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Culture Express
  • 5/24/2025

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00:00There are more kinds of insects in the world than all other kinds of insects, and there
00:30kinds of animals put together. But because they are so small, we rarely see how extraordinary
00:36they are. Occasionally, they assemble in astonishing numbers. A billion monarch butterflies hibernate
00:48in the forests of Mexico.
00:59Vast clouds of mayflies emerge all at once to mate.
01:09Insects face endless challenges. They can transform their bodies to meet every purpose.
01:17Eyes grow on stalks. Bodies become chemical guns.
01:24To discover how and why they do such things, you have to enter their world.
01:55Patagonia, Chile. Home to one of the most extraordinary of beetles.
02:05There are many kinds of beetles in the world, but this one has some of the biggest jaws
02:10of all. He is Darwin's beetle.
02:18He's on his way to the forest to look for a mate. Whether he gets one or not will depend
02:25on his strength and on the size of his jaws.
02:32He starts his search. A female is likely to be on a tree trunk, but trees in this part
02:54of the world are very tall. His search could be a long one.
03:03Unfortunately for him, she is 25 metres above him, near the top.
03:19She has more normal-sized jaws, but then she only needs them for feeding. But he needs
03:27immense jaws for fighting, because there are other males around with the same mission.
03:48Sheer strength is not enough in these battles.
03:54The technique is to reach over your opponent's head and hook your jaws under his wing covers.
04:02That's why his jaws are so long and have that odd shape.
04:08He's got the grip. Now he has to lift. And that needs strength.
04:24Another lift is needed.
04:39And that's that.
04:43Beetle armour is strong, so he bounces. The winner climbs on.
04:50There are more males ready to fight him up here.
05:21And here she is at last.
05:33But she doesn't seem to be in the mood.
05:51So now he has to use his great jaws as a restraining cage.
06:06Success at last.
06:14But the hurling habit dies hard.
06:25Insects' bodies have the capacity to take on an almost infinite variety of shapes.
06:32This is one of the keys to their success.
06:44This male moth doesn't go in search of females.
06:58He inflates a pair of scented plumes that protrude from the end of his abdomen.
07:05And they come to him.
07:14All insects have the same basic design. Six legs and an armour-covered body.
07:21But the different parts can become exaggerated to solve particular problems.
07:32This beetle has a giraffe's neck in order to fight.
07:40A praying mantis is disguised as a flower and waits in ambush.
07:48Another is almost invisible among dead leaves.
07:55Insect armour can carry colours that can camouflage or communicate.
08:10But the armour can also be converted into wings.
08:20And that makes insects a global force, enabling them to invade almost every habitat on earth.
08:40Sunset
08:48In southern France, one insect is starting on the most important day of its life.
08:58Dawn. And a newly hatched damselfly.
09:04She needs to mate and lay her eggs before sunset.
09:09Her adult life is so short, she may not get another chance.
09:18Her success will depend on these fragile wings.
09:25She faces many perils.
09:34Insects
09:39Few insects can escape from a spider's web.
09:46But her wings are more powerful than they look.
09:57She wants to mate with the strongest male.
10:02However, the stream where she might find him is a battleground.
10:14She watches while dark-winged males compete for the best territories, flashing their wings at each other in threat.
10:22Or trying to force their opponents into the water.
10:28Fighting finished, the female uses her wings to signal her presence to the winner.
10:44She won't be rushed, but if he doesn't grip her with his tail, a rival might steal her.
10:58As they mate, their linked bodies form the shape of a heart.
11:06But now she has the problem of laying her fertilized eggs, and that brings new hazards.
11:14Warming up
11:19Like any athlete, she must warm her muscles for optimum performance, and does so by using her wings as solar heating panels.
11:30She must fly dangerously low if she's to find the right place for her eggs.
11:43Only the quickest damselflies escape.
12:14She's safe.
12:25Safely past the frogs, this female has reached a suitable plant on which to lay her eggs.
12:32But she has to place them underwater if they're to survive.
12:37For the first time, her wings seem to be a hindrance, but in fact they help her yet again by trapping a silvery layer of air which enables her to breathe.
12:52She cuts into a plant stem and deposits her eggs inside.
13:08Now her wings are going to be truly tested.
13:13If she can't break through the water surface, she will drown.
13:38Damselflies
13:52Her day has been a complete success.
13:59Damselflies seldom venture beyond their home stream.
14:04But some insects fly huge distances.
14:09September, on the shores of Lake Erie in southern Canada.
