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