1 00:02:46,032 --> 00:02:50,264 I am sitting surrounded by the greatest proliferation of life 2 00:02:50,436 --> 00:02:53,462 anywhere on the surface of the earth. 3 00:02:53,673 --> 00:02:57,609 I'm up in the canopy of the jungle, the tropical rainforest. 4 00:02:57,844 --> 00:03:01,678 Here there is a greater bulk of life, both animal and plant - 5 00:03:01,848 --> 00:03:05,978 and a greater diversity too - than can be found anywhere else. 6 00:03:06,186 --> 00:03:12,125 This huge proliferation comes from two main causes: Warmth and wetness. 7 00:03:12,325 --> 00:03:15,419 The wetness comes from the abundant equatorial rains, 8 00:03:15,595 --> 00:03:17,995 the warmth from the tropical sun. 9 00:03:18,231 --> 00:03:21,291 Between them, those two factors have created the jungle, 10 00:03:21,501 --> 00:03:25,801 which stretches in a broken green band right round the earth. 11 00:03:29,309 --> 00:03:33,268 This particular patch lies in South America, right across the equator, 12 00:03:33,446 --> 00:03:36,279 stretching for 600 miles both north and south of it 13 00:03:36,449 --> 00:03:41,148 in a vast blanket, almost unbroken except for the rivers. 14 00:03:41,955 --> 00:03:47,018 Here there is probably more unexplored territory than anywhere else in the world. 15 00:03:53,933 --> 00:03:58,131 Travel east from here along the course of that greatest of rivers, the Amazon, 16 00:03:58,304 --> 00:04:00,272 and you reach the Atlantic. 17 00:04:00,974 --> 00:04:04,501 Continue along the line of the equator, across the ocean, 18 00:04:04,777 --> 00:04:06,870 and you come to the west coast of Africa, 19 00:04:07,046 --> 00:04:10,709 another gigantic river, the Zaire - that used to be called the Congo - 20 00:04:10,883 --> 00:04:13,374 and another vast tract ofjungle. 21 00:04:13,853 --> 00:04:18,552 Eastern Africa doesn't get as much rain and the jungle dwindles into savannah, 22 00:04:18,758 --> 00:04:23,695 but across the Indian Ocean the great green rainforest reappears 23 00:04:23,863 --> 00:04:26,991 along the western edge of India and Sri Lanka. 24 00:04:27,233 --> 00:04:31,067 It covers south-east Asia, Burma, Thailand and Malaysia, 25 00:04:31,304 --> 00:04:36,765 the huge islands of Borneo and Sulawesi and the smaller archipelagos of Indonesia, 26 00:04:37,043 --> 00:04:39,876 and farther east still, New Guinea. 27 00:04:43,549 --> 00:04:46,211 Beyond lies the vastness of the Pacific, 28 00:04:46,386 --> 00:04:50,220 for the most part empty of land except for scatterings of tiny islands, 29 00:04:50,423 --> 00:04:53,586 until, having girdled the earth around the equator, 30 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:58,356 you come back to the greatest expanse of all, the Amazon jungle. 31 00:05:16,616 --> 00:05:22,020 The kind of tree I've climbed doesn't grow in groups but as isolated individuals, 32 00:05:22,221 --> 00:05:25,349 and it's by far the tallest tree in this particularjungle. 33 00:05:25,625 --> 00:05:28,822 It's a kapok, and it grows to over 200 feet high. 34 00:05:29,028 --> 00:05:32,862 If the canopy of leaves formed by the rest of the jungle 35 00:05:33,032 --> 00:05:36,433 can be called a sea of leaves, then the crown of the kapok 36 00:05:36,602 --> 00:05:42,006 is an island which rises above that sea, and it has a climate all of its own. 37 00:05:42,208 --> 00:05:46,167 There is more sunshine up here than below and there's also wind, 38 00:05:46,346 --> 00:05:49,679 which is virtually unknown in the depths of the forest. 39 00:05:49,916 --> 00:05:52,441 The wind causes some problems. 40 00:05:52,618 --> 00:05:57,078 It can rob a tree of its moisture by evaporation from the surface of its leaves, 41 00:05:57,256 --> 00:06:00,748 so the kapok has very small leaves. 42 00:06:00,927 --> 00:06:02,792 The wind also brings a benefit - 43 00:06:02,962 --> 00:06:07,558 it distributes the kapok seeds, which are extremely fluffy. 44 00:06:13,039 --> 00:06:17,874 They float gently across the top of the canopy for mile after mile. 45 00:06:19,011 --> 00:06:21,445 The crowns of these giant trees are the home 46 00:06:21,614 --> 00:06:25,311 of the biggest and most fearsome of all jungle birds. 47 00:06:27,453 --> 00:06:30,422 There are flying hunters very like this one in mostjungles. 48 00:06:30,623 --> 00:06:33,990 In South America the harpy, in Africa the crowned eagle, 49 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:36,526 and here in Malaysia the hawk eagle. 50 00:06:37,029 --> 00:06:41,398 All patrol above the surface of the canopy, occasionally plunging down into the leaves 51 00:06:41,567 --> 00:06:45,503 at great speed to seize a squirrel, a bird or even a monkey. 52 00:06:46,038 --> 00:06:48,029 All produce just one nestling 53 00:06:48,207 --> 00:06:51,370 which they must feed with meat for almost a year 54 00:06:51,544 --> 00:06:54,172 until it too is big enough to hunt. 55 00:07:01,788 --> 00:07:05,383 These high outposts above the jungle are excellent vantage points 56 00:07:05,558 --> 00:07:08,220 from which to scan life in the canopy below. 57 00:07:08,494 --> 00:07:13,727 Few other creatures dare fly above that sea of leaves when there are eagles about. 