1 00:02:53,700 --> 00:02:58,080 I am sitting surrounded by the greatest proliferation of life 2 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:01,450 anywhere on the surface of the earth. 3 00:03:01,660 --> 00:03:05,750 I'm up in the canopy of the jungle, the tropical rainforest. 4 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:10,000 Here there is a greater bulk of life, both animal and plant - 5 00:03:10,170 --> 00:03:14,470 and a greater diversity too - than can be found anywhere else. 6 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:20,890 This huge proliferation comes from two main causes: Warmth and wetness. 7 00:03:21,100 --> 00:03:24,310 The wetness comes from the abundant equatorial rains, 8 00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:27,020 the warmth from the tropical sun. 9 00:03:27,270 --> 00:03:30,440 Between them, those two factors have created the jungle, 10 00:03:30,650 --> 00:03:35,160 which stretches in a broken green band right round the earth. 11 00:03:38,780 --> 00:03:42,910 This particular patch lies in South America, right across the equator, 12 00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:46,120 stretching for 600 miles both north and south of it 13 00:03:46,290 --> 00:03:51,130 in a vast blanket, almost unbroken except for the rivers. 14 00:03:52,010 --> 00:03:57,260 Here there is probably more unexplored territory than anywhere else in the world. 15 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:08,860 Travel east from here along the course of that greatest of rivers, the Amazon, 16 00:04:09,060 --> 00:04:11,110 and you reach the Atlantic. 17 00:04:11,860 --> 00:04:15,490 Continue along the line of the equator, across the ocean, 18 00:04:15,820 --> 00:04:17,990 and you come to the west coast of Africa, 19 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:21,990 another gigantic river, the Zaire - that used to be called the Congo - 20 00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:24,750 and another vast tract of jungle. 21 00:04:25,250 --> 00:04:30,170 Eastern Africa doesn't get as much rain and the jungle dwindles into savannah, 22 00:04:30,380 --> 00:04:35,510 but across the Indian Ocean the great green rainforest reappears 23 00:04:35,670 --> 00:04:38,930 along the western edge of India and Sri Lanka. 24 00:04:39,220 --> 00:04:43,220 It covers south-east Asia, Burma, Thailand and Malaysia, 25 00:04:43,470 --> 00:04:49,150 the huge islands of Borneo and Sulawesi and the smaller archipelagos of Indonesia, 26 00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:52,400 and farther east still, New Guinea. 27 00:04:56,190 --> 00:04:58,990 Beyond lies the vastness of the Pacific, 28 00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:03,160 for the most part empty of land except for scatterings of tiny islands, 29 00:05:03,370 --> 00:05:06,700 until, having girdled the earth around the equator, 30 00:05:06,870 --> 00:05:11,630 you come back to the greatest expanse of all, the Amazon jungle. 31 00:05:30,690 --> 00:05:36,360 The kind of tree I've climbed doesn't grow in groups but as isolated individuals, 32 00:05:36,570 --> 00:05:39,820 and it's by far the tallest tree in this particular jungle. 33 00:05:40,070 --> 00:05:43,450 It's a kapok, and it grows to over 200 feet high. 34 00:05:43,660 --> 00:05:47,660 If the canopy of leaves formed by the rest of the jungle 35 00:05:47,830 --> 00:05:51,330 can be called a sea of leaves, then the crown of the kapok 36 00:05:51,540 --> 00:05:57,170 is an island which rises above that sea, and it has a climate all of its own. 37 00:05:57,380 --> 00:06:01,510 There is more sunshine up here than below and there's also wind, 38 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:05,180 which is virtually unknown in the depths of the forest. 39 00:06:05,430 --> 00:06:08,060 The wind causes some problems. 40 00:06:08,220 --> 00:06:12,900 It can rob a tree of its moisture by evaporation from the surface of its leaves, 41 00:06:13,100 --> 00:06:16,690 so the kapok has very small leaves. 42 00:06:16,940 --> 00:06:18,820 The wind also brings a benefit - 43 00:06:19,030 --> 00:06:23,820 it distributes the kapok seeds, which are extremely fluffy. 44 00:06:29,540 --> 00:06:34,580 They float gently across the top of the canopy for mile after mile. 45 00:06:35,750 --> 00:06:38,340 The crowns of these giant trees are the home 46 00:06:38,510 --> 00:06:42,340 of the biggest and most fearsome of all jungle birds. 47 00:06:44,590 --> 00:06:47,680 There are flying hunters very like this one in most jungles. 48 00:06:47,890 --> 00:06:51,350 In South America the harpy, in Africa the crowned eagle, 49 00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:54,020 and here in Malaysia the hawk eagle. 50 00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:59,110 All patrol above the surface of the canopy, occasionally plunging down into the leaves 51 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:03,360 at great speed to seize a squirrel, a bird or even a monkey. 52 00:07:03,950 --> 00:07:06,030 All produce just one nestling 53 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:09,490 which they must feed with meat for almost a year 54 00:07:09,660 --> 00:07:12,410 until it too is big enough to hunt. 55 00:07:20,380 --> 00:07:24,130 These high outposts above the jungle are excellent vantage points 56 00:07:24,300 --> 00:07:27,100 from which to scan life in the canopy below. 