.
17:50It has the most extraordinary survival technique of all.
18:08The ability to come back from the dead.
18:17Only in the specialized filming chamber can we capture its extraordinary talent.
18:24The weather has developed special proteins which prevent ice crystals from forming inside its cells.
18:33A remarkable trick for a creature whose ancestors once lived in prehistoric warm wet forests.
18:43But when New Zealand's mountains grew up beneath them around five minute years ago,
18:48they were forced to come up with this incredible ability to survive near lethal temperatures.
19:02Defrosting uses up a lot of energy.
19:12So mountain snow berries are a welcome sight.
19:21The weather needs to stock up while it can.
19:25The next Antarctic storm could be the return of winter.
19:50It can tolerate over 80% of its body freezing solid and can do so day in and day out,
19:57for weeks at a time.
20:09Nowhere else in New Zealand does life go to such extremes to survive.
20:14Back in the hive, those bees too young to forage are housekeeping.
20:24Like the hornet queen, the queen bee has the immeasurable task of laying enough eggs
20:30to ensure the health and future of the colony.
20:38The custom of keeping wild Japanese bees is as old as society itself.
20:44And Yamaguchi has kept bees since boyhood.
20:51Japanese bees are so sensitive that it takes great patience and skill to keep them.
20:57The art of keeping them lies in understanding their behavior.
21:03They make honey stalls for the winter, but they also produce enough for Yamaguchi to harvest.
21:12Japanese bees may produce less honey than European bees,
21:16but the taste is very special.
21:22It's the smell of this growing store of energy-rich honey which could be their downfall,
21:29if it draws in a hornet scout.
21:34But right now, the hornets have other problems to contend with.
21:38The nest is now monstrous.
21:41The workers have excavated over a ton of earth.
21:52There are so many bodies living at close quarters,
21:55that the queen and her dynasty are in danger of overheating.
22:03So workers create air conditioning,
22:06keeping a steady flow of fresh air circulating.
22:13Being unable to cope with high temperatures is a giant hornet's Achilles' heel.
22:22The warmth of the hornet's nest belies the change in season.
22:32Seasons change fast up here in the mountains,
22:35and when autumn arrives, there are far fewer insects around.
22:42This means my hives are even more vulnerable to attack.
22:48For me, it's an anxious time.
22:57In the search for autumnal food,
23:00a scout hornet discovers Yamaguchi's wild bees.
23:11The honeybees fan an alarm pheromone through the air.
23:15This alerts the whole hive to the hornet's presence.
23:22The scout smells the honey within.
23:25A prize this rich is worth scent marking.
23:35But unlike the European bees,
23:38these Japanese bees do not attack.
23:41Instead, they lure the scout inside.
23:52Still, the bees hang fire.
24:00Then, one is caught.
24:02It's the signal the others have been waiting for.
24:04It's not a wicked,
24:20but to the faites that you don't really know about the whole hive.
24:27If you have something that were better,
24:39Surrounded by vibrating bodies, the hornet at the core of the bee ball begins to overheat.
24:46The bees have the advantage, a heat tolerance two degrees above that of their enemy.
24:52At 46 degrees Celsius, the aggressor is roasted alive.
25:09The wild bees have spent millions of years living with the enemy.
25:13That's why they alone have developed this extraordinary survival strategy.
25:29He starts his search.
25:34A female is likely to be on a tree trunk.
25:40But trees in this part of the world are very tall.
25:47His search could be a long one.
25:56Unfortunately for him, she is 25 meters above him, near the top.
26:06She has more normal sized jaws, but then she only needs them for feeding.
26:14But he needs immense jaws for fighting.
26:19Because there are other males around with the same mission.
26:36Sheer strength is not enough in these battles.
26:41The technique is to reach over your opponent's head and hook your jaws under his wing covers.
26:50That's why his jaws are so long and have that odd shape.
26:56He's got the grip.
26:58Now he has to lift.
27:02And that needs strength.
27:13Another lift is needed.
27:26And that's that.
27:30Beetle armour is strong, so he bounces.
27:35The winner climbs on.
27:37There are more males ready to fight him up here.
27:41There are more males ready to fight him up.
27:46There are more males ready to fight.
27:54That's all.
27:57There are more males ready to fight, though.
27:58No one has to be.
27:58I couる for them.
28:00No.
28:02No one has to be.
28:04No one has to be.
28:15And here she is, at last.
28:23But she doesn't seem to be in the mood.
28:41So, now, he has to use his great jaws as a restraining cage.
28:53Success at last.
29:02But the hurling habit dies hard.
29:12Mantids will eat anything that moves.
29:17Including other mantids.
29:34Time to leave.
29:46This tiny insect is now open to attack from predators lurking in the underground.
30:02Whether an individual mantis survives or not is partly a matter of chance.
30:12Whether it's spotted by a predator.
30:21Whether it turns right.
30:24Or left.
30:25Or left.
30:25Or left.
