Bear: Alone.
Inexperienced.
Life has never been tougher for this young orang.
She will have to go to extraordinary lengths
To find enough food.
A third of her kind will fall and break bones,
Or worse.
In this hostile world only the strongest make it to the top.
(theme music plays).
Torrential rain, tropical heat
And the relentless assault of insects.
If you're not prepared, the jungle will eat you alive.
But these conditions have created a home for more
Species than anywhere else on the planet.
You might think it's an animal eden.
But it's more like a wildlife war zone.
Now that the rains, the lifeblood of these
Extraordinary worlds, are becoming more unpredictable.
The battle for survival has never been fiercer.
Even rain forests have dry seasons.
Rivers become the focus of jungle life.
A jaguar, south america's apex predator.
Jaguars will hunt anything;
From a vulture to an anaconda.
(squeaking).
(barking).
But nothing's guaranteed.
It's been days since she's eaten.
Jaguars are the most aquatic of all big cats.
She'll have more success in the water.
Capybara.
A big opportunity.
(barking).
There are other options.
But there's also competition.
A male.
He's hunted here for over a decade,
Taking on dangerous prey and other jaguars.
Life here isn't getting any easier.
As dry seasons become more extreme,
Competition for prey increases.
Better for her to hunt in less contested waters.
Where prehistoric killers lurk,
Waiting to drag their victims under.
With each step, a trap could snap shut.
♪ ♪
With the right bite,
She'll pierce skull and immobilize it.
But this caiman is much more than a mouthful.
A kill this big has rarely been recorded.
It will feed her for days.
For other animals, finding food at the height of the
Dry season is much more of a struggle.
Fruit makes up around 60% of this young orang's diet.
To survive she must form a complex mental map of where
And when to find it.
This takes years.
Up here there's nothing but leaves.
Rainfall has dropped by a third
And droughts are more frequent.
How can she predict where to find food when the world
Around her keeps changing?
The more she searches, the more she risks.
Far below, on the forest floor,
Only 2% of sunlight penetrates.
It's not water that limits life, it's light.
For every 100,000 seeds, only one will survive.
Fewer still will ever reach the canopy.
They have to fight for their place in the sun.
Just half an inch can mean the difference
Between life and death.
Each plant has its own strategy to get ahead.
This struggle makes the jungle one of the most competitive
Environments on earth.
A war in which every leaf matters.
In the dry season,
There's not much else to eat.
Plants fight back with spikes and poison.
Loading their leaves with toxins.
With each bite their victims become sicker and sicker.
There is an antidote, but to reach it,
They must face the jungle's most dangerous predators.
Bear: Poisoned by the plants they eat;
These animals must reach the antidote
But it's a dangerous mission.
Ocelot, jaguars,
And puma are waiting.
A deadly game of hide and seek and at its heart,
A most unlikely cure.
Clay, it's rich in the minerals and salts needed
To neutralize the toxins,
But the longer the dry season,
The more they must visit the clay lick.
(squealing).
With so much danger on the forest floor,
It pays to keep off the ground.
This orang spends 90% of her time in the trees.
As the heaviest arboreal species in the world,
Orangs let their weight do the work.
Tree swaying saves half the energy
She would normally use to climb.
A shortage of food in the dry season
Forces her to rest more.
Each afternoon she makes her bed,
Weaving branches into a nest that will keep her
Safe through the night.
And these trees provide more than food and shelter.
Remarkably they also help create the jungle's weather.
By the end of the dry season the sun is at its most intense.
Trees pump out more water vapor
Than at any other time of year.
In this jungle, almost 20 billion tons every day.
All this water creates the wet season here.
But this jungle is shrinking,
And its rain making power is fading.
Every decade the change from dry to wet comes a week later.
A mighty storm is brewing,
But before it strikes there's a killing to be made.
Competition for food is so intense during the day,
It has forced some creatures into the night.
Spectral tarsiers.
To thrive in the dark,
They've evolved eyes bigger than their brains.
And the best night vision of any primate.
But they still need a little help.
A hunter's moon.
When it's full, this family can catch more.
So, they hunt for twice as long.
But when storm clouds obscure the moon,
Others are better equipped to kill in the shadows.
This python sees with heat,
And smells with taste.
The tables turn again.
(squeaking).
Living in a group means these tarsiers can look out for each other.
(squeaking).
With no element of surprise, the python has no chance.
But life is about to get tougher.
The wet season has arrived.
And it's hitting harder than ever before.
(thunder and lightning).
Bear: The wet season breaks.
(thunder and lightning).
There are more lightning strikes in jungles than
Anywhere else on earth.
By 2050 some estimate they will increase by a third.
The storms that these trees help create
Can also be their downfall.
(creaking, popping).
(crashing).
The death of an emergent tree is an essential part
Of the cycle of life.
The increased humidity during the wet season
Sets off a chain reaction.
Fungi and slime molds race to decompose dead matter
On the forest floor.
Rot and decay run rampant,
Faster than anywhere else on earth.
In some jungles species of fungi outnumber plants
33 to one.
As they feed on the dead they recycle critical nutrients
Which the forest uses to grow.
Many spread by releasing spores,
Up to 30,000 a second.
If just one of these spores lands in the right place and
Takes root, it can colonize a whole new area.
But not all fungi feed on the dead.
Days ago, a spore landed on this ant.