57 00:07:27,390 --> 00:07:32,810 Few other creatures dare fly above that sea of leaves when there are eagles about. 58 00:07:41,570 --> 00:07:44,990 Coming down from the airy sunlit branches of the kapok, 59 00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:50,830 you leave the breeze and the dazzling sunshine and enter a different world. 60 00:07:51,370 --> 00:07:54,040 Here the warm still air is heavy with moisture, 61 00:07:54,210 --> 00:07:56,250 there's hardly a breath of breeze, 62 00:07:56,420 --> 00:08:00,040 the leaves above cut out much of the sunshine. 63 00:08:23,990 --> 00:08:28,740 The canopy - millions of leaves stretching in a vast endless mosaic of green, 64 00:08:28,990 --> 00:08:33,750 each leaf exactly angled to collect the maximum amount of light. 65 00:08:34,450 --> 00:08:36,920 Many have a special joint at the base of their stalk 66 00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:40,750 that enables them to twist and follow the sun as it swings overhead. 67 00:08:41,540 --> 00:08:44,010 It's an isolated world, many of whose inhabitants 68 00:08:44,170 --> 00:08:48,050 are born here and will die here, without ever leaving it. 69 00:08:58,140 --> 00:09:00,060 Insects are everywhere. 70 00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:04,280 There seems no limit to the variety of their shapes and colours. 71 00:09:04,780 --> 00:09:09,320 Some prey on others, most derive their sustenance from the trees, 72 00:09:09,490 --> 00:09:15,540 collecting the seeds, sipping the nectar, sucking the sap and munching the leaves. 73 00:09:36,560 --> 00:09:40,020 Weaver ants use the leaves as walls for their nests. 74 00:09:40,270 --> 00:09:44,690 Workers, feet hooked on one leaf, lock their jaws on the edge of another 75 00:09:44,860 --> 00:09:46,230 and haul the two together. 76 00:09:46,690 --> 00:09:48,490 While they hold the leaves in position, 77 00:09:48,700 --> 00:09:53,450 other workers use the colony's grubs as tubes of glue, gently squeezing them 78 00:09:53,620 --> 00:09:55,790 so that they produce threads of sticky silk 79 00:09:56,040 --> 00:09:58,370 which they weave back and forth across the junction. 80 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:05,300 Eventually they produce an enclosed globe within which they can rear their young. 81 00:10:10,340 --> 00:10:14,680 The insubstantial green terraces of the canopy are the pastures of the jungle 82 00:10:14,850 --> 00:10:17,310 and a multitude of creatures graze on them. 83 00:10:17,680 --> 00:10:19,770 These in South America are squirrel monkeys, 84 00:10:19,930 --> 00:10:23,980 but every jungle has its monkey troops that scamper with total confidence 85 00:10:24,150 --> 00:10:27,900 through the branches, fastidiously selecting the right kind of tree, 86 00:10:28,110 --> 00:10:34,370 the juiciest bud... or the particular shoot that most takes their fancy. 87 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:53,090 There are no seasonal changes here comparable to winter and summer in the north, 88 00:10:53,380 --> 00:10:57,600 so there is no one time for the shedding and the renewal of leaves. 89 00:10:57,970 --> 00:11:00,480 Neither is there any particular season for flowering. 90 00:11:00,810 --> 00:11:05,480 In this eternal summer, trees vary greatly in their flowering cycles. 91 00:11:05,810 --> 00:11:09,650 Some bloom every ten months, others every fourteen. 92 00:11:09,980 --> 00:11:14,660 A few may only flower once in a decade. But the rhythm is far from haphazard, 93 00:11:14,820 --> 00:11:20,500 for all the individuals of one species produce their flowers at about the same time, 94 00:11:20,660 --> 00:11:23,620 as they must if they are to cross-pollinate one another. 95 00:11:30,130 --> 00:11:36,090 With so little breeze within the canopy, the trees can't rely on the wind to pollinate. 96 00:11:36,300 --> 00:11:38,810 Most depend on insects and other animals, 97 00:11:38,970 --> 00:11:42,310 bribing them with lavish feasts of pollen and nectar. 98 00:11:51,150 --> 00:11:55,160 Bigger creatures have to be persuaded to transport the heavier seeds. 99 00:11:55,450 --> 00:11:57,320 Their rewards are the fruits. 100 00:11:57,700 --> 00:12:01,660 Birds do much of this work during the day, swallowing the entire fruit, 101 00:12:01,830 --> 00:12:06,500 digesting the flesh and voiding the seeds later and elsewhere. 102 00:12:07,460 --> 00:12:10,670 At night, other creatures take on the job. 103 00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:19,140 The majority of bats eat insects, but in the tropics many have specialised 104 00:12:19,300 --> 00:12:22,560 in collecting fruit and live on nothing else. 105 00:12:36,240 --> 00:12:39,570 There are a great number of different kinds of figs in the jungle, 106 00:12:39,780 --> 00:12:41,740 each with its own fruiting rhythm. 107 00:12:41,990 --> 00:12:46,290 Since the bats are such accomplished fliers, they can range far over the jungle 108 00:12:46,460 --> 00:12:50,460 and can always find figs of some kind, ripe somewhere. 109 00:12:51,290 --> 00:12:54,510 Some feast on them in the trees, many prefer to carry them away 110 00:12:54,670 --> 00:12:57,260 and feed in the familiar safety of their roosts. 