58 00:07:22,108 --> 00:07:25,407 Coming down from the airy sunlit branches of the kapok, 59 00:07:25,678 --> 00:07:30,980 you leave the breeze and the dazzling sunshine and enter a different world. 60 00:07:31,517 --> 00:07:34,077 Here the warm still air is heavy with moisture, 61 00:07:34,253 --> 00:07:36,221 there's hardly a breath of breeze, 62 00:07:36,389 --> 00:07:39,825 the leaves above cut out much of the sunshine. 63 00:08:02,815 --> 00:08:07,377 The canopy - millions of leaves stretching in a vast endless mosaic of green, 64 00:08:07,620 --> 00:08:12,148 each leaf exactly angled to collect the maximum amount of light. 65 00:08:12,825 --> 00:08:15,191 Many have a special joint at the base of their stalk 66 00:08:15,361 --> 00:08:18,888 that enables them to twist and follow the sun as it swings overhead. 67 00:08:19,632 --> 00:08:21,998 It's an isolated world, many of whose inhabitants 68 00:08:22,168 --> 00:08:25,865 are born here and will die here, without ever leaving it. 69 00:08:35,548 --> 00:08:37,413 Insects are everywhere. 70 00:08:37,750 --> 00:08:41,447 There seems no limit to the variety of their shapes and colours. 71 00:08:41,921 --> 00:08:46,290 Some prey on others, most derive their sustenance from the trees, 72 00:08:46,459 --> 00:08:52,227 collecting the seeds, sipping the nectar, sucking the sap and munching the leaves. 73 00:09:12,385 --> 00:09:15,718 Weaver ants use the leaves as walls for their nests. 74 00:09:15,955 --> 00:09:20,187 Workers, feet hooked on one leaf, lock theirjaws on the edge of another 75 00:09:20,359 --> 00:09:21,690 and haul the two together. 76 00:09:22,094 --> 00:09:23,857 While they hold the leaves in position, 77 00:09:24,030 --> 00:09:28,592 other workers use the colony's grubs as tubes of glue, gently squeezing them 78 00:09:28,768 --> 00:09:30,827 so that they produce threads of sticky silk 79 00:09:31,070 --> 00:09:33,334 which they weave back and forth across the junction. 80 00:09:35,841 --> 00:09:39,937 Eventually they produce an enclosed globe within which they can rear their young. 81 00:09:44,784 --> 00:09:48,948 The insubstantial green terraces of the canopy are the pastures of the jungle 82 00:09:49,121 --> 00:09:51,487 and a multitude of creatures graze on them. 83 00:09:51,857 --> 00:09:53,848 These in South America are squirrel monkeys, 84 00:09:54,026 --> 00:09:57,894 but every jungle has its monkey troops that scamper with total confidence 85 00:09:58,064 --> 00:10:01,659 through the branches, fastidiously selecting the right kind of tree, 86 00:10:01,834 --> 00:10:07,864 the juiciest bud... or the particular shoot that most takes their fancy. 87 00:10:21,721 --> 00:10:25,782 There are no seasonal changes here comparable to winter and summer in the north, 88 00:10:26,092 --> 00:10:30,119 so there is no one time for the shedding and the renewal of leaves. 89 00:10:30,463 --> 00:10:32,863 Neither is there any particular season for flowering. 90 00:10:33,232 --> 00:10:37,692 In this eternal summer, trees vary greatly in their flowering cycles. 91 00:10:38,004 --> 00:10:41,667 Some bloom every ten months, others every fourteen. 92 00:10:42,008 --> 00:10:46,468 A few may only flower once in a decade. But the rhythm is far from haphazard, 93 00:10:46,646 --> 00:10:52,084 for all the individuals of one species produce their flowers at about the same time, 94 00:10:52,251 --> 00:10:55,084 as they must if they are to cross-pollinate one another. 95 00:11:01,327 --> 00:11:07,061 With so little breeze within the canopy, the trees can't rely on the wind to pollinate. 96 00:11:07,266 --> 00:11:09,632 Most depend on insects and other animals, 97 00:11:09,802 --> 00:11:12,999 bribing them with lavish feasts of pollen and nectar. 98 00:11:21,480 --> 00:11:25,314 Bigger creatures have to be persuaded to transport the heavier seeds. 99 00:11:25,584 --> 00:11:27,415 Their rewards are the fruits. 100 00:11:27,787 --> 00:11:31,553 Birds do much of this work during the day, swallowing the entire fruit, 101 00:11:31,724 --> 00:11:36,184 digesting the flesh and voiding the seeds later and elsewhere. 102 00:11:37,129 --> 00:11:40,189 At night, other creatures take on the job. 103 00:11:44,136 --> 00:11:48,334 The majority of bats eat insects, but in the tropics many have specialised 104 00:11:48,507 --> 00:11:51,567 in collecting fruit and live on nothing else. 105 00:12:04,724 --> 00:12:07,921 There are a great number of different kinds of figs in the jungle, 106 00:12:08,094 --> 00:12:09,994 each with its own fruiting rhythm. 107 00:12:10,229 --> 00:12:14,359 Since the bats are such accomplished fliers, they can range far over the jungle 108 00:12:14,533 --> 00:12:18,367 and can always find figs of some kind, ripe somewhere. 109 00:12:19,171 --> 00:12:22,231 Some feast on them in the trees, many prefer to carry them away 110 00:12:22,408 --> 00:12:24,876 and feed in the familiar safety of their roosts. 