14:14A monarch butterfly is fuelling up on nectar.
14:26A chill gust of northerly air.
14:31It's time to leave.
14:36The coming winter will be so cold it would kill her.
14:48She has never flown more than a few hundred metres in her life.
14:54But now she is heading out over Lake Erie, which is a hundred miles across.
15:14This is just the first leg of one of the world's greatest animal migrations.
15:20She will continue south, using the sun as a compass, to cross America, a journey of 2,000 miles.
15:33Her destination is Mexico and one small and special group of trees.
15:39No one knows how she finds them in these great mountain forests.
15:45She joins other monarch butterflies that have travelled here from all over North America.
15:57Countless butterflies crowd these particular trees, hanging from every branch.
16:04They come here because although winter brings a chill to the air,
16:10there will not be a lethal freeze of the will in Canada.
16:16The conditions are perfect for hibernation.
16:23Hibernating butterflies are vulnerable to predators, but monarchs are poisonous.
16:29However, a few birds have learned to rip out the toxic parts and eat the rest.
16:35They kill hundreds of thousands of butterflies and dislodge many more.
16:41Those that fall must get back into the trees before nightfall brings another killer.
16:47They vibrate their wings to warm their flight muscles, but it's a race against time.
16:54Those that fall must get back into the trees before nightfall brings another killer.
17:00They vibrate their wings to warm their flight muscles, but it's a race against time.
17:11Night brings a lethal ground frost.
17:24The night brings a lethal ground frost.
17:30Night brings a lethal ground frost.
17:36Night brings a lethal ground frost.
17:52Those that do survive sleep safely huddled together in the trees for four months.
17:58The warmth of spring wakes them from their hibernation.
18:29Those that do survive sleep safely huddled together in the trees for four months.
19:05The majority of the butterflies that flew here from Canada have survived.
19:28They take their first drink since their arrival last autumn.
19:37With increasing warmth, more and more butterflies awake.
19:54Soon they will all disperse northwards, and tranquillity will return to this forest, until
20:01the great-grandchildren of these butterflies return to escape the freezing northern winter.
20:24Some insects, however, have made a speciality of living in the most adverse conditions.
20:44Mono Lake is known as California's Dead Sea.
20:50It's twice as salty as the ocean, and lethal to almost all life.
21:03Alkali flies are one of the few creatures able to tolerate these conditions.
21:08And since they have virtually no competitors, they swarm in their millions.
21:36Alkali flies are one of the most successful of all insects.
21:39There are 85,000 different kinds, and among them, a perfect fly for almost every habitat,
21:46even this one.
22:05The alkali fly has special abilities that enable it to live on this lake.
22:11It can walk underwater to eat algae.
22:14Fine hairs trap air bubbles that prevent it from drowning.
22:18But most critically, the fly has a physiology that can neutralise the lethal levels of salt.
22:26So the alkali fly's dominance of Mono Lake goes unchallenged, except for a few weeks
22:34of the year.
22:44A hundred thousand Wilson's palorope are migrating to South America.
22:50Mono Lake is their only stopover.
22:54These alkali flies, for them, are an invaluable and irresistible feast.
23:06The fly has no defence, except to fly and become lost in a vast swarm.
23:18It needs considerable skill to pluck an individual fly from the air.
23:28There are gulls here too.
23:34So their fly-catching techniques are not so refined.
23:57In four weeks, the paloropes double their weight.
24:11Then they set off again, heading south, leaving the gulls behind.
24:22The size of the fly population has scarcely been affected.
24:27For them, sheer abundance is defence enough.
24:43But for some insects, defence is a much more complicated affair.
24:50An oogpster beetle in South Africa.
24:54He hunts ants.
25:05Eating ants may give him more than just nourishment.
25:08He may get something else from them that helps him fight his enemies.
25:23The ants launch a counter-attack and nip his ankles, but he simply kicks them out of
25:31the way.
25:43The valiant ants drive him off, straight into real danger.
25:52A mongoose.
25:59It's inquisitive, but it's also wary of the oogpster.
26:07A black and white pattern is a warning signal.
26:10The beetle takes aim and fires formic acid straight at the mongoose's eyes and mouth.
26:25The beetle probably collected this acid from the ants.
26:29It certainly makes the beetle itself very distasteful, and that, in turn, makes it worth
26:33mimicking.
26:36This defenceless little lizard carries the beetle's warning pattern.
26:42It also imitates the way the beetle runs.