111 00:13:12,020 --> 00:13:14,440 Trees can be cropped in many different ways. 112 00:13:14,650 --> 00:13:18,280 The pygmy marmoset has specialised in collecting sap. 113 00:13:18,740 --> 00:13:21,160 The front teeth in its lower jaw project forward, 114 00:13:21,320 --> 00:13:25,450 and with them it scrapes away the bark causing the sap to run. 115 00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:45,270 Marmosets live in families, each with its own territory in the branches, 116 00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:48,020 and each has at least one of these sap wells 117 00:13:48,180 --> 00:13:52,810 which the family keeps open and productive and vigorously defends. 118 00:13:59,450 --> 00:14:04,330 Still though the air is, it carries the microscopic spores of ferns and mosses 119 00:14:04,530 --> 00:14:08,040 which lodge in the crevices of the tree bark and sprout. 120 00:14:08,540 --> 00:14:12,330 As they flourish and decay, their remains accumulate into a compost 121 00:14:12,540 --> 00:14:14,630 on which other plants can grow. 122 00:14:15,500 --> 00:14:18,420 Their dangling roots collect moisture from the humid air, 123 00:14:18,630 --> 00:14:24,720 and so the broad branches become balconies loaded with orchids and bromeliads. 124 00:14:59,090 --> 00:15:01,420 Bromeliads are relations of the pineapple 125 00:15:01,590 --> 00:15:05,760 and each one has its own population of animal lodgers. 126 00:15:19,150 --> 00:15:22,950 The rosette of leaves forms a chalice that is always full of water, 127 00:15:23,150 --> 00:15:25,910 a useful drinking place for the canopy animals. 128 00:15:38,290 --> 00:15:41,880 For some frogs, it's more than that. It's a nursery. 129 00:15:42,130 --> 00:15:46,220 This little female arrow poison frog laid her eggs on a leaf. 130 00:15:46,470 --> 00:15:51,310 As they hatched, she allowed a tadpole to wriggle up onto her moist back. 131 00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:54,390 Now she must find a pond for it to swim in. 132 00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:21,130 She reverses into the water and allows the surface tension to pull her tadpole off. 133 00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,090 Several species of arrow poison frogs use bromeliads like this, 134 00:16:27,260 --> 00:16:31,680 and most regard their parental responsibilities as being over at this stage. 135 00:16:31,930 --> 00:16:33,520 Mosquitoes are likely to lay here, 136 00:16:33,680 --> 00:16:37,600 so with luck, there should be some wriggling larvae for the tadpole to feed on. 137 00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:43,110 But this frog doesn't take that chance. Every three or four days, 138 00:16:43,280 --> 00:16:49,700 she returns to every plant where she left a tadpole and in each she lays more eggs. 139 00:16:56,160 --> 00:16:59,710 But these are not fertile. They are food for the tadpole 140 00:16:59,880 --> 00:17:03,380 and will sustain it until it's big enough to catch insects for itself. 141 00:17:07,010 --> 00:17:09,510 For such frogs, like so many creatures up here, 142 00:17:09,720 --> 00:17:13,640 the canopy is a complete world, suspended above the surface of the earth, 143 00:17:13,810 --> 00:17:15,810 that they never need leave. 144 00:17:21,860 --> 00:17:23,610 When you descend from the canopy, 145 00:17:23,820 --> 00:17:27,400 you leave behind the most densely populated part of the jungle 146 00:17:27,570 --> 00:17:32,160 and enter a kind of aerial halfway house of spindly saplings, 147 00:17:32,330 --> 00:17:36,500 hanging lianas and bare branchless trunks. 148 00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:47,340 Here, I am about halfway down, about 70 feet above the floor, 149 00:17:47,630 --> 00:17:55,010 midway between the ceiling of leaves in the canopy and the carpet of leaves below. 150 00:17:55,220 --> 00:18:00,850 Up here, there are very few leaves - these huge tree trunks don't sprout many. 151 00:18:01,100 --> 00:18:07,320 There's nothing much but empty space, so very few creatures come here to feed, 152 00:18:07,610 --> 00:18:12,240 and apart from birds and some flying insects, the only creatures I'm likely to see 153 00:18:12,410 --> 00:18:16,750 are those that use these huge tree trunks and the dangling lianas 154 00:18:16,950 --> 00:18:21,960 as vertical highways between the world above and the world below. 155 00:18:25,460 --> 00:18:28,380 Snakes with no legs and claws with which to hold on 156 00:18:28,550 --> 00:18:32,180 might not seem to be well suited to climbing, but in fact 157 00:18:32,340 --> 00:18:35,810 some can ascend the vertical trunks with astonishing ease. 158 00:18:36,260 --> 00:18:39,390 The paradise tree snake of Borneo maintains its grip 159 00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:43,810 by pressing sideways with its coils and propels itself upwards 160 00:18:43,980 --> 00:18:48,860 by sending ripples down the line of angled backward-pointing scales on its underside. 161 00:19:05,710 --> 00:19:08,760 But it has an even more unexpected accomplishment. 162 00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:20,560 By pulling its ribs forwards, it flattens its body, turning it from a rod into a ribbon 163 00:19:20,770 --> 00:19:25,190 so that it catches the air, and by waving its coils it can, to some extent, 164 00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:27,400 control the direction of its glide. 165 00:19:36,700 --> 00:19:40,620 But in these Borneo forests there are even better gliders. 166 00:19:45,790 --> 00:19:50,960 This squirrel has a cloak of furry skin that stretches from its wrist to its ankle. 167 00:19:52,510 --> 00:19:55,890 When it's about its normal business, the skin looks a bit untidy, 168 00:19:56,050 --> 00:20:00,430 as though the animal were rather sloppily dressed, but when the squirrel leaps, 169 00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:03,890 then it becomes the very summit of gliding grace. 