111 00:12:39,058 --> 00:12:41,356 Trees can be cropped in many different ways. 112 00:12:41,560 --> 00:12:45,052 The pygmy marmoset has specialised in collecting sap. 113 00:12:45,464 --> 00:12:47,796 The front teeth in its lowerjaw project forward, 114 00:12:47,967 --> 00:12:51,926 and with them it scrapes away the bark causing the sap to run. 115 00:13:07,553 --> 00:13:10,920 Marmosets live in families, each with its own territory in the branches, 116 00:13:11,157 --> 00:13:13,523 and each has at least one of these sap wells 117 00:13:13,692 --> 00:13:18,186 which the family keeps open and productive and vigorously defends. 118 00:13:24,503 --> 00:13:29,202 Still though the air is, it carries the microscopic spores of ferns and mosses 119 00:13:29,375 --> 00:13:32,776 which lodge in the crevices of the tree bark and sprout. 120 00:13:33,245 --> 00:13:36,908 As they flourish and decay, their remains accumulate into a compost 121 00:13:37,082 --> 00:13:39,050 on which other plants can grow. 122 00:13:39,885 --> 00:13:42,752 Their dangling roots collect moisture from the humid air, 123 00:13:42,922 --> 00:13:48,758 and so the broad branches become balconies loaded with orchids and bromeliads. 124 00:14:21,727 --> 00:14:23,957 Bromeliads are relations of the pineapple 125 00:14:24,129 --> 00:14:28,122 and each one has its own population of animal lodgers. 126 00:14:40,946 --> 00:14:44,575 The rosette of leaves forms a chalice that is always full of water, 127 00:14:44,817 --> 00:14:47,445 a useful drinking place for the canopy animals. 128 00:14:59,331 --> 00:15:02,767 For some frogs, it's more than that. It's a nursery. 129 00:15:03,002 --> 00:15:06,904 This little female arrow poison frog laid her eggs on a leaf. 130 00:15:07,172 --> 00:15:11,768 As they hatched, she allowed a tadpole to wriggle up onto her moist back. 131 00:15:12,044 --> 00:15:14,740 Now she must find a pond for it to swim in. 132 00:15:35,401 --> 00:15:40,395 She reverses into the water and allows the surface tension to pull her tadpole off. 133 00:15:43,042 --> 00:15:46,102 Several species of arrow poison frogs use bromeliads like this, 134 00:15:46,278 --> 00:15:50,544 and most regard their parental responsibilities as being over at this stage. 135 00:15:50,749 --> 00:15:52,273 Mosquitoes are likely to lay here, 136 00:15:52,451 --> 00:15:56,217 so with luck, there should be some wriggling larvae for the tadpole to feed on. 137 00:15:57,890 --> 00:16:01,451 But this frog doesn't take that chance. Every three or four days, 138 00:16:01,627 --> 00:16:07,793 she returns to every plant where she left a tadpole and in each she lays more eggs. 139 00:16:14,006 --> 00:16:17,407 But these are not fertile. They are food for the tadpole 140 00:16:17,576 --> 00:16:20,943 and will sustain it until it's big enough to catch insects for itself. 141 00:16:24,383 --> 00:16:26,817 For such frogs, like so many creatures up here, 142 00:16:26,986 --> 00:16:30,752 the canopy is a complete world, suspended above the surface of the earth, 143 00:16:30,923 --> 00:16:32,823 that they never need leave. 144 00:16:38,630 --> 00:16:40,325 When you descend from the canopy, 145 00:16:40,499 --> 00:16:43,957 you leave behind the most densely populated part of the jungle 146 00:16:44,136 --> 00:16:48,505 and enter a kind of aerial halfway house of spindly saplings, 147 00:16:48,674 --> 00:16:52,667 hanging lianas and bare branchless trunks. 148 00:16:57,850 --> 00:17:03,083 Here, I am about halfway down, about 70 feet above the floor, 149 00:17:03,355 --> 00:17:10,454 midway between the ceiling of leaves in the canopy and the carpet of leaves below. 150 00:17:10,662 --> 00:17:16,032 Up here, there are very few leaves - these huge tree trunks don't sprout many. 151 00:17:16,301 --> 00:17:22,262 There's nothing much but empty space, so very few creatures come here to feed, 152 00:17:22,508 --> 00:17:26,945 and apart from birds and some flying insects, the only creatures I'm likely to see 153 00:17:27,112 --> 00:17:31,276 are those that use these huge tree trunks and the dangling lianas 154 00:17:31,450 --> 00:17:36,251 as vertical highways between the world above and the world below. 155 00:17:39,625 --> 00:17:42,423 Snakes with no legs and claws with which to hold on 156 00:17:42,594 --> 00:17:46,052 might not seem to be well suited to climbing, but in fact 157 00:17:46,231 --> 00:17:49,564 some can ascend the vertical trunks with astonishing ease. 158 00:17:50,002 --> 00:17:52,994 The paradise tree snake of Borneo maintains its grip 159 00:17:53,172 --> 00:17:57,233 by pressing sideways with its coils and propels itself upwards 160 00:17:57,409 --> 00:18:02,073 by sending ripples down the line of angled backward-pointing scales on its underside. 161 00:18:18,230 --> 00:18:21,131 But it has an even more unexpected accomplishment. 162 00:18:27,906 --> 00:18:32,502 By pulling its ribs forwards, it flattens its body, turning it from a rod into a ribbon 163 00:18:32,678 --> 00:18:36,910 so that it catches the air, and by waving its coils it can, to some extent, 164 00:18:37,082 --> 00:18:39,016 control the direction of its glide. 165 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:51,726 But in these Borneo forests there are even better gliders. 166 00:18:56,668 --> 00:19:01,662 This squirrel has a cloak of furry skin that stretches from its wrist to its ankle. 