26:48Not particularly well, it's true, but well enough to fool predators into thinking it
26:53just might be an acid-firing beetle.
27:07All kinds of insects have developed chemical weapons.
27:14A pair of devilrider stick insects.
27:20They fire bitter-tasting oils, terpenes.
27:29European wood ants under attack from a hungry crow.
27:34They fire the sort of acid that gives nettles their sting, so this is like one of us falling
27:40into a nettle patch.
27:51But the master of chemical warfare is the bombardier beetle.
27:57It can create a chemical reaction within its body so violent that boiling caustic liquid
28:03explodes out of its abdomen.
28:15By pulsing the jet 500 times a second, it keeps its rear end just cool enough to prevent
28:20it being caught.
28:40In the woodlands of Minnesota, there is an insect that has another chemical weapon, but
28:47this one fights as an army and can stand up to almost any predator.
29:03Bees collect nectar all day and transform it within their stomachs into one of nature's
29:09richest foods, honey.
29:17Hordes of them are bringing their precious loads back to their colony in this hollow
29:21log.
29:33The honey in their cones provides food for their young and for the whole colony if the
29:39weather turns cold or there's a drought.
29:55But so much food attracts thieves.
30:02The black bear cub has a sweet tooth, but he's never come across bees before and he
30:12doesn't know that they will defend their honey to the death.
30:20Stinging is the ultimate self-sacrifice for the bee because it can't pull out its barbed
30:25sting, so its body is torn apart.
30:44The bee's attack was far too much for the cub.
30:49But a greater challenge is coming.
30:56The cub's mother.
31:05The bees fight so hard that she only has time to steal a single cone.
31:20While the family enjoy their honey at a safe distance, the bees appear to have been defeated.
31:33Their home has been destroyed and their young will inevitably die out in the open.
31:39Yet the colony is not doomed because the workers are now rescuing at least some of what really
31:44matters, their honey.
31:51Each survivor is able to eat its own weight in honey, storing it in its stomach.
32:03They will have to abandon their dying young, but they will take much of their precious
32:07honey with them to sustain themselves while they build a new colony.
32:16Working together in such an organized society is the insect's great innovation.
32:23So how did it begin?
32:33It may have started in a place like this, the nest of the Japanese red bug.
32:43Parent insects don't usually care for their offspring, but this bug is different.
32:55The young feed on fallen fruit from just one kind of rare tree.
33:06They could never find it by themselves, so their mother collects it for them.
33:27She probes every fruit she finds to test its ripeness and rejects one after another.
33:38This can take hours.
33:44At last, a perfect fruit.
33:55For a thief, it's easier to steal than find fruit for yourself.
34:02For both bugs, the outcome of this dispute will be life-changing.
34:11As the mother struggles to keep her prize, her young back in the nest are growing restless.
34:24The thief has won.
34:27The mother doesn't know that her hungry young are leaving their nest in search of a better
34:32provider.
34:41She returns to find that her nest is empty.
34:58Her young find the nest of the thief, who is herself a mother.
35:06She returns to find that she has twice as many mouths to feed.
35:17The loser has failed at her only chance of parenthood.
35:27For the thief, life has suddenly gotten much harder.
35:31A fruit won't now last as long as it did.
35:35The young clamber over her, demanding more.
35:59She returns with another fruit, but her enlarged and insatiable brood wants still more.
36:07So she has to work non-stop, day after day.
36:26At last, the young become big enough to fend for themselves, but their success has come
36:31at a cost.
36:34The mother has worked herself to death, and now her body has become their last meal before
36:42they leave home.
36:46Looking after the young in such a way is thought to be the first step towards living in a community.
36:59But some insects benefit from doing the opposite of collaborating.
37:04They kill one another.
37:09Dawson's bee is one of the largest in the world.
37:14It nests in the baked soil of the Australian outback.
37:19Flowers are rare in this desert, so colonies of these bees are few and far between.
37:33The bees excavate tunnels for their young.
37:46The community is so harmonious that it's hard to believe that this place is also the setting
37:52for mass murder.
37:58Tempers do flare when a bee gets confused and goes down another's burrow, but these
38:03are minor disagreements.
38:10The colony is peaceful at the moment because every bee here is a female.
38:16It's the males that are the killers, and they are all dead.
38:24Their story began two months earlier, before the appearance of the females.
38:33Male Dawson's bees.
38:42The females are only just emerging, burrowing their way one by one out of the tunnels where
38:48they hatched and grew up, and their scent inflames the males.
