02x04 - Rainforest

[bunniefuu]

[Paul Rudd] Planet Earth is so spectacular,

it's easy to miss the smaller things in life.

But take a closer look

and there's a whole undiscovered world.

A world where tiny heroes

and little monsters

need incredible superpowers

to help them triumph against giant odds.

For 150 million years,

the island of Madagascar has been slowly drifting on its own unique course.

And those cast away on this lost world

have been evolving in weird and wonderful ways.

These precious rain forests are home to extraordinary creatures

found nowhere else on earth.

The smallest

are the most wonderful of all.

A tiny tenrec.

Until now, she's had her mother to guide her.

But at only four weeks old

and only four centimeters tall

it's time to take her own path.

In this mysterious forest,

the animals are armed with secret weapons

special skills

and cunning defenses.

To survive out here,

a tiny tenrec needs to discover its own superpower.

[animals calling]

It's a difficult time to set out alone.

The rains are late this year.

The forest is dry.

Food is scarce.

And the more time animals spend looking for it

the more they risk being caught out in the open.

Tree boas lie in ambush.

Carnivorous fossa stalk the forest floor.

Little creatures must stay out of trouble

and try their best to disappear.

This deadly game of hide-and-seek has fueled an evolutionary arms race.

Ever more cunning disguises

to combat ever more deadly threats.

There are hunters here with vision so acute

they can pick out even the most camouflaged creatures.

A panther chameleon.

With eyesight five times sharper than our own

and almost 360-degree surveillance

there's not much he misses.

What looks like a dead leaf

is actually a ghost mantis.

A chameleon's vision is attuned to movement.

If the mantis stays still, he might just stay alive.

But he needs to eat too.

The chameleon locks on

then unleashes his deadly weapon.

Zero to 60 in 1/20th of a second.

Few insects are safe from the stealthy panther.

And few lizards are safe from the helmet vanga

-[chirping] -especially when she's hunting for two.

A tenrec is a bit prickly for her chick.

But a leaf-tailed gecko would go down a treat.

If she can catch it.

This crafty little lizard is one of the finest escape artists around.

By selecting just the right branch to blend with the color

and the texture of his skin

he has a cloak of invisibility.

[animals howling]

Madagascar's forests conceal

some of the most amazingly cryptic creatures on the planet.

[howling continues]

But being hard to find can make it

hard to find each other.

No bigger than a paper clip,

this is one of the smallest chameleons in the world.

A male leaf chameleon.

On a mission to find a mate.

With danger all around,

he plays the slow game

[chirps]

freezing between steps to move undetected.

These chameleons are so hard to spot, males need a superpower to find a female.

He can see things others can't.

The radiant glow of a female.

Her body reflects ultraviolet light

for his eyes only.

Finding a female is hard enough.

Catching up with her

will be even more of a challenge.

Without any cool camouflage of her own

the tenrec hides underground.

[sniffing]

Her small burrow is a safe place to hole up until the rains arrive.

And with a bit of home furnishing

it could be fit for a family.

Madagascan millipedes don't bother hiding at all.

Packed with so much poison that most predators won't touch them.

They're free to roam the rain forest.

Most of the time.

The millipede's toxin won't harm a lemur this size.

[lemur grunting]

But it's the ideal insect repellent

for getting rid of parasites living in their fur.

[grunting continues]

The lemurs have also discovered a rather strange side effect.

A quick bite

and more toxin is released.

And in small doses

it appears to be psychoactive.

The millipedes are released relatively unscathed.

But high in the trees, the lemurs

won't be coming down for a while.

[birds chirping]

Under the cover of darkness

the tenrec emerges to hunt for worms.

She eats around 50 each night.

Her eyesight is so poor, she uses her sensitive nose to find them.

But a tree boa has an even more sophisticated sense of smell.

It locates its victims by tasting the air with a forked tongue.

Once in range, it switches to heat-seeking mode.

Temperature-sensitive pits around its mouth detect warm-blooded creatures.

Even the deadliest predators have an off night.

Maybe it will have a little more success higher up.

But the tenrec's luck just gets better.

A male.

At only two months old, tenrecs are ready to meet a mate.

This mouse lemur already has babies.