167 00:19:03,108 --> 00:19:06,339 When it's about its normal business, the skin looks a bit untidy, 168 00:19:06,512 --> 00:19:10,744 as though the animal were rather sloppily dressed, but when the squirrel leaps, 169 00:19:10,916 --> 00:19:14,044 then it becomes the very summit of gliding grace. 170 00:19:43,882 --> 00:19:48,751 Most other mammals in this midway zone travel from tree to tree along the lianas. 171 00:19:49,021 --> 00:19:53,651 Marmosets are capable jumpers and confidently leap a yard or so. 172 00:20:06,605 --> 00:20:09,438 But they are not always convinced that they can make it. 173 00:20:20,219 --> 00:20:22,346 The uakari is not nearly so athletic. 174 00:20:22,688 --> 00:20:27,489 It sometimes avoids too big a jump by throwing its weight back and forth on a sapling, 175 00:20:27,659 --> 00:20:31,459 so that it sways and carries it across to the next tree. 176 00:20:43,742 --> 00:20:47,200 Few large creatures visit this middle part of the jungle to feed, 177 00:20:47,479 --> 00:20:49,470 for there are comparatively few leaves here, 178 00:20:49,748 --> 00:20:53,775 but lizards scuttle up and down the trunks, for there, as almost everywhere else, 179 00:20:54,019 --> 00:20:55,987 there are insects to be collected. 180 00:21:00,525 --> 00:21:02,186 Spiders hunt here too. 181 00:21:13,939 --> 00:21:17,739 These termites collected their food from rotting vegetation on the ground. 182 00:21:18,010 --> 00:21:22,572 They are laboriously carrying it all up here because it's up here, within the trunks, 183 00:21:22,748 --> 00:21:24,511 that they have built their nest. 184 00:21:33,959 --> 00:21:36,519 Other termites hang their nests from branches 185 00:21:36,695 --> 00:21:39,129 and these are often commandeered by others. 186 00:21:39,531 --> 00:21:42,694 A bird originally dug this hole, but the bat took it over 187 00:21:42,868 --> 00:21:45,803 and now uses the termites' work as a convenient roost 188 00:21:45,971 --> 00:21:47,802 from which to hawk for insects. 189 00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:12,794 The pillar-like trunks of the huge trees provide homes for a few birds. 190 00:22:13,065 --> 00:22:16,762 A big bird like a macaw needs a nice open approach to its nest, 191 00:22:17,035 --> 00:22:21,199 and the hole is relatively safe, for few non-flying robbers can reach it. 192 00:22:21,406 --> 00:22:26,241 This hole started when a dead branch fell, but the macaws have enlarged it greatly. 193 00:22:32,250 --> 00:22:34,081 They usually have just two chicks, 194 00:22:34,353 --> 00:22:36,981 but keeping them properly fed is a considerable labour, 195 00:22:37,155 --> 00:22:40,283 for they will stay in the nest hole for over three months. 196 00:22:57,242 --> 00:22:59,107 Like all parrots, macaws feed their young 197 00:22:59,277 --> 00:23:02,144 by regurgitating chewed-up fruit from their crop. 198 00:23:13,024 --> 00:23:16,585 Both parents labour away, bringing loads of fruit throughout the day, 199 00:23:16,795 --> 00:23:20,322 for it's bulky food and the youngsters need a great deal of it. 200 00:23:30,208 --> 00:23:32,972 Holes in tree trunks are very valuable properties. 201 00:23:33,145 --> 00:23:37,172 Only a few creatures can make them, but plenty will gladly move into them. 202 00:23:37,482 --> 00:23:42,943 So, after one family has left, other creatures soon turn up to inspect the vacant property. 203 00:23:46,558 --> 00:23:50,688 The golden lion marmoset, like all its family, is incurably inquisitive. 204 00:23:50,996 --> 00:23:52,759 They may already have a hole of their own, 205 00:23:52,931 --> 00:23:55,923 but it's always worth inspecting alternative accommodation. 206 00:24:01,807 --> 00:24:06,870 And their curiosity has paid off - the hole contains a meal, a few cockroaches. 207 00:24:29,434 --> 00:24:33,131 As it approaches the ground, the huge creeper-swathed trunk of the kapok 208 00:24:33,305 --> 00:24:37,207 flares out into buttresses which the tree needs for its stability, 209 00:24:37,442 --> 00:24:38,966 for its roots are very shallow. 210 00:24:43,148 --> 00:24:48,051 The fact is that the forest floor is not a very fertile place. 211 00:24:48,253 --> 00:24:52,189 This is partly because it is so dark, much of the light having been cut off 212 00:24:52,357 --> 00:24:57,090 by the tiers of leaves up in the canopy, and partly because the torrential rains 213 00:24:57,262 --> 00:25:01,926 wash away much of the nutriment that is in the soil. 214 00:25:02,601 --> 00:25:07,698 So the roots of the kapok tree, and indeed of any other plant that grows down here, 215 00:25:08,039 --> 00:25:13,500 have to find their sustenance not deep in the soil, but from up on the surface - 216 00:25:13,678 --> 00:25:21,983 from this, in fact, the litter of dead leaves that's continuously falling down from above. 217 00:25:22,220 --> 00:25:27,419 And the processes which release that sustenance are in fact very swift. 218 00:25:27,692 --> 00:25:32,686 For down here there's very little wind, so it's extremely humid; it's also very warm, 219 00:25:32,864 --> 00:25:37,631 and those two factors together suit the processes of decay very well. 220 00:25:42,140 --> 00:25:44,870 Bacteria and moulds work unceasingly. 221 00:25:45,110 --> 00:25:48,204 Fungi proliferate, spreading their filaments through the litter. 