Wildlife Stories: Nature’s Greatest Engineers | Free Documentary Nature

[Music] very few animals live in houses and even fewer know how to build a nest or a den the majority at most make use of natural holes or the homes of others of those extraordinary beings able to weave plant fibers shape clay or design labyrinths against predators and floods making traps is even more complex and unusual seeing how certain species produce and use incredible construction materials and discovering that they apply order and geometry to what should be Simply Organic and chaotic moves us because it shows us that we aren't the only ones with the skills

to use tools there are other Architects on the planet who are building for Life termites could hold the title of the most hardworking insects in the world they're especially active at night it's been a while since the sun went down in Brazil at tamandua is slowly ambling among the branches of the trees it's in no hurry it's not hungry it's already had dinner hundreds of furious soldier termites are still holding on to its fur an indication that only a few minutes ago the small antier attacked their colony the termites will have to build its walls

quickly they have to patch up the holes which air currents can blow in through and they have to rebuild the walls of their home Before Dawn or the birds of the Jungle will have them for breakfast [Music] their building material is chewed up wood processed in their intestines with feces and digestive juices which dry as soon as they are placed on the structure acquiring it a surprising solidity that endows the nest with great durability [Music] some termite species live in [Music] trees others prefer the ground from The Plains of South America and Australia to the

African Savannah termite Mounds are a constant feat of the landscape and an essential element for the balance within those ecosystems The Irregular towers that rise up immense Towers on an insect scale are crucial for the termites to be able to regulate the humidity and temperature whatever the weather conditions outside these Mounds work like huge air conditioning units according to the weather the termite nests can be modified from within opening or closing Galleries and vents to increase or reduce the flow of air the stability that these tiny Engineers achieve in the nest's thermal and humidity conditions

is only matched by what humans have attained with our most modern technology and Equipment if they don't live in a fortress like the termites to which very few you can gain entry living in one fixed place is Unthinkable for wildlife above all because that's very hazardous going to the same place several times a day would raise the risk of being detected by Predators considerably it would leave such an easy Trail to follow that survival would be impossible that's why the immense majority of animals have no home besides for a species to design and build a

good Sanctuary one that's safe and stable it needs some very specialized evolutionary adaptations Deft extremities are essential to be able to dig or weave branches or collect stones and one also needs an instru action manual that comes included with the genes for those extremities or else it has to be learned birds don't build a fixed spot to live in either only during the mating season are they forced to tie themselves down to the location of their nest but they do it out of necessity and for the shortest time possible they don't like to do it

the season that they spend building the nest and then raising their brood is a time of Maximum stress for them they live in constant fear of being discovered if they feel watched they abandon the nest and even their chicks each bird at least each family of birds has its own unique architectural style some like the little longtailed tit build with such sophisticated materials as spiderwebs or Lykens the result is a nest that is perfectly integrated into the landscape it could easily be taken for wood that was covered naturally although what the species is looking for

is to go unnoticed not to create the most ecological new design grebs build on the water they floating platforms are like houseboats they're mored to underwater plants so that that they can't drift away but they have to be able to move up and down in case the water level changes otherwise that could ruin all their efforts to reproduce so this is sophisticated engineering some nests are reused year after year their constructions are built by many individuals and are frequently passed along from parents to children some st's nests are continually rebuilt over hundreds of years and

can end up weighing a ton literally especially when their implacement is even sturdier than a tree despite the incredible variety of techniques employed and structures built by the 10,000 species of birds many birds opt for the simplest solution to make use of what nature provides a hole full of feathers in a tree is as comfortable as can be and if they build the right sized entryway no one can get inside to attack [Music] them learning to take advantage of natural shelters is the norm among animal species on the one hand this obeys the principle of

minimal effort that is of not doing anything that isn't essential following this natural law the most intelligent primates our closest Cousins don't build a thing chimpanzees and gorillas occasionally slap together a simple and disposable bed of leaves for themselves but that's it primates despite all their intellectual and Social Development don't build The Monkey House par ex salant is a tree they feel comfortable up in the highest Treetops hidden among the leaves from the majority of hunters obviously they could build themselves a house they're clever and have very Nimble fingers but it's not efficient for them