170 00:20:35,010 --> 00:20:40,050 Most other mammals in this midway zone travel from tree to tree along the lianas. 171 00:20:40,390 --> 00:20:45,190 Marmosets are capable jumpers and confidently leap a yard or so. 172 00:20:58,740 --> 00:21:01,620 But they are not always convinced that they can make it. 173 00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:15,130 The uakari is not nearly so athletic. 174 00:21:15,470 --> 00:21:20,470 It sometimes avoids too big a jump by throwing its weight back and forth on a sapling, 175 00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:24,600 so that it sways and carries it across to the next tree. 176 00:21:37,450 --> 00:21:41,030 Few large creatures visit this middle part of the jungle to feed, 177 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:43,370 for there are comparatively few leaves here, 178 00:21:43,700 --> 00:21:47,910 but lizards scuttle up and down the trunks, for there, as almost everywhere else, 179 00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:50,210 there are insects to be collected. 180 00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:56,630 Spiders hunt here too. 181 00:22:08,940 --> 00:22:12,860 These termites collected their food from rotting vegetation on the ground. 182 00:22:13,190 --> 00:22:17,900 They are laboriously carrying it all up here because it's up here, within the trunks, 183 00:22:18,110 --> 00:22:19,900 that they have built their nest. 184 00:22:29,790 --> 00:22:32,460 Other termites hang their nests from branches 185 00:22:32,670 --> 00:22:35,170 and these are often commandeered by others. 186 00:22:35,630 --> 00:22:38,880 A bird originally dug this hole, but the bat took it over 187 00:22:39,090 --> 00:22:42,140 and now uses the termites' work as a convenient roost 188 00:22:42,300 --> 00:22:44,220 from which to hawk for insects. 189 00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:10,290 The pillar-like trunks of the huge trees provide homes for a few birds. 190 00:23:10,580 --> 00:23:14,420 A big bird like a macaw needs a nice open approach to its nest, 191 00:23:14,710 --> 00:23:19,050 and the hole is relatively safe, for few non-flying robbers can reach it. 192 00:23:19,300 --> 00:23:24,300 This hole started when a dead branch fell, but the macaws have enlarged it greatly. 193 00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:32,480 They usually have just two chicks, 194 00:23:32,770 --> 00:23:35,520 but keeping them properly fed is a considerable labour, 195 00:23:35,690 --> 00:23:38,940 for they will stay in the nest hole for over three months. 196 00:23:56,630 --> 00:23:58,550 Like all parrots, macaws feed their young 197 00:23:58,750 --> 00:24:01,710 by regurgitating chewed-up fruit from their crop. 198 00:24:13,060 --> 00:24:16,810 Both parents labour away, bringing loads of fruit throughout the day, 199 00:24:17,020 --> 00:24:20,690 for it's bulky food and the youngsters need a great deal of it. 200 00:24:30,990 --> 00:24:33,870 Holes in tree trunks are very valuable properties. 201 00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:38,250 Only a few creatures can make them, but plenty will gladly move into them. 202 00:24:38,630 --> 00:24:44,260 So, after one family has left, other creatures soon turn up to inspect the vacant property. 203 00:24:48,050 --> 00:24:52,350 The golden lion marmoset, like all its family, is incurably inquisitive. 204 00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:54,520 They may already have a hole of their own, 205 00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,810 but it's always worth inspecting alternative accommodation. 206 00:25:03,940 --> 00:25:09,240 And their curiosity has paid off - the hole contains a meal, a few cockroaches. 207 00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,600 As it approaches the ground, the huge creeper-swathed trunk of the kapok 208 00:25:36,810 --> 00:25:40,900 flares out into buttresses which the tree needs for its stability, 209 00:25:41,110 --> 00:25:42,690 for its roots are very shallow. 210 00:25:47,070 --> 00:25:52,200 The fact is that the forest floor is not a very fertile place. 211 00:25:52,370 --> 00:25:56,500 This is partly because it is so dark, much of the light having been cut off 212 00:25:56,660 --> 00:26:01,580 by the tiers of leaves up in the canopy, and partly because the torrential rains 213 00:26:01,750 --> 00:26:06,630 wash away much of the nutriment that is in the soil. 214 00:26:07,340 --> 00:26:12,680 So the roots of the kapok tree, and indeed of any other plant that grows down here, 215 00:26:13,010 --> 00:26:18,730 have to find their sustenance not deep in the soil, but from up on the surface - 216 00:26:18,890 --> 00:26:27,570 from this, in fact, the litter of dead leaves that's continuously falling down from above. 217 00:26:27,820 --> 00:26:33,200 And the processes which release that sustenance are in fact very swift. 218 00:26:33,490 --> 00:26:38,710 For down here there's very little wind, so it's extremely humid; it's also very warm, 219 00:26:38,910 --> 00:26:43,880 and those two factors together suit the processes of decay very well. 220 00:26:48,550 --> 00:26:51,430 Bacteria and moulds work unceasingly. 221 00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,890 Fungi proliferate, spreading their filaments through the litter. 