222 00:25:48,446 --> 00:25:51,506 Within days of a leaf landing, they creep all over it, 223 00:25:51,750 --> 00:25:55,914 breaking down its tissues and returning its nutrients back to the soil, 224 00:25:56,154 --> 00:25:59,885 where the roots of the trees, close to the surface, quickly reclaim them. 225 00:26:00,325 --> 00:26:04,318 And as the fungi themselves flourish, so they put up their spikes and umbrellas, 226 00:26:04,496 --> 00:26:07,090 from which they spread their spores through the jungle. 227 00:26:10,969 --> 00:26:16,032 The most spectacular of all growths on the forest floor is not a fungus but a parasite 228 00:26:16,575 --> 00:26:18,702 To find it, you must discover first its host, 229 00:26:18,877 --> 00:26:22,005 a particular species of vine that grows in Sumatra. 230 00:26:22,314 --> 00:26:28,378 If the plant is infected, a huge solid bud will periodically emerge from its roots. 231 00:26:29,654 --> 00:26:35,524 When it's swollen to the size of a cabbage, it slowly, over a period of four days, opens. 232 00:26:47,706 --> 00:26:50,937 Rafflesia. Its body is a network of filaments 233 00:26:51,109 --> 00:26:54,704 that run through the tissues of the vine, absorbing its sap. 234 00:26:54,980 --> 00:26:57,141 It has no stem or leaves of its own. 235 00:26:57,382 --> 00:27:01,011 The only time it becomes visible is when it puts out these monstrous flowers, 236 00:27:01,186 --> 00:27:03,017 the largest in the world. 237 00:27:08,226 --> 00:27:12,094 The petals are leathery and covered in raised warty patches. 238 00:27:12,731 --> 00:27:16,167 It gives off a powerful smell which to our noses is revolting, 239 00:27:16,401 --> 00:27:18,460 for it is the stench of rotting flesh. 240 00:27:19,137 --> 00:27:22,766 The local name for it is "bunga banki", corpse flower. 241 00:27:23,074 --> 00:27:28,273 That smell is irresistibly attractive to flies which feed on carrion, and they flock here. 242 00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,539 It's they that pollinate the flower. 243 00:27:30,915 --> 00:27:33,748 The seeds are small and probably carried through the jungle 244 00:27:33,918 --> 00:27:37,820 on the hooves of pig or deer that might tread on the flower inadvertently 245 00:27:37,989 --> 00:27:41,618 and later, elsewhere, kick the bark of another trailing vine stem 246 00:27:41,793 --> 00:27:44,591 and so infect that with another Rafflesia. 247 00:27:50,068 --> 00:27:55,005 The forest floor is littered with the debris of trees, huge fallen trunks, 248 00:27:55,173 --> 00:28:00,008 branches ripped off by a storm and leaves falling in a steady gentle rain. 249 00:28:00,545 --> 00:28:05,312 It's here that the termites collect their food, removing it particle by particle 250 00:28:05,483 --> 00:28:08,179 and carrying it away for treatment in their nest. 251 00:28:11,356 --> 00:28:14,086 Their incessant labour, like the work of the fungi, 252 00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,795 is a crucial link in the life of the forest, for the termites are bringing 253 00:28:17,962 --> 00:28:20,954 the nutrients in the wood back into circulation. 254 00:28:21,366 --> 00:28:25,962 Few other creatures can eat dead wood and leaves, but lots can eat termites. 255 00:28:30,075 --> 00:28:31,940 The workers are guarded by soldiers. 256 00:28:32,210 --> 00:28:37,341 This particular kind have nozzles on their heads from which they can squirt a sticky repellent. 257 00:28:40,151 --> 00:28:42,585 But they can do little against attacks from above. 258 00:28:42,821 --> 00:28:47,121 Spiders sling silken ropes across the marching columns and, hanging from them, 259 00:28:47,292 --> 00:28:51,922 lasso the workers one at a time and haul them up to be eaten in mid-air. 260 00:29:16,921 --> 00:29:23,121 A whip scorpion. It doesn't have a sting like a true scorpion, but it scarcely needs it. 261 00:29:23,328 --> 00:29:26,786 The tip of its long antennae tell it where there's prey. 262 00:30:27,091 --> 00:30:31,585 Yet another varied population of creatures lives within the leaf litter. 263 00:30:31,996 --> 00:30:36,057 Down here it's always moist, so soft-bodied, wet-skinned creatures 264 00:30:36,234 --> 00:30:37,565 can survive very well. 265 00:30:37,836 --> 00:30:42,899 A planarian worm smoothes its way by laying down a carpet of slime. 266 00:30:49,314 --> 00:30:54,718 Peripatus, halfway between a worm and a millipede, and a hunter of spiders. 267 00:31:11,536 --> 00:31:16,303 Beetles. One of the few creatures apart from termites that eat rotting wood. 268 00:31:21,346 --> 00:31:27,114 Such inhabitants of the litter are, in turn, food for hunters from beneath the soil. 269 00:31:40,465 --> 00:31:43,559 A blind, legless burrowing lizard. 270 00:31:50,775 --> 00:31:53,642 Not all these leaf and wood feeders are defenceless. 271 00:31:53,878 --> 00:31:59,407 This phasmid, a large flightless prickly stick insect, has a powerful kick. 272 00:32:02,987 --> 00:32:06,946 It gives warning of its strength by rattling its useless wing covers. 273 00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:33,107 The smaller, less savage litter feeders are collected by little mammals 274 00:32:33,284 --> 00:32:38,017 that trot through the leaves, deftly snapping up a termite here, a beetle there. 