to build what they don't need and besides it would be dangerous building a nest can become a death trap for the Builder by having to bring the materials to the same sight over several days the Builder makes himself too visible too often [Music] the work can complicate even the ability to move around as some construction materials are hard to transport and can get caught on stuff all over the [Music] place what's more the concentration that such a difficult lengthy and exhausting task requires makes it hard to stay on the alert HT when a bird works

on its nest it may be digging its own grave and it knows that and gets scared but fear governs many aspects of animal behavior and has selected the best ways to tackle problems like the problem of building in this case fear has evolutionarily led Catal grits to congregate in breeding colonies surrounded by others of their own species they feel safer and in fact they are no Predator can approach them without being seen by at least one of the egrets who sounds the alarm that immediately spreads throughout the colony the presence of an intruder can even

unleash a Mass Attack so it's unlikely that any hunter that potentially could feed on on eget chicks will dare to drop by but even if they are safer that doesn't mean that the birds in the roost are at ease their large numbers provide security but also lots of tension caused by living so close together [Music] [Music] each mating pair looks for a location in the common area and it's not unusual for more than one pair to choose the same [Music] spot despite the spats with their neighbors one of the best options to minimize the dangers

during the reproductive period is to build next to others whether or not they come from the same stock some birds like this bter prefer to breed without having to put up with others of their species around them but they value not being alone and so they seek the company of egrets their strategy provides the advantages of a communal Roost but without having to endure living with their own kind it's not the only species that thinks this way both solitary species and gregarious ones ones Gather in the same trees with the aim of achieving safety and

numbers the breeding and survival rates in these roosts are very high and if there aren't more of them it's because it's hard to find places that meet all the requirements of such populous colonies [Music] the Waters of the world's oceans are home to other builders that also join together in colonies in fact the living beings responsible for the largest constructions on our planet live in the oceans the corals the walls formed by coral reefs in the sea play a rle similar to that of forests and jungles on land they provide shelter for the greatest concentration

of underwater biodiversity the living Coral pops are found only on the surface layer of the structure they're joined one to another by a cup of calcium carbonate that each individual pop slowly secretes throughout its life a coral pop is a very small animal similar to an anemone with a set of tentacles around its mouth during the day the coral hides in its exoskeleton but at night it emerges to feed on microplankton but this forms only a part of its diet as many Coral species live in symbiotic association with plant-like bacteria and feed on nutrients the

bacteria make with [Music] photosynthesis as they die and are worn down the groundup skeletons of the generations of coral colonies form an important part of the sand on the sea [Music] bottom the sand at the bottom of the sea is made of coral particles and also of bits of shells shells are one of the most primitive and Common forms of [Music] protection although hermit crabs don't know how to make them they have to steal a mollusk shell the only problem is that the shell obviously doesn't grow with the crab as a snails does so when

a hermit crab has eaten a lot and its body is getting ready to move into a larger exoskeleton it has to look for a new shell it can fit in [Music] [Music] and this one is perfect the hermit crab isn't a builder however he's just copied someone else's idea the idea of the best Builders though [Applause] he has to go through many fitting sessions before deciding on each shell the size is the important thing but also how his abdomen adapts to the interior of the shell changing to a new shell also means having to move

the Anemones and that's a real pain but there his anti octopus defense system he also has to consider this decision very carefully should I change or not okay I'll change it's decided [Applause] I can't remember anymore if this is the new one or the old one nope there are no enemies here but I'm staying here for [Music] now each ecosystem drives its inhabitants to make certain evolutionary adaptations depending on the circumstances and the opportunities offers them the fish that live on reefs have so many holes and hiding places available to them among the heads of

coral and rocks that they've never had to make the effort to build anything fish in general whether freshwater or saltwater aren't great Builders either they can't be because their extremities are specialized for Locomotion and that limits their use for anything [Music] else at most fish can use their mouths to clean pile up sand or remove obstacles to prepare a place in which to Nest During the period of reproduction [Music] and in addition to the scant versatility of their fins the movement of the water undermines the stability and durability of any construction in this liquid medium

so maybe that's why so few fish species find it worth their time to build a house things are very different for this fish however it's a lung fish we could consider it an exception in many ways it's a surprisingly skilled Builder and among other things it can breathe out of the water lungfish live in ecosystems that sometimes suffer serious droughts places where even the smallest ponds dry up [Laughter] [Music] [Music] then its only option is to walk in search of water but it can't walk very long distances on its fs and it would undoubtedly die

