01x04 - The Amazon

[bunniefuu]

This is The Americas,

an extraordinary journey
across Earth's great supercontinent.

The widest variety of life on the planet.

The untold story...

of our home.

Tonight on The Americas...

The Amazon.

The largest,
most diverse rainforest on Earth.

A wonderland...

ruled by giants,

teeming with curious creatures,

and swarms of predators.

At its heart, the world's biggest river...

and greatest tropical wetland

where the waters dance.

This is a forest

where the trees themselves
can make it rain.

Welcome...

...to the jungle.

The Amazon covers 40% of South America

and spans nine countries.

Its lifeblood is a mighty river

longer than the journey
from New York to London.

With 1,100 tributaries,

the River Amazon holds


In this water world
live South American icons.

Jaguar.

River monsters that grow over 400 pounds,

anaconda.

And capybara,

the biggest rodent in the world.

But some river giants...
are hardly ever seen.

In Brazil, one particularly shy animal

is reaching the end of a 250-mile journey.

Almost three feet long,

she is a giant river turtle.

And she's not alone.

Tens of thousands of females
have synchronized their arrival.

Each year, the river waters drop,

exposing beaches for just a few months.

And all these females have come here...

to lay their eggs.

Each one wants the best spot.

Too near the water, the eggs might drown.

Too isolated,

and vultures will make a meal of them.

There is a lot at stake.

She has to dig two feet down

where the humidity and the temperature
are just right.

Finally, it's time.

She lays close to 100 eggs into her nest.

And gently buries them.

She and the others
must now return to the river...

leaving their young to their own fate.

Two months later...

...the eggs have hatched.

These baby turtles are tiny,



And they're trapped.

The sand above them has baked hard.

There is only one thing
that can free them.

As the sand softens,
something remarkable happens.

It sounds like the hatchlings
are talking to one another.

They seem to be saying, "It's time to go."

And every nest on the beach
begins to open.

Over a million tiny turtles

make their way towards the river...

and safety.

Or so... they think.

On an Amazonian beach,

a million newly hatched turtles
are heading for the river.

But...

this is the realm
of the Amazon's largest predator.

Huge black caiman.

The hatchlings have no choice.
They have to get to the water.

Each must choose their own moment.

Their overwhelming numbers
mean most do make it.

The lucky ones will return here one day
to lay their own eggs.

As the seasons turn and rains arrive...

the rivers of the Amazon change.

In some places, they burst their banks...

creating a flooded forest.

In this new world,
many animals take to the trees.

Others arrive to feed,

including infamous piranha.

Their razor-sharp teeth
can strip a carcass to the bone.

Above the flood waters,

extraordinary-looking hoatzin

choose this time of year to breed.

Whilst pink botos,

the largest river dolphins...

...in the world...

use sound to hunt
between the treetop branches.

At their peak, the floodwaters
cover an area larger than Montana,

in water 40 feet deep.

And they carry nutrients
far into the rainforest.

The wealth of life in these rivers

supports super-sized hunters.

Giant river otters.

At nearly six feet long,
the world's biggest.

And boy, are they powerful,

muscular and agile too.

Each one eats eight pounds of fish a day.

These are just quick bites.

They'll need something
much more substantial,

like 20-pound peacock bass.

The fish seek safety
by hiding amongst submerged branches.

But together, the otters flush them out...

driving them into the shallows.

But not all this fish
is going to be eaten right now.

The family starts heading back upstream.

Someone has been missing out.

He's too small to join the hunt.

And he's hungry.

There may be fish all around him,

but pups don't think of them as food...

yet.

This is just...

an adventure.

He's got a lot to learn.

Not sure this tapir is gonna be much help.

At last, his family has returned
with the catch of the day.

That does look good.

And he's not going to wait
to be offered it.

In a couple of months,
he'll be hunting for himself.

Venture beyond the riverbanks,

and it's easy to get lost in the jungle.

Lost in the hunting ground

of the most notorious predators...

in the Amazon.

The Amazon rainforest is home to a tenth

of all known species on Earth.

Of those, most in fact,

are insects.

Enough to feed a monster,

the most voracious hunter in the Amazon.

One that takes down 30,000 victims a day.

Army ants...
the ultimate swarm raiders.

They're almost totally blind,
but they have a super sense

to search out and feel for their prey.

The slightest motion draws an attack.

So if you're surrounded,

hold your nerve.

And don't move

a muscle.

If just one ant senses prey...

it calls in the troops.

And it's game over.

Venomous stings immobilize their victims,

then liquefy their tissues from within,

making them easier to butcher.

But behind the carnage,
there is a plan.

Soldiers, over half an inch long,
guard the trails.

Whilst specialist porters with longer legs
carry the food home.

With so many mouths to feed,

they'll even take on dangerous prey...

like wasps.

The wasps drum their wings as a threat.

They would normally attack anything
that comes near their nest.

But they are overwhelmed.

What the army wants...

is their young.

Hundreds of soft,
protein-filled packages.

It's the jackpot.

Raid over.

Now, to get all this food back to base.

The smallest ants, called minims,

help out by offering a leg up,

even if it can cause
a bit of a headache.

They also join the workers
to close any gaps in the trail...

forming living suspension bridges.

It's a masterpiece of organization.

Scent trails guide them home

to their astonishing nest.

A jungle bivouac.

Over half a million ants bind together,

forming the walls, floors, and ceilings

of a precisely temperature
and humidity-controlled palace.

But before long,

the forest around their nest...
is wiped clean.

There's no food left.

And the bivouac is dismantled ant by ant

as the entire colony moves
to fresh hunting grounds.

It's the equivalent of a city
the size of, well, Sacramento

moving 25 miles on foot overnight.

Army ants help keep the forest in balance,

leaving behind a vacant lot

ready for new life

to move in.