275 00:32:38,489 --> 00:32:41,014 In the Madagascar rainforest, a tenrec, 276 00:32:41,192 --> 00:32:45,822 a more distant cousin of the European hedgehog than its coat of prickles would suggest. 277 00:32:52,804 --> 00:32:57,468 In African forests, the elephant shrew, highly strung, skittish, 278 00:32:57,642 --> 00:33:01,442 prone to career off at suicidal speed if it's startled. 279 00:33:01,713 --> 00:33:06,116 Its long sensitive trunk enables it to investigate the depths of the leaf litter 280 00:33:06,284 --> 00:33:08,377 with the minimum of noise and disturbance. 281 00:33:13,992 --> 00:33:15,892 But there is one inhabitant of the forest floor 282 00:33:16,060 --> 00:33:20,360 who makes more varied use of more parts of the jungle than any other. 283 00:33:24,936 --> 00:33:27,837 Human beings have lived here for tens of thousands of years, 284 00:33:28,006 --> 00:33:30,998 perfecting the techniques and accumulating the knowledge 285 00:33:31,175 --> 00:33:34,235 that enables them to meet all their needs from the jungle. 286 00:33:34,812 --> 00:33:38,179 The Waorani in Ecuador, or Auca as they used to be called, 287 00:33:38,416 --> 00:33:43,149 are among the few people left who have not abandoned any of their ancient skills. 288 00:33:43,888 --> 00:33:46,584 Their favourite fruit is chonta, a kind of palm, 289 00:33:46,858 --> 00:33:51,386 but its trunk is armoured with the most ferocious spines and impossible to climb. 290 00:33:51,629 --> 00:33:53,927 The Waorani know how to deal with that - 291 00:33:54,165 --> 00:33:57,566 lash a small stick to the end of a pole with a strip of bark, 292 00:33:57,869 --> 00:34:03,501 put a ring of lianas around your ankles and then climb a smooth-barked cecropia tree 293 00:34:03,674 --> 00:34:06,575 growing alongside the unscalable chonta. 294 00:34:25,463 --> 00:34:28,398 The cecropia doesn't grow next door to the chonta by accident. 295 00:34:28,699 --> 00:34:32,032 The Waorani plant one beside every chonta tree they find, 296 00:34:32,270 --> 00:34:36,206 clearing a space for it so that it can get sufficient sunshine to grow. 297 00:34:36,741 --> 00:34:39,938 Within only a few years, it's stout enough to be climbed. 298 00:34:48,953 --> 00:34:51,080 The Waorani know their individual chonta trees 299 00:34:51,255 --> 00:34:54,691 as well as if not better than a fruit farmer knows his orchard, 300 00:34:54,892 --> 00:34:56,484 and they visit them regularly. 301 00:34:56,861 --> 00:35:00,262 They grow all over the jungle, and often the people have to make long journeys 302 00:35:00,431 --> 00:35:05,198 to collect their fruit and walk for hours carrying the heavy stems back to their huts. 303 00:35:09,807 --> 00:35:15,040 Chonta can be eaten in all kinds of ways except one, raw. It has to be cooked. 304 00:35:15,980 --> 00:35:20,076 The Waorani now have a few metal cooking pots but they still make some from clay, 305 00:35:20,251 --> 00:35:22,811 coiled and then baked in an open fire. 306 00:35:23,554 --> 00:35:27,684 Hammocks are woven from palm fibre, cups and basins made from gourds, 307 00:35:27,925 --> 00:35:31,088 and the hut itself from branches thatched with leaves. 308 00:35:32,964 --> 00:35:39,392 The pet parrot eats its chonta raw. The family are going to get theirs as an alcoholic porridge, 309 00:35:39,570 --> 00:35:43,870 and the cook chews it, adding her own spittle so that it will ferment. 310 00:35:47,979 --> 00:35:52,678 The parrot chicks also take their chonta pre-chewed from their foster parents' mouths, 311 00:35:52,850 --> 00:35:55,478 just as they would from the beaks of their real parents. 312 00:35:56,621 --> 00:36:00,921 The people traditionally are entirely naked, except for a string around their waist. 313 00:36:01,192 --> 00:36:03,820 In these temperatures, clothes are not needed for warmth. 314 00:36:04,028 --> 00:36:06,496 But the Waorani take great pride in their appearance 315 00:36:06,664 --> 00:36:09,428 and need little excuse to decorate themselves. 316 00:36:10,668 --> 00:36:15,367 The seeds of the achiote plant, when squashed, produce a vivid red paint. 317 00:36:15,706 --> 00:36:19,665 Black comes from charcoal mixed with the juice of the genipa plant. 318 00:36:24,182 --> 00:36:30,052 Face and body painting lasts a long time, for like many forest people, the Waorani sweat very little. 319 00:36:30,288 --> 00:36:33,485 In the humid air, sweat doesn't so readily evaporate and cool the body 320 00:36:33,658 --> 00:36:35,523 as it does for people elsewhere, 321 00:36:35,826 --> 00:36:38,920 and the Waoranis' skin doesn't produce it in great quantity. 322 00:36:42,733 --> 00:36:45,600 A vine is the source of that famous poison, curare, 323 00:36:45,770 --> 00:36:50,537 with which the Waorani tip their blowpipe darts. Scrapings from it are wrapped in leaves 324 00:36:50,708 --> 00:36:53,871 and water poured through the mash to dissolve out the poison. 325 00:37:01,085 --> 00:37:03,349 The darts are made from slivers of palm wood. 326 00:37:05,122 --> 00:37:10,116 A steel knife has been obtained from outsiders by barter and is a treasured possession. 