30:34So far, its luck has held.
30:38But this hungry jumping spider is still in pursuit.
30:47A mantis is born with exceptional eyesight.
30:52But a spider's is even better.
30:59Although this young mantis can't yet fly.
31:02Its long four legs, evolved to catch prey, give it reach.
31:06To catch.
31:07To catch.
31:09To catch.
31:20To catch.
31:31To catch.
31:34There seems to be no escape.
31:41There seems to be no escape.
31:43But this mantis has a surprising line in self defense.
31:50Kung Fu.
31:52Praying mantis style.
31:59Kung Fu.
32:02Praying mantis style.
32:05Of course it's all bluff.
32:08Trying to look bigger and confuse its enemy.
32:14But it's got away with it.
32:25Just staying alive for its first few hours is a significant accomplishment for a newly hatched insect.
32:34But there's still a long way to go.
32:37With a bit of luck, in two months time, it will be as big and beautiful as this orchid mantid.
32:55Or maybe not.
32:59After all, mantids are cannibals.
33:06By pooling their resources, the queens have survived their first major challenge.
33:12But this coalition can't last.
33:17Tensions are already on the rise as the queens jostle for position within the royal court.
33:25The weaker crouch submissively before the more dominant, including the founding queen.
33:33So begins the delicate maneuvering that will soon take on a deadly significance.
33:42Those at the bottom of the hierarchy have little chance of surviving the coming trials.
33:53Another struggle for control is also beginning above ground.
33:58The coral nest is not the only one in Horseshoe Canyon.
34:04The desert floor is littered with similar sized colonies.
34:08And there's not enough room for all of them.
34:12Now the darker side of the honey ants emerges.
34:18It's time for the coral colony to mount a pre-emptive strike on its nearest neighbors.
34:33This killing spree continues through the summer until the coral colony has eliminated all the other new nests in their
34:40immediate neighborhood.
34:50The foundations of the empire have been laid.
34:58Underground too.
35:00Events have taken a darker turn.
35:04One of the queens lies dead in the royal chamber.
35:09It's not clear why, but the workers have started singling out the weaker queens for special attention.
35:18At first it's all very subtle.
35:21One isn't fed so often or cleaned as diligently.
35:28But then the workers start bullying and harassing their chosen victim.
35:38Finally, it spills over into direct attack.
35:42And the workers tear the chosen queen to pieces.
35:53Nothing can go to waste.
35:55Even the royal carcass.
36:00Workers carry hungry larvae over to feast on the dead queen.
36:05Including many that must have been her own offspring.
36:17As the weeks pass, the revolution continues.
36:24Only the most dominant royals seem immune to attack.
36:28They just watch, and wait, as the workers go about their gruesome business.
36:37When the air itself becomes saturated, and the temperature is just right,
36:43rare giants emerge.
37:03A Pauelephanta snail.
37:05It can grow to the size of a man's fist.
37:08It can grow to the size of a man's fist.
37:17So rare, they can only be filmed in captivity.
37:21Where their extraordinary behaviour is revealed.
37:27It's still a mystery as to exactly how they track down their food.
37:32But one thing is for sure.
37:35This snail has unusual tastes.
37:40And revolting table manners.
37:57This snail won't use toarkan metres when it comes out,
38:12and if you have anything to wear,
38:35Its mouth envelopes and suffocates the earthworm.
38:50It's sucked down like spaghetti.
39:11For anything bigger, it's got 6,000 teeth ready to shred the next meal.
39:22In this super-saturated environment, this specialized smell is the ultimate predator.
40:01Large soldier ants line the trail, protecting the smaller workers inside.
40:06Their massive jaws create an impregnable barricade.
40:40They protect the trail at any cost.
40:48Although blind, they are highly sensitive to vibrations and air currents and become instantly
40:54defensive when under attack.
40:58Stress pheromones put the whole task force on alert.
41:01They are ready to take on anything, including people.
41:10They are programmed to keep the trail moving or die trying.
41:22Driver ants are the stuff of legend.
41:26It is said that they kill everything that crosses their path.
41:29It is said that no animal is safe when they are on the warpath.
41:33It is even said that they will enter huts to attack people or kill babies left unattended
41:38in their cots.
41:46The truth is somewhat different.
41:49Although the bites are painful against people, they are purely defensive.
41:52The jaws may slice through human flesh like butter, but it's simply a warning.
42:03Despite the myths, driver ants are still ruthless killers, but in a way that often benefits the
42:10villagers.
42:11Dangerous pests like scorpions are quickly set upon by the ants.
42:18Even the scorpion's deadly sting is powerless against this invincible army.
42:23Both workers and soldiers join the attack, dividing up their roles according to their
42:28size.
42:32As some look for a chink in its leg armor, others prize open its body plates like a tin opener.
42:44With its sting immobilized and faced by such overwhelming odds, the scorpion eventually
42:50gives up the fight.
42:55The dismembered body is hauled back down the trail to feed the nest.