it just needs to find a soft spot in the ground where it can bury itself in the mud and then build itself a survival chamber the first thing the lungfish has to do however is to adapt to the change of medium going from a liquid medium to a gaseous one while living underwater its breathing is 90% water and only 10% air now it has has to invert that strategy to get the oxygen it needs it has to quickly switch to breathing 100% air and its lungs are still a little weak from a lack of use

it's a traumatic and Urgent process because its greatest danger is dehydration and and it's very hot its only chance for survival is to bury itself in the mud its fins aren't much help so its only tool is its head lungfish don't really dig because they don't have anything to dig with so it just shoves in pushing with all its might breathing all it can it has to bury itself at a safe depth maybe 30 cm of mud over its head will guarantee it enough moisture until water floods the area again next year or the year

after that the lungfish never knows how long the drought will last little by little it reaches the depth that its Instinct dictates but the effort demands more oxygen its lungs still aren't working at Full Steam and the mud is asphyxiating it since hardly any air is reaching [Music] it it's exhausted it takes a breath and agonizingly takes another it has reached the depth it needed to now with these spasms of its body it packs Down the Walls of its little chamber making it durable and creating a small space around itself so that the air can

circulate a little its chamber is almost finished now it will rest and its metabolism will gradually slow down little by little until its body shuts down almost completely consuming nothing feeling nothing almost dead its skin will produce a thick mucus which when it dries will isolate it even more from the external conditions and so sealed off buried alive but almost as if it were dead it can wait for the next rainy season and some lungfish have survived waiting like this for more than 10 years the ant lion also buries itself before becoming something similar to

a dragonfly it spends the next 5 years underground during that time it builds the same trap thousands of times it's one of the most chilling traps in the animal kingdom nonetheless it becomes no more skillful over time the instruction manual is written in its genes and so if it doesn't change locations its first work will be almost identical to the [Music] last the ant lion always tosses the sand backwards and jerking its head and Jaws again and again it gradually digs a hole in the sandy soil it moves in a perfect spiral digging a little

deeper each time it goes around in the end its mechanical movement creates an inverted [Music] cone the walls of the cone are sloped at a specific angle that varies accordingly to the kind of Sandy substrate how adherent it is and the size of its particles the temperature and humidity can also influence How firm the surface of the cone's walls is in relation to the weight of the ant lion victims and the way they walk but the ant lion knows how to ensure that its prey can't get away the fight doesn't last long and the same

side always ends up winning ants are uncomplaining prey for them the advantage of living in society is that the death of an individual or of a few individuals doesn't harm the colony in a significant way what defines social insects isn't that a large number of them live together but that the members of their society fulfill Diversified roles according to the work they carry out among ants above all there are soldiers and workers almost all of them are busy worker ants the soldiers are the biggest ants sometimes one of them will also help in addition to

standing guard they're making the nest bigger they have to remove countless grains of sand from the ant colony to prepare new galleries and Chambers for more larvi for more food some pheromones generally activated by the queen ant order the tasks to be carried out in a simple [Music] way the order determined by chemistry is infallible the fame that ants enjoy is hard workers is well deserved some ant s are inhabited for years and become complex cities the town planning almost always involves Underground Construction but there are many architectural [Music] Styles army ants are nomads and

build temporary nests that they raise and tear down each day the construction material is their own bodies the worker an link themselves together one to another legs to Jaws to form a ball with several layers that protects the larvi and the queen inside they don't need pantries they eat on the [Music] March they do everything on the March army ants besides being acrobatic Architects are civil engineers their foot loose Nature has driven them to develop a elaborate construction techniques to build Bridges overpasses and underpasses they link their bodies together again each time they run into

an obstacle blocking their path [Music] inumerable worker ants carpet the jungle floor to increase the cruising speed of the whole colony the red wood ant is another odd Builder within the Ant World it doesn't build its nests underground but rather on the surface although Always Somewhere in a forest when red wood ants are active the workers constantly Supply plant material for the rest forming an enormous Mound up to one M High these structures keep a constant temperature inside thermally they work just like underground and nests but in addition like termite nests it's easier to regulate