38:55They are huge and built for fighting, and each one wants to be in the best position
39:03to mate with a female.
39:21A female emerges, and immediately there's a brawl as every male tries to reach her.
39:29It's very rare for animals to kill their own kind in combat, but stinging and biting
39:34rivals to death is usually the only way these male bees get a female.
39:51A winner manages to claim a female, and the pair race for cover.
39:56Meanwhile, the female's lingering scent drives one unsuccessful male into a deadly frenzy.
40:07Another female, caught in the middle of another brawl, becomes an accidental casualty.
40:20By the time the last female has emerged, every male is dead.
40:25The battles have ensured that the strongest males will have mated with the most females.
40:35Two months later, and it's an all-female world, with the next generation already developing
40:42underground.
41:05Insects have evolved sophisticated societies that, in complexity, are the closest thing
41:11in nature to our own cities.
41:26The insects that built this structure in Argentina dominate the surrounding grasslands thanks
41:32to skills that seem almost more human than insect.
41:42It's a metropolis, a home to millions of ants.
41:50The colony needs a huge supply of food.
41:54It's surrounded by grass, but the ants themselves can't digest a blade of it.
42:02Nonetheless, they collect it.
42:07Although they're all the same species, they exist in different shapes and sizes.
42:19The heads of these big-jawed individuals are not full of brain, but brawn.
42:25They give the species its name.
42:27They are grass cutters.
42:39They work all day, every day.
43:10The small ants, down on the ground, are porters, with the job of carrying the grass segments
43:15back to the colony.
43:29They have great strength.
43:32Their main problem is balance.
44:02Columns of them carry the grass back to the nest along highways as straight as Roman roads.
44:15Different members of the colony specialise in particular tasks, in much the same way
44:20as people do.
44:23But, as in human society, there can be problems.
44:30A hitchhiker makes one ant's job much harder.
44:35And this isn't even grass.
44:59A single colony harvests half a tonne of grass a year, more than any other animal on these
45:06plains.
45:08But since they themselves can't eat it, why do they do so?
45:18The answer lies underground.
45:21They have one of the most extraordinary survival strategies in the insect world.
45:28The ants have dug a network of tunnels that extend downwards for over seven metres.
45:40At the heart of the colony lies the key to their survival, a fungus.
45:45But this isn't sloppy housekeeping.
45:47This is a fungus that is found nowhere else on earth.
45:55The ants cultivate it assiduously.
45:59The big-jawed ants chop up the grass, covering it with an antibiotic saliva that kills every
46:05kind of fungus except this one.
46:12The ants are farmers.
46:15They feed the grass to the fungus and the fungus thrives.
46:24The ants cultivate dozens of these fungus gardens throughout the colony.
46:31This is what they eat.
46:34The system is so efficient that a single colony can have five million members.
46:42But the fungus is also dangerous.
46:48As it grows, it releases carbon dioxide that could asphyxiate the entire colony.
46:55The ants' way of dealing with this danger is ingenious.
47:01They construct their nest so that it has an automatic air conditioning system.
47:08The outer surface is so shaped that the slightest breeze sucks out stale air through these central
47:14vents.
47:16At the same time, fresh air is drawn down through the outer vents right into the heart
47:21of the nest.
47:29Our own societies have existed for thousands of years, but insect societies have lasted
47:35for millions.
47:46There may be 10 million different kinds of insects, and there are 200 million individuals
47:53for every one of us.
47:58The insects' flexible armor and their adaptability has made them the most abundant and the most
48:04diverse animal group in our planet's history.
48:31The Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico are home to one of the greatest natural wonders.
48:40A billion bright orange butterflies offer the life team a wonderful filming challenge.
48:50The colonies are only found above 3,000 meters, and the team trek there slowly in the thin
48:57air.
49:10The monarch phenomenon was only discovered here around 30 years ago, and one man has
49:15been studying them every year since, Professor Lincoln Brouwer.
49:20His knowledge will be essential if the team are to achieve their goal of flying a camera
49:25among the butterflies.
49:28It's amazing that the butterflies only come to this area that's about 30 by 60 miles in
49:34extent.
49:36There are other areas that have high forests in different parts of Mexico, to the west
49:42of here, to the south of here.
49:45But as far as we know, this is the only place that monarchs are able to spend the winter.
49:51The butterflies are in such numbers that filming them the traditional way from a camera
49:55on a tripod is reasonably straightforward.
49:59But to get a butterfly's viewpoint by flying a camera amongst the swarms is going to be
50:05altogether more difficult.