222 00:26:55,180 --> 00:26:58,350 Within days of a leaf landing, they creep all over it, 223 00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:02,940 breaking down its tissues and returning its nutrients back to the soil, 224 00:27:03,150 --> 00:27:07,070 where the roots of the trees, close to the surface, quickly reclaim them. 225 00:27:07,530 --> 00:27:11,700 And as the fungi themselves flourish, so they put up their spikes and umbrellas, 226 00:27:11,860 --> 00:27:14,620 from which they spread their spores through the jungle. 227 00:27:18,660 --> 00:27:23,920 The most spectacular of all growths on the forest floor is not a fungus but a parasite 228 00:27:24,460 --> 00:27:26,710 To find it, you must discover first its host, 229 00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:30,130 a particular species of vine that grows in Sumatra. 230 00:27:30,470 --> 00:27:36,810 If the plant is infected, a huge solid bud will periodically emerge from its roots. 231 00:27:38,140 --> 00:27:44,230 When it's swollen to the size of a cabbage, it slowly, over a period of four days, opens. 232 00:27:56,910 --> 00:28:00,330 Rafflesia. Its body is a network of filaments 233 00:28:00,500 --> 00:28:04,210 that run through the tissues of the vine, absorbing its sap. 234 00:28:04,540 --> 00:28:06,790 It has no stem or leaves of its own. 235 00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,800 The only time it becomes visible is when it puts out these monstrous flowers, 236 00:28:11,010 --> 00:28:12,880 the largest in the world. 237 00:28:18,300 --> 00:28:22,350 The petals are leathery and covered in raised warty patches. 238 00:28:23,020 --> 00:28:26,600 It gives off a powerful smell which to our noses is revolting, 239 00:28:26,860 --> 00:28:29,020 for it is the stench of rotting flesh. 240 00:28:29,690 --> 00:28:33,490 The local name for it is "bunga banki", corpse flower. 241 00:28:33,780 --> 00:28:39,240 That smell is irresistibly attractive to flies which feed on carrion, and they flock here. 242 00:28:39,450 --> 00:28:41,580 It's they that pollinate the flower. 243 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,910 The seeds are small and probably carried through the jungle 244 00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,210 on the hooves of pig or deer that might tread on the flower inadvertently 245 00:28:49,380 --> 00:28:53,130 and later, elsewhere, kick the bark of another trailing vine stem 246 00:28:53,340 --> 00:28:56,260 and so infect that with another Rafflesia. 247 00:29:01,970 --> 00:29:07,100 The forest floor is littered with the debris of trees, huge fallen trunks, 248 00:29:07,270 --> 00:29:12,320 branches ripped off by a storm and leaves falling in a steady gentle rain. 249 00:29:12,900 --> 00:29:17,860 It's here that the termites collect their food, removing it particle by particle 250 00:29:18,030 --> 00:29:20,870 and carrying it away for treatment in their nest. 251 00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,000 Their incessant labour, like the work of the fungi, 252 00:29:27,290 --> 00:29:30,880 is a crucial link in the life of the forest, for the termites are bringing 253 00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,170 the nutrients in the wood back into circulation. 254 00:29:34,590 --> 00:29:39,390 Few other creatures can eat dead wood and leaves, but lots can eat termites. 255 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:45,600 The workers are guarded by soldiers. 256 00:29:45,890 --> 00:29:51,270 This particular kind have nozzles on their heads from which they can squirt a sticky repellent. 257 00:29:54,150 --> 00:29:56,740 But they can do little against attacks from above. 258 00:29:56,950 --> 00:30:01,450 Spiders sling silken ropes across the marching columns and, hanging from them, 259 00:30:01,660 --> 00:30:06,450 lasso the workers one at a time and haul them up to be eaten in mid-air. 260 00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:38,990 A whip scorpion. It doesn't have a sting like a true scorpion, but it scarcely needs it. 261 00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,780 The tip of its long antennae tell it where there's prey. 262 00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:50,390 Yet another varied population of creatures lives within the leaf litter. 263 00:31:50,810 --> 00:31:55,020 Down here it's always moist, so soft-bodied, wet-skinned creatures 264 00:31:55,230 --> 00:31:56,610 can survive very well. 265 00:31:56,900 --> 00:32:02,150 A planarian worm smoothes its way by laying down a carpet of slime. 266 00:32:08,870 --> 00:32:14,500 Peripatus, halfway between a worm and a millipede, and a hunter of spiders. 267 00:32:32,020 --> 00:32:36,980 Beetles. One of the few creatures apart from termites that eat rotting wood. 268 00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:48,240 Such inhabitants of the litter are, in turn, food for hunters from beneath the soil. 269 00:33:02,210 --> 00:33:05,430 A blind, legless burrowing lizard. 270 00:33:12,970 --> 00:33:15,940 Not all these leaf and wood feeders are defenceless. 271 00:33:16,190 --> 00:33:21,940 This phasmid, a large flightless prickly stick insect, has a powerful kick. 272 00:33:25,700 --> 00:33:29,780 It gives warning of its strength by rattling its useless wing covers. 273 00:33:52,890 --> 00:33:57,100 The smaller, less savage litter feeders are collected by little mammals 274 00:33:57,270 --> 00:34:02,190 that trot through the leaves, deftly snapping up a termite here, a beetle there. 