327 00:37:10,328 --> 00:37:15,265 But even now the Waorani may do this job with a stone blade or an animal tooth. 328 00:37:22,974 --> 00:37:25,943 The curare has been boiled down into a sticky paste. 329 00:37:26,177 --> 00:37:30,671 Carefully, each dart is tipped with it and then put in front of the fire to dry. 330 00:37:46,497 --> 00:37:51,161 Fibres from the seeds of the kapok tree, deftly twirled round the back end of the dart, 331 00:37:51,335 --> 00:37:54,304 will give it an airtight fit in the barrel of the blowpipe. 332 00:37:58,209 --> 00:38:00,905 In Waorani hands it's lethally accurate. 333 00:38:07,251 --> 00:38:09,242 Hunters communicate with one another in the forest 334 00:38:09,420 --> 00:38:12,184 by using the buttresses of the giant trees. 335 00:38:19,997 --> 00:38:22,056 Such thumps are audible for miles, 336 00:38:22,233 --> 00:38:25,430 and in the forest, where you can't see for more than a few yards around you, 337 00:38:25,603 --> 00:38:28,538 sound is much the best form of communication. 338 00:38:34,612 --> 00:38:40,380 The jungle animals certainly exploit it to proclai their territorial rights and to summon their mates 339 00:39:20,524 --> 00:39:23,049 In each jungle, there's one mammal up in the canopy 340 00:39:23,227 --> 00:39:25,457 which has become the champion singer: 341 00:39:25,763 --> 00:39:29,597 In Madagascar the indiri lemur, in South America the howler monkey 342 00:39:29,767 --> 00:39:32,361 and in south-east Asia the gibbon. 343 00:39:34,872 --> 00:39:38,603 The siameng, with a huge resonating throat sac to amplify its voice, 344 00:39:38,843 --> 00:39:44,110 has the loudest call of all gibbons. Families sing to one another across the valleys. 345 00:40:13,277 --> 00:40:16,371 Sound is not so effective beside the thundering waterfall, 346 00:40:16,614 --> 00:40:21,108 so one frog that lives in such a place in Borneo uses sign language. 347 00:40:42,139 --> 00:40:46,405 Tree lizards, up in the branches where they can easily see all over their small territory 348 00:40:46,577 --> 00:40:48,568 use a flag on their throat. 349 00:40:55,486 --> 00:40:59,047 Many birds use both media - sound and vision. 350 00:40:59,323 --> 00:41:02,781 These calls, echoing across the Borneo forest, are invitations 351 00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:08,193 to one of the most spectacular theatrical performances in any jungle anywhere. 352 00:41:15,973 --> 00:41:21,206 The display will take place on a stage that has been carefully cleared and cleaned by the dancer. 353 00:41:28,619 --> 00:41:30,086 It's an argus pheasant. 354 00:41:32,323 --> 00:41:37,124 The cock has summoned a hen with his calls and now he leads her to his display ground. 355 00:41:51,242 --> 00:41:57,044 The immense fans, lined with eyespots, are the greatly elongated feathers of his wing coverts 356 00:42:35,286 --> 00:42:37,083 There are no pheasants in South America. 357 00:42:37,321 --> 00:42:41,280 There, the dancers come from another family, the cotingas, 358 00:42:41,458 --> 00:42:45,827 and one of them, the cock of the rock, performs in competitive groups. 359 00:42:48,098 --> 00:42:51,864 As many as forty male birds assemble in one patch of the forest, 360 00:42:52,102 --> 00:42:56,300 but each has his own cleared arena on the ground beneath him. 361 00:43:06,750 --> 00:43:10,777 The performers squabble among themselves while they wait for their audience. 362 00:43:23,434 --> 00:43:27,894 And here it is, just one. A single drab female. 363 00:43:45,022 --> 00:43:47,923 The dancers descend, each to his own stage. 364 00:44:03,641 --> 00:44:06,974 The dance itself consists of little more than a few bobs and bounces 365 00:44:07,144 --> 00:44:10,807 in the shafts of sunshine that spotlight the stage 366 00:44:11,048 --> 00:44:13,812 though there may be squabbles among the performers during the course of it. 367 00:44:25,129 --> 00:44:28,997 The female may or may not be impressed by the relative merits of the costumes 368 00:44:29,166 --> 00:44:33,193 or the dance steps, but in some way she makes a selection. 369 00:44:44,948 --> 00:44:48,577 A tap on the back of the winner and he claims his prize. 370 00:45:13,043 --> 00:45:16,809 The jungle is a very stable, unvarying place. 371 00:45:17,047 --> 00:45:21,575 There's no wind down here, the humidity and temperature remain much the same. 372 00:45:21,819 --> 00:45:27,587 Even the length of the days and the nights remains almost the same throughout the year. 373 00:45:27,891 --> 00:45:30,985 And what's more, it's a very ancient place too. 374 00:45:31,261 --> 00:45:35,994 Mountains get eroded by glaciers within thousands of years. 375 00:45:36,233 --> 00:45:38,667 Plains turn into deserts inside centuries, 376 00:45:38,836 --> 00:45:42,932 lakes fill up with mud and become swamps inside decades. 377 00:45:43,173 --> 00:45:46,233 But the jungle is millions of years old. 378 00:45:46,410 --> 00:45:50,608 And that may be an explanation of one of its most extraordinary characteristics, 379 00:45:50,781 --> 00:45:54,080 the great diversity of animals and plants that are found here. 380 00:45:54,418 --> 00:46:00,653 It's as though this great age has enabled the forces of nature to produce specialised creatures 381 00:46:00,824 --> 00:46:05,955 to live in every tiny niche in this ancient and stable environment. 