From the jungle floor
to the tops of the trees,

everywhere in this rainforest is alive.

And in a rainforest,

the key life force is,
of course, rain.

Like giant drinking straws,

each tree draws moisture upwards
to their leaves...

...where it is exhaled

as water vapor.

Scaled up
across the Amazon's 400 billion trees,

the effect is simply... phenomenal.

And the trees have another trick.

By releasing special compounds
into the air,

they can make it rain.

These compounds
draw moisture into droplets.

And when those droplets are big enough...

they fall.

Research has shown
that the trees choose to do this

exactly when they need it.

Water is the jungle's life support.

Where all this rain

combines with
the intense sunlight of the tropics,

trees can grow into giants.

To survive way up here,

you've got to be...

...on top of your game.

The seemingly endless canopy
of the Amazon rainforest

towers 150 feet high.

And the remarkable animals
that live up here

rarely, if ever,

touch the ground.

They all have
their own ways of adapting to

the high life.

In deepest Peru

live some of the strangest-looking monkeys
in the world.

If you can catch a glimpse of them.

In fact, they're so hard to spot,

they've rarely been filmed.

Emperor tamarins...

barely the size of a squirrel.

They live in small family groups.

To find enough food,
they're constantly on the go.

But that's a problem
when you've got not one

but two babies on board.

Tamarins regularly have twins,
which is rare for primates.

Mom has to piggyback
her toddlers everywhere.

Imagine that.

Close call!

There's just one way
a mom can raise these twins.

She needs backup!

Only one female in a tamarin family
gets to breed.

So the others become...

...babysitters.

And that's very handy.

Her calls bring the family into help.

Free of the kids, Mom can,
at last, head off to find food.

There is plenty of fruit around.

And just as well,

she needs to double her calorie intake

to feed herself...

and the twins.

Now how's that babysitter doing?

Looks like it's all under control.

So there's time for more fruit.

But the youngsters are getting restless.

They've gone exploring...

three stories up.

Just one slip

could be fatal.

The sitter needs eyes
in the back of its head.

Now, they're out on a limb...

...and starting to panic.

Time's up for Mom.

She's back on duty, but at least refueled.

Mastering life in the canopy
is all about teamwork.

At the top of one of the tallest trees
in the Amazon

is another mom

with a much bigger problem to face.

In the Venezuelan Amazon,

the very top of the canopy

is the haunt of one of the largest

and most powerful birds of prey

in the world.

A three-foot-tall harpy eagle.

Ten stories up,

her home is the ideal lookout
for a hunter.

But she's stuck here

because she's tied
to the most precious thing in her life...

her young chick.

He hatched just a couple of days ago.

Her five-inch talons,

longer than a grizzly bear's claws,

now need to be childproofed.

A wrong step

could be fatal.

Up here, they are exposed to the elements.

If she left him alone,

he would soon die.

So she's reliant on a partner
to bring back food.

But he's arrived empty-handed.

The chick is still waiting
for his first meal.

The pair breed only every three years,

so have invested everything in the chick.

But the rainforest
is a challenging place to live.

As the tropical heat builds,

mom and chick are struggling.

Her body provides some shade,

but she has another strategy.

She uses her immense strength
to grab a branch...

...almost as thick as your wrist.

It offers cooling shelter from the sun.

But there's a greater threat.

Rainstorms in the Amazon
can last for a week.

And they are
one of the biggest K*llers of baby eagles.

His feathers aren't waterproof,

so he could freeze to death or even drown.

The temperature has dropped
by ten degrees.

Now, the only warm, dry spot in the nest

is directly beneath her.

Eventually, the rain passes.

But has the storm taken a terrible toll?

Thanks to her, he's made it.

But now, she urgently needs her partner...

...to bring food.

At last...

fresh meat.

The chick will rely on his parents
for another 18 months.

But for these rare giant predators,

finding food is becoming
more and more difficult.

This is now the scene around her nest.

In the last 50 years,

over an eighth of the Amazon
has been cleared.

Some places are approaching
a point of no return,

where the rainforest will be no more.

The impact will be felt
right across South America

because fewer trees mean less rain.

The forest doesn't just make
its own weather.

It creates a vast sky river of cloud

that carries more water
than the mighty Amazon River below it.

It flows overhead,
providing water for millions.

While it still flows, it helps create

the largest tropical wetland in the world.

This is the Pantanal,



It's a sparkling mosaic of shallow lakes,

marshes, grasslands, and forests.

And famed
for its staggering diversity of wildlife.

Hyacinth macaws,
the biggest of their kind.

Green Anaconda, over 15 feet long.

More jaguar
than you'll find anywhere else.

And a stronghold
for an animal with the power

to make the water... dance.

The Pantanal is a paradise

for predators.

Yacare caiman.

There are more than four million of them
in this vast wetland.

They're normally lone hunters,

but now countless males have gathered

to mate.

Tensions begin to run high
as they jostle for the best place.

One male has already claimed his patch.

He's in his prime

and readies himself.

A love song...

that makes the waters dance.

As a male caiman roars,

the vibrations from his body
send low-frequency sound waves

pulsating through the water.

An exquisite Pantanal performance.

And it's working.

A nearby female picks up
on these good vibrations.

He seems delighted.

Time to bring it home.

Oh...

Oh, dear...

That's... not supposed to happen.

But he hasn't lost his audience yet.

Let's try that again.

Yes.

Now, he's back in the swing of it

and she...

is... mesmerized.

As she slips underwater,

he wraps her

in a tender embrace.

And while the other males
struggle to be heard,

this crooner got his girl.

Once more, high above,

the sky river delivers rain.

The lifeblood of the Amazon and Pantanal.

All that live here

depend on the essential flow of water...

from the greatest river
and greatest rainforest on Earth.