275 00:34:02,690 --> 00:34:05,320 In the Madagascar rainforest, a tenrec, 276 00:34:05,530 --> 00:34:10,370 a more distant cousin of the European hedgehog than its coat of prickles would suggest. 277 00:34:17,620 --> 00:34:22,500 In African forests, the elephant shrew, highly strung, skittish, 278 00:34:22,670 --> 00:34:26,630 prone to career off at suicidal speed if it's startled. 279 00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:31,510 Its long sensitive trunk enables it to investigate the depths of the leaf litter 280 00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,850 with the minimum of noise and disturbance. 281 00:34:39,730 --> 00:34:41,730 But there is one inhabitant of the forest floor 282 00:34:41,900 --> 00:34:46,360 who makes more varied use of more parts of the jungle than any other. 283 00:34:51,110 --> 00:34:54,160 Human beings have lived here for tens of thousands of years, 284 00:34:54,330 --> 00:34:57,450 perfecting the techniques and accumulating the knowledge 285 00:34:57,620 --> 00:35:00,830 that enables them to meet all their needs from the jungle. 286 00:35:01,420 --> 00:35:04,960 The Waorani in Ecuador, or Auca as they used to be called, 287 00:35:05,210 --> 00:35:10,130 are among the few people left who have not abandoned any of their ancient skills. 288 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,680 Their favourite fruit is chonta, a kind of palm, 289 00:35:14,010 --> 00:35:18,730 but its trunk is armoured with the most ferocious spines and impossible to climb. 290 00:35:18,930 --> 00:35:21,350 The Waorani know how to deal with that - 291 00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:25,150 lash a small stick to the end of a pole with a strip of bark, 292 00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:31,360 put a ring of lianas around your ankles and then climb a smooth-barked cecropia tree 293 00:35:31,530 --> 00:35:34,570 growing alongside the unscalable chonta. 294 00:35:54,260 --> 00:35:57,310 The cecropia doesn't grow next door to the chonta by accident. 295 00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:01,100 The Waorani plant one beside every chonta tree they find, 296 00:36:01,350 --> 00:36:05,440 clearing a space for it so that it can get sufficient sunshine to grow. 297 00:36:06,020 --> 00:36:09,360 Within only a few years, it's stout enough to be climbed. 298 00:36:18,740 --> 00:36:20,950 The Waorani know their individual chonta trees 299 00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,710 as well as if not better than a fruit farmer knows his orchard, 300 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:26,580 and they visit them regularly. 301 00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,550 They grow all over the jungle, and often the people have to make long journeys 302 00:36:30,710 --> 00:36:35,680 to collect their fruit and walk for hours carrying the heavy stems back to their huts. 303 00:36:40,470 --> 00:36:45,940 Chonta can be eaten in all kinds of ways except one, raw. It has to be cooked. 304 00:36:46,940 --> 00:36:51,190 The Waorani now have a few metal cooking pots but they still make some from clay, 305 00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,070 coiled and then baked in an open fire. 306 00:36:54,780 --> 00:36:59,120 Hammocks are woven from palm fibre, cups and basins made from gourds, 307 00:36:59,370 --> 00:37:02,660 and the hut itself from branches thatched with leaves. 308 00:37:04,620 --> 00:37:11,340 The pet parrot eats its chonta raw. The family are going to get theirs as an alcoholic porridge, 309 00:37:11,500 --> 00:37:15,970 and the cook chews it, adding her own spittle so that it will ferment. 310 00:37:20,310 --> 00:37:25,190 The parrot chicks also take their chonta pre-chewed from their foster parents' mouths, 311 00:37:25,390 --> 00:37:28,100 just as they would from the beaks of their real parents. 312 00:37:29,270 --> 00:37:33,780 The people traditionally are entirely naked, except for a string around their waist. 313 00:37:34,070 --> 00:37:36,820 In these temperatures, clothes are not needed for warmth. 314 00:37:37,030 --> 00:37:39,570 But the Waorani take great pride in their appearance 315 00:37:39,780 --> 00:37:42,620 and need little excuse to decorate themselves. 316 00:37:43,950 --> 00:37:48,880 The seeds of the achiote plant, when squashed, produce a vivid red paint. 317 00:37:49,210 --> 00:37:53,340 Black comes from charcoal mixed with the juice of the genipa plant. 318 00:37:58,050 --> 00:38:04,180 Face and body painting lasts a long time, for like many forest people, the Waorani sweat very little. 319 00:38:04,390 --> 00:38:07,730 In the humid air, sweat doesn't so readily evaporate and cool the body 320 00:38:07,890 --> 00:38:09,850 as it does for people elsewhere, 321 00:38:10,190 --> 00:38:13,400 and the Waoranis' skin doesn't produce it in great quantity. 322 00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,370 A vine is the source of that famous poison, curare, 323 00:38:20,570 --> 00:38:25,540 with which the Waorani tip their blowpipe darts. Scrapings from it are wrapped in leaves 324 00:38:25,700 --> 00:38:29,000 and water poured through the mash to dissolve out the poison. 325 00:38:36,510 --> 00:38:38,880 The darts are made from slivers of palm wood. 326 00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:45,930 A steel knife has been obtained from outsiders by barter and is a treasured possession. 