50:10First the team need a spot where butterflies gather in huge numbers.
50:18Luckily Lincoln knows a place where thousands come down to drink every day.
50:25The crew spend the next three days preparing the equipment.
50:29A remote controlled camera, a lot of cable, two bicycle wheels, a bag of rocks, and some
50:35muscle power.
50:40Now all they need to do is wait until the butterfly numbers reach truly impressive proportions.
50:51By midday the butterflies are swarming and it's time for the camera to glide with them
50:57through the air.
51:22A series of unique shots flying with the butterflies.
51:33But that was the easy part.
51:37Now it's time to get the camera 50 metres up into the treetops.
51:44Filming the roosting butterflies is not going to be simple.
51:47The clusters are unstable.
51:51And they can suddenly disperse without warning, what Lincoln calls an explosion.
51:57Here's another explosion, wow look at that, and they're going right over our head.
52:04Spectacular no doubt, but a real problem for the climbing team, Jim Spickler and Tim Fogg.
52:10Would be better for us to start now, we're going to be very careful not to disturb them
52:15or limit our disturbance, but if we do disturb them, right now it seems that they're warm
52:20enough that they could relocate to a cluster right adjacent to them, do you think that's
52:25true?
52:26Well if you disturb them they tend to fly away from the tree, 50 feet or so, so you'll
52:32lose those clusters I think if you disturb them.
52:35Do you think they'll cluster again tomorrow night?
52:40I doubt it, I think they'll just move down.
52:45That's really hard stuff, because I can't see how we can get up the trees and do what
52:51we have to up there, close to any clusters without them flying.
52:55I just don't know how I'm going to be able to get an arrow in the tree.
52:58I think if you picked your tree you could put the arrow in it now.
53:04The prospect of rigging cables high in the canopy without disturbing the butterflies
53:10is a daunting one.
53:11They may only get one chance.
53:14One false move and they'll all be gone, and I sort of had the impression that they might
53:18come back again, but Lincoln says they just won't, they'll just move on to another tree.
53:22So we'll put all the rigging in, disturb them and then that's it.
53:28Choosing which trees to rig is a critical decision.
53:32Can you get right to the tree number six, do you think, or is that too far off?
53:44They begin by firing a line over a suitably high branch.
53:50That'll work.
53:54Nobody, not even Lincoln, knows how the butterflies will react.
54:13Yeah that's going to work perfect I think.
54:16OK great.
54:17I've got to do a change over here so just give me a moment.
54:28There's an explosion.
54:35Thankfully it's not in the trees that Jim and Tim are rigging with such care.
55:02It takes another three days to get the aerial rig set up, followed by many hours of fine
55:06tuning.
55:07Can you just pan it so we don't see it in a moment please?
55:17Everything is finally set and the butterflies are still there.
55:22One, two, three.
55:30Take one.
55:32Too slow.
55:35There was no load at the beginning and suddenly it just completely stopped.
55:49Take six.
55:50Start to slow now, keep going, start to slow, keep going, keep going, keep going.
55:57OK Mike, hold it.
55:59Not far enough.
56:00If we've not got enough weight then...
56:12Take nine.
56:13Go on Mike, go on Mike, you're getting close Mike, now start to slow.
56:20OK.
56:21So.
56:22It's still not right and now time is running out.
56:24I think the light's going.
56:25Can you do one last take?
56:29I think it's all right because these ones here are losing the light on them.
56:33Try and get a shot that's going past here if it's smooth.
56:38One, two, three and we're away.
56:42Take seventeen.
56:50And it's looking good.
56:51OK, start slowing Mike, that's good.
56:55OK, keep it going, keep it going.
56:58Wow.
56:59That's it.
57:00Success at last.
57:06With the technique now working, the crew rig more and more shots to give an aerial perspective
57:13on the monarch phenomenon.
57:22His work advising the crew over, Lincoln continues the observations he's been making for over
57:28a quarter of a century.
57:30Although the butterflies are still here in immense numbers, he's worried there is a threat
57:34to their survival.
57:36The big, huge influx, maybe sometimes as many as two billion butterflies flying down into
57:44this tiny area of 30 by 60 miles is thoroughly endangered by illegal logging.
57:52If the forest is not protected, the phenomenon will be lost.
58:07That would be a disaster.
58:09I mean, it would be like taking the Mona Lisa out of the Parisian Museum and burning it up.
58:51For more UN videos visit www.un.org