One of the smallest primates in the world,

she keeps them safe in the tiniest of tree holes.

They depend on their mother for everything.

So she needs all the energy she can get.

And she knows just the thing.

It's a bit of a climb, but a mouse lemur can leap eight times its own body length.

And with huge eyes

she can find her way in the dark.

But the most impressive night vision

belongs to a creature that haunts the forest floor.

Ogre-faced spiders have eyes 2,000 times more sensitive than our own.

They're the largest eyes of any spider.

She spins a net rather than a web.

Then waits.

Now her spider sense comes into play.

Every night,

a special coating builds up inside her eyes so she can see in the dark.

Forward-facing eyes are great for hunting, but her peripheral vision is poor.

At night, the satanic leaf-tailed gecko comes out of hiding to hunt bugs

and spiders.

High above, the mouse lemur has found what she's looking for.

Flower bugs.

These curious little creatures mimic flower petals to fool predators.

But she doesn't want to eat them.

As they feed on tree sap, the bugs release little drops of sugar.

A high-calorie snack for a busy mom.

But not all out tonight are quite so sweet.

[twigs snap]

A bigger, freakier night stalker.

The aye-aye.

This strange lemur is a Frankenstein's monster of evolution.

Ears like a bat.

Teeth like a rat.

And a witch's finger.

She taps it to listen for the hollow sound of a tree hole.

[sniffs]

She's not hunting for mouse lemurs.

She's searching for something even smaller.

Grubs.

Her crooked finger is also the perfect extraction tool.

In this rain forest, it pays to find your niche

however weird it might be.

The returning daylight reveals

an empty nest.

But the vanga has invested too much to give up hope.

Not far from the nest, her baby is still alive.

[chirping]

Threatened chicks sometimes fly the nest before they're fully fledged.

The mother will keep feeding it for a few more days until it's totally independent.

[thunder rumbling]

Finally

the wet season has arrived.

[rain pattering]

Water transforms the rain forest.

It brings new life.

And new food.

[birds chirping]

As leaves flush green, a new trend in camouflage is called for.

But some things in the rain forest never change.

Those that have survived this far now face an even bigger challenge.

[river rushing]

When the rains return, the battle to breed erupts on all scales.

Male giraffe weevils fight for the favor of a female

by using their extra-long necks in jousting tournaments.

These pea-sized fights rarely result in injury.

But things get more brutal when panther chameleons clash.

They turn bright colors.

This is not camouflage.

[hissing]

This is w*r paint.

And their territorial battles are crucial to winning a mate.

The victor claims this tree as his own.

The loser must look elsewhere.

Winning the fight is just the beginning.

Securing a mate can be even more of a struggle.

The little leaf chameleon is making progress.

So close

yet so far.

The vanga.

He needs to tread more carefully than ever.

Nothing to see here.

Just two clandestine chameleons meeting "undercover."

Mates found, it's time to spawn the next generation.

A female giraffe weevil goes to a lot of effort to give her eggs the best chance.

The male keeps guard

while she lays a single egg in the fold of a leaf.

Then she puts that neck to use.

In a display of incredible strength,

this supermom rolls a camouflaged cradle ten times her size.

And hides it

in plain sight.

The little tenrec has been even busier.

Just four months after leaving her own mom, her burrow is full.

A litter of three pups.

Tenrecs may not seem the most cuddly

but for their first two weeks,

these prickly little creatures like to snuggle up tight to keep warm.

And they also need to stick together as they begin to explore the forest.

Mom now has the experience to keep her family safe in such a dangerous world.

But there's always one

that strays too far.

The little pup instinctively knows to hide.

[sniffing]

But somehow, mom needs to get her baby back without alerting the fossa.

Rubbing together special spines on her back,

she sends out a secret homing signal.

[spines scratching]

This high-frequency sound carries through the undergrowth.

To guide her lost pup

to safety.

Turns out, the tiny tenrec does have her own superpower after all.

Madagascar's little animals have evolved in weird ways.

To make it

in this weird world.

But there is one threat they are powerless against.

Deforestation has turned Madagascar's once vast rain forest

into an ever-shrinking and fragmented world.

Eighty percent has already gone.

But little by little

we can turn the tide of destruction

and begin to rebuild this lost world.