327 00:38:46,140 --> 00:38:51,310 But even now the Waorani may do this job with a stone blade or an animal tooth. 328 00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,450 The curare has been boiled down into a sticky paste. 329 00:39:02,660 --> 00:39:07,370 Carefully, each dart is tipped with it and then put in front of the fire to dry. 330 00:39:23,890 --> 00:39:28,730 Fibres from the seeds of the kapok tree, deftly twirled round the back end of the dart, 331 00:39:28,930 --> 00:39:32,020 will give it an airtight fit in the barrel of the blowpipe. 332 00:39:36,070 --> 00:39:38,900 In Waorani hands it's lethally accurate. 333 00:39:45,490 --> 00:39:47,580 Hunters communicate with one another in the forest 334 00:39:47,740 --> 00:39:50,620 by using the buttresses of the giant trees. 335 00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:00,920 Such thumps are audible for miles, 336 00:40:01,090 --> 00:40:04,470 and in the forest, where you can't see for more than a few yards around you, 337 00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:07,720 sound is much the best form of communication. 338 00:40:14,020 --> 00:40:20,030 The jungle animals certainly exploit it to proclaim their territorial rights and to summon their mates. 339 00:41:01,900 --> 00:41:04,530 In each jungle, there's one mammal up in the canopy 340 00:41:04,740 --> 00:41:07,030 which has become the champion singer: 341 00:41:07,410 --> 00:41:11,330 In Madagascar the indiri lemur, in South America the howler monkey 342 00:41:11,580 --> 00:41:14,250 and in south-east Asia the gibbon. 343 00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,750 The siameng, with a huge resonating throat sac to amplify its voice, 344 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:26,470 has the loudest call of all gibbons. Families sing to one another across the valleys. 345 00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:00,130 Sound is not so effective beside the thundering waterfall, 346 00:42:00,420 --> 00:42:05,050 so one frog that lives in such a place in Borneo uses sign language. 347 00:42:27,030 --> 00:42:31,450 Tree lizards, up in the branches where they can easily see all over their small territory 348 00:42:31,620 --> 00:42:33,700 use a flag on their throat. 349 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,630 Many birds use both media - sound and vision. 350 00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,550 These calls, echoing across the Borneo forest, are invitations 351 00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:54,140 to one of the most spectacular theatrical performances in any jungle anywhere. 352 00:43:02,270 --> 00:43:07,740 The display will take place on a stage that has been carefully cleared and cleaned by the dancer. 353 00:43:15,450 --> 00:43:17,000 It's an argus pheasant. 354 00:43:19,330 --> 00:43:24,340 The cock has summoned a hen with his calls and now he leads her to his display ground. 355 00:43:39,100 --> 00:43:45,110 The immense fans, lined with eyespots, are the greatly elongated feathers of his wing coverts 356 00:44:25,020 --> 00:44:26,860 There are no pheasants in South America. 357 00:44:27,110 --> 00:44:31,240 There, the dancers come from another family, the cotingas, 358 00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:35,950 and one of them, the cock of the rock, performs in competitive groups. 359 00:44:38,370 --> 00:44:42,290 As many as forty male birds assemble in one patch of the forest, 360 00:44:42,540 --> 00:44:46,880 but each has his own cleared arena on the ground beneath him. 361 00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,980 The performers squabble among themselves while they wait for their audience. 362 00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:19,830 And here it is, just one. A single drab female. 363 00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:40,720 The dancers descend, each to his own stage. 364 00:45:57,110 --> 00:46:00,580 The dance itself consists of little more than a few bobs and bounces 365 00:46:00,780 --> 00:46:04,580 in the shafts of sunshine that spotlight the stage 366 00:46:04,870 --> 00:46:07,750 though there may be squabbles among the performers during the course of it. 367 00:46:19,510 --> 00:46:23,560 The female may or may not be impressed by the relative merits of the costumes 368 00:46:23,720 --> 00:46:27,890 or the dance steps, but in some way she makes a selection. 369 00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:43,950 A tap on the back of the winner and he claims his prize. 370 00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:13,400 The jungle is a very stable, unvarying place. 371 00:47:13,650 --> 00:47:18,360 There's no wind down here, the humidity and temperature remain much the same. 372 00:47:18,610 --> 00:47:24,660 Even the length of the days and the nights remains almost the same throughout the year. 373 00:47:24,950 --> 00:47:28,200 And what's more, it's a very ancient place too. 374 00:47:28,500 --> 00:47:33,420 Mountains get eroded by glaciers within thousands of years. 375 00:47:33,670 --> 00:47:36,170 Plains turn into deserts inside centuries, 376 00:47:36,380 --> 00:47:40,680 lakes fill up with mud and become swamps inside decades. 