382 00:46:09,700 --> 00:46:12,430 Just consider, for example, how many creatures have developed 383 00:46:12,603 --> 00:46:18,405 notjust a generalised camouflage but a close and precise impersonation. 384 00:46:19,977 --> 00:46:23,413 A young stick insect looks like a poisonous ant. 385 00:46:31,288 --> 00:46:35,019 Yet when it grows up, it becomes a prickly twig. 386 00:46:44,368 --> 00:46:47,428 A beetle has become a winged seed. 387 00:46:49,807 --> 00:46:53,174 A bug dresses itself in a costume of lichen. 388 00:46:58,649 --> 00:47:01,083 A mantis is a dead leaf. 389 00:47:06,089 --> 00:47:09,058 A lizard, dappled foliage. 390 00:47:11,795 --> 00:47:17,165 Leaves, twigs, tendrils and stems, some fresh, some green, 391 00:47:17,334 --> 00:47:23,364 some apparently blotched with mould. None vegetable, all animal. 392 00:48:05,782 --> 00:48:10,378 A stump on a branch? No, a bird on its nest. A potoo. 393 00:48:16,793 --> 00:48:21,389 The fertility of the jungle depends not only sunshine but on rain, 394 00:48:21,565 --> 00:48:25,331 and nowhere does it fall more abundantly than here in the tropics. 395 00:48:26,370 --> 00:48:31,706 A big storm is preceded by a violent gale which for a few minutes lashes the tall trees 396 00:48:31,875 --> 00:48:33,570 and rocks the canopy. 397 00:48:35,946 --> 00:48:41,578 The huge heavy drops begin to fall, first slowly and then in drenching torrents. 398 00:48:59,136 --> 00:49:02,071 In places, the floor of the forest becomes a flood, 399 00:49:02,272 --> 00:49:05,537 sweeping in sheets through the trees down to the rivers. 400 00:49:25,228 --> 00:49:30,393 When the storm has passed, then the blessings of the water it has brought can be enjoyed. 401 00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,877 The jaguar is an excellent swimmer and seems positively to enjoy doing so, 402 00:49:41,044 --> 00:49:43,035 for it's seldom found far from water. 403 00:49:43,380 --> 00:49:48,283 It actually hunts as it wades, catching crocodiles and frogs and even fish. 404 00:50:01,798 --> 00:50:04,790 One of the small creatures which doesn't enjoy a soaking 405 00:50:04,968 --> 00:50:11,703 manages to pass the storm in perfect dryness and is still snug in its remarkable shelter. 406 00:50:13,176 --> 00:50:17,545 The leaf of this heliconia is hanging in an unnaturally protective way. 407 00:50:17,748 --> 00:50:21,115 The creatures lodging beneath have bitten through the veins along the mid-rib, 408 00:50:21,318 --> 00:50:25,015 so that the two sides flop down around it and keep out the splashes. 409 00:50:25,555 --> 00:50:28,183 It's a pair of white tent-making bats. 410 00:51:02,893 --> 00:51:05,691 The storm has brought water to the thirsty. 411 00:51:14,271 --> 00:51:19,675 It has knocked down valuable fruit for the hungry, well worth storing for a later date. 412 00:51:24,414 --> 00:51:27,281 But it can also bring death to the aged. 413 00:51:47,938 --> 00:51:53,774 A giant kapok has fallen. Maybe it had lost one of its huge branches from decay 414 00:51:53,944 --> 00:51:57,573 and was already badly out of balance before the storm. 415 00:51:58,014 --> 00:52:03,077 The great weight of water hanging on its foliage was finally more than it could carry. 416 00:52:20,904 --> 00:52:25,841 The death of this old tree was the starting gun for a feverish race. 417 00:52:26,109 --> 00:52:32,947 The competitors are the spindly seedlings mostly buried under this wreckage of branches. 418 00:52:33,150 --> 00:52:37,951 Had this tree not fallen, they would have been doomed to an early death, 419 00:52:38,188 --> 00:52:43,251 because once they had consumed the food in the big seeds from which they sprouted, 420 00:52:43,493 --> 00:52:47,429 there would have not been enough light down here for them to grow any further. 421 00:52:47,664 --> 00:52:50,599 But this tree fall has changed all that. 422 00:52:50,901 --> 00:52:56,533 The huge rent in the canopy above is both the prize and the finishing post of the race. 423 00:52:56,806 --> 00:53:02,574 Those seedlings that can grow fast and get up there quickest will get their place in the sun, 424 00:53:02,812 --> 00:53:06,179 spread their branches, flower and set seed, 425 00:53:06,483 --> 00:53:09,008 but the rest will have no chance. 426 00:53:11,755 --> 00:53:14,121 The process is extraordinarily swift. 427 00:53:14,491 --> 00:53:18,860 To begin with, shrubs appear which specialise in open sites like these. 428 00:53:19,095 --> 00:53:23,156 They flower quickly and disperse their seeds to other temporary clearings, 429 00:53:23,466 --> 00:53:26,958 but in a year or so the sapling trees have over-topped them. 430 00:53:37,514 --> 00:53:40,039 As they grow higher, some begin to flag. 431 00:53:40,350 --> 00:53:46,152 Only one or two complete the course to sunlight, where they will spread their branches. 432 00:53:46,690 --> 00:53:50,649 So the jungle floor once more becomes darkened by shadow 433 00:53:50,894 --> 00:53:54,227 and the green canopy is again complete.