Now she's acting strange.
A network of roots has infiltrated her muscles.
Her body has been taken over by cordyceps,
A parasitic fungus.
It floods her brain with chemicals, drugging her,
Compelling her to head where conditions are perfect.
Just the right amount of light.
Just the right amount of humidity for the parasite
Growing inside.
It forces her to clamp down in a death bite.
And cordyceps reveals its gruesome nature.
After three weeks of growth,
Cordyceps can release its own spores,
Infecting more ants, releasing more spores,
Infecting more ants...
Releasing more spores, infecting more ants,
Infecting more ants, more ants.
Cordyceps can wipe out entire ant colonies.
But more than just ants are at risk.
There are over 600 species of cordyceps
Spread across the world.
Most are found in jungles where they prey on a whole
Host of victims.
(monkey calls).
The wet season brings a flush of fruit to the canopy.
(monkey calls).
Lar gibbons must move fast before it's all gone.
They fly through the trees at 35 miles an hour,
Even with a baby on board.
They can cover 40 feet in a single leap.
But they don't get it right every time.
Bear: This family of lar gibbons
Lives in a dangerous world.
Their forest is being fragmented.
One day they may face a jump they can't quite make.
Food is harder to find as the wet season grows more erratic.
And when the rain comes, it can fall in shorter,
More intense bursts.
If it's too wet, it's best to sit tight.
This orang has learnt a lot from her mother;
How to make a jungle umbrella.
It comes in handy in the rainiest environment on earth.
For many animals, heavy rain stops activity.
But for some that's not an option.
This male booted racket-tailed humming bird lives on the
Brink of starvation.
Just 2 hours without nectar and he could die.
Humming birds have the fastest metabolisms on earth.
Some need to visit 2,000 flowers a day
Just to keep going.
This mountainous forest is one of the few jungles
That is getting wetter.
Heavy rain is predicted to increase and when you weigh
Less than a nickel, raindrops are a bombardment.
Waterlogged feathers slow his progress.
Staying airborne becomes more demanding.
But he's running on empty and the clock is ticking.
Even during a downpour,
Competition for flowers is fierce.
A buff-tailed coronet,
Intent on keeping the nectar-filled flowers
For himself.
The racket-tail is no competition for the coronet.
He must wait for another opportunity.
As the rains slow,
Over 40 species fight for their nectar hit.
With the coronet facing bigger battles,
This is a racket-tail's chance to sneak a sip.
It takes more energy to hover
Than almost any other activity on earth.
We'd have to drink over a can of soda a minute to keep up.
Another racket-tail.
Evenly matched, he won't back down.
Tail splayed, feet forward, he means business.
The winner takes all, but he can't rest,
He still has a lot of flowers to visit.
And the next downpour is never far off.
Rainfall in the andes transforms life
Over 1,000 miles away.
So much water collects in the amazon basin below that the
Earth's crust sinks by 3 inches.
A drowned forest.
This extreme change takes months.
Even so, it can creep up on those who live their life
In slow motion.
Moving between the trees becomes challenging.
She needs to find her next meal,
But she's surrounded.
Creatures that spend most of the year on the forest floor
Now find themselves floating 30 feet above it.
Their only refuge is in the trees.
But she must brave the deep.
Bear: This sloth's home is flooded.
To find her food she must swim.
Defenseless against what lies beneath.
Like most animals here,
Sloths are adapted to get through this annual flood.
Fermenting leaves fill her stomach with gas
That helps keep her afloat.
She's three times faster in water than on land.
When the forest floods, it opens up a whole new world.
Pink river dolphins can explore an area larger than arizona.
They echo-locate to hunt for fish in the murk.
Using higher frequencies than their marine cousins to see
With superior definition.
Recently these floods have been reaching
Record breaking highs.
But there have also been devastating lows.
And as our world changes, drought is the greatest
Natural threat to jungles worldwide.
Australia was once covered by a jungle
Larger than the amazon rainforest.
Now barely 1% survives,
Clinging to what little water remains.
And little red flying foxes cling on with it.
It's 104 fahrenheit.
Just 4 degrees more and this male will die of heat shock.
He needs to escape the sun.
But with hundreds of thousands of bats in the colony,
The shadier spots are hard won.
Exposed, he's dangerously dehydrating.
The river is their only salvation.
But it can also be their ruin.
These waters are infested.
Fresh water crocodiles.
Better to stay away.
Try and hold out till nightfall.
But with every breath, he loses more water.
More and more bats give in to their thirst
And he won't last much longer.
It's safer to share the risk.
To collect water they must dip their fur in the river.
But no one wants to be first.
Safe!
But he must brave this river every day until the rains arrive.
Over the next 50 years it could get too hot and dry for
This colony to survive at all.
Could this be the future for jungles around the world?
These amazing forests not only create oxygen and
Rain that nourish our planet,
They're also home to a greater diversity of animals
Than anywhere else on earth.
These creatures are super specialized to survive all
The complexities of life in the jungle.
But in times of change,
That also leave them highly vulnerable.
It takes years for an orang to learn how to
Find its way in these forests
And today's changing climate makes life even tougher.
And that isn't all she has to contend with.
(chainsaw whirring).
(cracking, popping).
Rainforests around the world are disappearing
Faster than ever before.
Her future, like that of all jungle life,
Has never been less certain.
Captioned by cotter captioning services.