377 00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,100 But the jungle is millions of years old. 378 00:47:44,260 --> 00:47:48,680 And that may be an explanation of one of its most extraordinary characteristics, 379 00:47:48,850 --> 00:47:52,270 the great diversity of animals and plants that are found here. 380 00:47:52,650 --> 00:47:59,110 It's as though this great age has enabled the forces of nature to produce specialised creatures 381 00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:04,660 to live in every tiny niche in this ancient and stable environment. 382 00:48:08,540 --> 00:48:11,410 Just consider, for example, how many creatures have developed 383 00:48:11,580 --> 00:48:17,630 not just a generalised camouflage but a close and precise impersonation. 384 00:48:19,300 --> 00:48:22,840 A young stick insect looks like a poisonous ant. 385 00:48:31,060 --> 00:48:34,940 Yet when it grows up, it becomes a prickly twig. 386 00:48:44,740 --> 00:48:47,910 A beetle has become a winged seed. 387 00:48:50,370 --> 00:48:53,920 A bug dresses itself in a costume of lichen. 388 00:48:59,590 --> 00:49:02,130 A mantis is a dead leaf. 389 00:49:07,350 --> 00:49:10,430 A lizard, dappled foliage. 390 00:49:13,310 --> 00:49:18,900 Leaves, twigs, tendrils and stems, some fresh, some green, 391 00:49:19,070 --> 00:49:25,360 some apparently blotched with mould. None vegetable, all animal. 392 00:50:09,620 --> 00:50:14,410 A stump on a branch? No, a bird on its nest. A potoo. 393 00:50:21,090 --> 00:50:25,880 The fertility of the jungle depends not only sunshine but on rain, 394 00:50:26,050 --> 00:50:29,970 and nowhere does it fall more abundantly than here in the tropics. 395 00:50:31,050 --> 00:50:36,640 A big storm is preceded by a violent gale which for a few minutes lashes the tall trees 396 00:50:36,810 --> 00:50:38,600 and rocks the canopy. 397 00:50:41,060 --> 00:50:46,950 The huge heavy drops begin to fall, first slowly and then in drenching torrents. 398 00:51:05,260 --> 00:51:08,300 In places, the floor of the forest becomes a flood, 399 00:51:08,510 --> 00:51:11,890 sweeping in sheets through the trees down to the rivers. 400 00:51:32,410 --> 00:51:37,830 When the storm has passed, then the blessings of the water it has brought can be enjoyed. 401 00:51:44,130 --> 00:51:48,760 The jaguar is an excellent swimmer and seems positively to enjoy doing so, 402 00:51:48,970 --> 00:51:51,010 for it's seldom found far from water. 403 00:51:51,380 --> 00:51:56,470 It actually hunts as it wades, catching crocodiles and frogs and even fish. 404 00:52:10,570 --> 00:52:13,700 One of the small creatures which doesn't enjoy a soaking 405 00:52:13,870 --> 00:52:20,910 manages to pass the storm in perfect dryness and is still snug in its remarkable shelter. 406 00:52:22,460 --> 00:52:27,000 The leaf of this heliconia is hanging in an unnaturally protective way. 407 00:52:27,210 --> 00:52:30,720 The creatures lodging beneath have bitten through the veins along the mid-rib, 408 00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,800 so that the two sides flop down around it and keep out the splashes. 409 00:52:35,350 --> 00:52:38,100 It's a pair of white tent-making bats. 410 00:53:14,260 --> 00:53:17,180 The storm has brought water to the thirsty. 411 00:53:26,150 --> 00:53:31,780 It has knocked down valuable fruit for the hungry, well worth storing for a later date. 412 00:53:36,700 --> 00:53:39,700 But it can also bring death to the aged. 413 00:54:01,260 --> 00:54:07,310 A giant kapok has fallen. Maybe it had lost one of its huge branches from decay 414 00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:11,270 and was already badly out of balance before the storm. 415 00:54:11,780 --> 00:54:17,030 The great weight of water hanging on its foliage was finally more than it could carry. 416 00:54:35,590 --> 00:54:40,760 The death of this old tree was the starting gun for a feverish race. 417 00:54:41,050 --> 00:54:48,190 The competitors are the spindly seedlings mostly buried under this wreckage of branches. 418 00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:53,400 Had this tree not fallen, they would have been doomed to an early death, 419 00:54:53,650 --> 00:54:58,910 because once they had consumed the food in the big seeds from which they sprouted, 420 00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:03,240 there would have not been enough light down here for them to grow any further. 421 00:55:03,540 --> 00:55:06,580 But this tree fall has changed all that. 422 00:55:06,910 --> 00:55:12,790 The huge rent in the canopy above is both the prize and the finishing post of the race. 423 00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:19,050 Those seedlings that can grow fast and get up there quickest will get their place in the sun, 424 00:55:19,300 --> 00:55:22,850 spread their branches, flower and set seed, 425 00:55:23,140 --> 00:55:25,810 but the rest will have no chance. 426 00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:31,100 The process is extraordinarily swift. 427 00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:36,070 To begin with, shrubs appear which specialise in open sites like these. 428 00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:40,530 They flower quickly and disperse their seeds to other temporary clearings, 429 00:55:40,820 --> 00:55:44,490 but in a year or so the sapling trees have over-topped them. 430 00:55:55,500 --> 00:55:58,130 As they grow higher, some begin to flag. 431 00:55:58,470 --> 00:56:04,510 Only one or two complete the course to sunlight, where they will spread their branches. 432 00:56:05,060 --> 00:56:09,180 So the jungle floor once more becomes darkened by shadow 433 00:56:09,430 --> 00:56:12,940 and the green canopy is again complete.