43:11The farmers' fields provide even more opportunities for the attack force.
43:19Pests, disturbed by digging, are soon dispatched by hundreds of razor-sharp jaws.
43:27The ants make a clean sweep, capturing up to 100,000 insects in a single raid.
43:40Despite the ants' formidable reputation, most farmers value their role as pest controllers.
43:49In defense of the trail, the ants take no prisoners, but even an innocuous-looking insect can be
43:55surprisingly dangerous.
44:01The soil millipede is killed quickly, but the soldiers' highly sensitive antennae immediately
44:07reveal that it's poisonous.
44:10The message soon reaches nearby ants.
44:13They know exactly what to do.
44:15They gather lumps of mud and bury the problem.
44:42With the millipede out of harm's way, the trail can safely continue its journey.
44:49But more dangers await the trailblazers.
44:58A praying mantis plucks unsuspecting ants from the column.
45:08He seems to have the upper hand, but the ants he kills send out a dying message.
45:15Reacting to this pheromone, reinforcements arrive.
45:20The mantis is a deadly predator, but the ants know exactly what they're dealing with.
45:30One soldier grabs the mantis' jaws, stopping it from doing any more damage.
45:40Other ants swarm over the mantis, butchering it with surgical precision.
45:58The mantis' fate is sealed by a clinical decapitation.
46:14The eggs and pupae are taken into the new nest.
46:21Here, they're safe.
46:22The millions of interlocking ants that make up the nest's superstructure create an impenetrable barrier.
46:47Only from the outside is it possible to get an idea of the nest's huge scale.
46:58Literally millions of individuals form a nervous network that communicates using pheromones.
47:09As ants pass messages to each other, they effectively act like brain cells.
47:20Through the millions of interconnections, they arrive at a decision that works for the benefit of the colony.
47:30Like human brain cells, individual ants are not intelligent, but the links between them create a mind.
47:37An ant superbrain.
47:50Deep inside is the queen.
47:53Her role is to replenish the colony by laying two million eggs a month.
48:03She is merely an egg-laying machine under the collective command of all the ants that make up the mind
48:09of the hive.
48:12The ants create a different kind of intelligence.
48:15A brain that exists outside any single body.
48:37There is no other species on the planet that responds as quickly and as dramatically to the good times as
48:45the desert locust.
48:47Eggs that have remained in the ground for twenty years begin to hatch.
49:04The young locusts are known as hoppers, for at this stage they are flightless.
49:08They find new feeding grounds by following the smell of sprouting grass.
49:20Normally it takes four weeks for hoppers to become adults.
49:24But when the conditions are right, as now, their development switches to the fast track.
49:35As the vegetation in one place begins to run out, the winged adults release pheromones, scent messages,
49:42which tell others in the group that they must move on.
49:57And when groups merge, they form a swarm.
50:22An adult locusts eats its entire body weight every day.
50:26And a whole swarm can consume literally hundreds of tons of vegetation.
50:33They have to keep on moving.
50:37The swarm travels with the wind.
50:39It's the most energy saving way of flying.
50:46Following the flow of wind means that they are always heading toward areas of low pressure.
50:52Places where wind meets rain and vegetation starts to grow.
50:58As they fly, swarms join up with other swarms to form gigantic plagues several billion strong and as much as
51:0740 miles wide.
51:10They will consume every edible thing that lies in their palm.
51:27This is one of planet Earth's greatest spectacles.
51:32It's rarely seen on this scale and it won't last long.
51:35Once the food has gone, the steady roar of a billion beating locust wings will once again be replaced by
51:44nothing more than the sound of the desert wind.
51:50We've seen how managing woodland and farmland for butterflies can preserve the countryside we love and also how butterflies can
51:57inspire the next generation to protect it.
52:02But if you still have doubts about whether butterflies can make our countryside a better place, then you need look
52:09no further than the humble caterpillar.
52:11Because if there's one thing we've learnt from them, it's that change is possible.
52:23This is a brimstone.
52:26It's a brimstone.
52:27It emerged from an egg a few weeks ago.
52:30But now it's ready for a change.
52:36First it spins a silken pad, a place to anchor hooks on the rear of its body.
52:47In a move to widen a contortionist, it passes strands of silk behind itself, creating a girdle to support it
52:55through the change to come.
53:10With anchor and line secure, the transformation can take place.
53:22Caterpillars are little more than stomachs on legs.
53:27But that body has served its purpose and can be discarded in favor of another.
53:36The caterpillar's head is about to split wide open.
53:40And when it does, something very different will emerge.
53:50A chrysalis.
53:53The caterpillar was an eating machine.
53:56An identity rolled up like a sock and discarded.
54:03This body is for something different.
54:06An agent of near miraculous change.
54:09And one responsible for making butterflies powerful symbols of hope and transformation.
54:16This is a sign that something beautiful is surely on its way.
54:25The chrysalis is one of the most enduring symbols in the natural world.
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