their temperature by opening and closing the windows and doors these ants control the temperature of their home in a simple way adjusting to the season and to the time of day or [Music] night the steep slopes of their Mounds cause the rain which is very common in their habitats to roll off without soaking the [Applause] interior it's an idea that many others have copied with their rooftop designs digging is probably the most common way to make a [Music] Dan and it's the [Music] simplest it only requires a bit of continued effort and some hands with

fingernails or some agile and tireless legs and and knowing how to use them of [Music] course experience is also fundamental to locate an ideal building site that won't collapse at the first opportunity because if not you could be digging your own [Music] grave in other words digging is easy but making a lair is not nothing is easy in nature and there's an additional problem with underground living quarters lots of animals can locate [Music] you if this bee intends to lay an egg here it will have to find a way to throw this scout ant off

the scent or else her Offspring won't survive [Music] among mammals there are several families that also know how to dig in the ground they don't create structures that stand out for their sophistication but some rodents managed to build endless galleries they're Burrows that maintain mild temperatures all year round in these tunnels it's also possible to find pantries far from the Heat or the rain some rodents store up to 10 kilos of seeds and there are studies that assert that some passageways are designed to channel and divert the sudden torrents of water that the rain can

cause the longest and most complex ends can also be used at least partially as a defensive [Applause] [Music] Labyrinth if the owners of the lay are followed inside they've got a good chance of throwing off their predator [Applause] this snake has followed a very clear Trail up to here but once inside the burrow everything smells equally intense and the snake is in the dark and doesn't know the terrain the rodents are playing on their home field and can move faster than their attacker and they have more than one exit [Music] [Music] although it doesn't always

work this time the Builder has beaten the hunter in general we don't find master Architects or Engineers among fish nor reptiles nor amphibians nor even mammals the beaver however is the super exception among among vertebrate animals these industrious fellows are very technical builders that are able to raise enormous works of engineering we might think that their giant teeth which never stop growing or their powerful chewing muscles which can fa any tree nibble by nibble are their key evolutionary adaptations but we'd be wrong it's their brain with which they design the dkes and dams that alter

the course of the water in the ecosystems they live in the presence of beavers offers many other species new evolutionary possibilities and it's just a rodent a spider is no more than a small invertebrate and yet its philogenetic order is made up of the most advanced and specialized builders in the animal Kingdom with practically no intellectual capacity at all its Instinct has created a technique that shows that intelligence isn't the only way to get things done its adaptations have allowed it to spread almost throughout the planet and have prevented the insects from dominating all other

kinds of animals we all owe our existence to spiders at least in part and they owe their success to their silk a huge rgop spider is starting its construction process the first thing it does is gobble down the silk from the old web spider silk is a biological material that's too expensive to make to just throw it away digesting these old threads is incred ibly efficient 90% of the material that the spider swallows will be reused in the new web her silk glands full the hunter can begin another web the first step in its construction

consists of repairing the parametric tensors that will Define the structure the web's orientation depends on the microair currents that the spider perceives with the fine hairs that cover her exoskeleton now she begins to lay down the web's radials spiders demonstrate an exceptional sense of spatial perception and they make the most of the support points at their disposal to weave between them the web with the largest surface area possible the spider weaves her hanger thread in the center of the web it's need a very fine new silk that isn't sticky and is created with a different

technique that will cushion the impact of the prey so that the spider can react and keep her balance when the time comes now the spider begins to weave the threads that form the final pattern the threads in a spiderweb aren't all the same only these threads are impregnated with glue to keep prey from getting away but the spider places its legs on all the radials that aren't [Music] sticky what's more she has a layer of oil on her feet that keep her from getting trapped along with her prey the interval between threads isn't random the

distance the spider leaves between them is determined by her recent experience with the prey that are currently plentiful in her habitat spider silk is made up of proteins combined at a molecular level in such a way that they are more elastic and more resistant than a steel wire of the same thickness for [Applause] [Music] spiderwebs are designed to withstand the Wind and Rain the morning dew reveals that there is a great variety of spiders and spider webs perhaps orb spiders are the most visible ones but there are others that are more or less symmetrical with

a more or less recognizable geometry and still others with a more chaotic appearance but they are all pure engineering although not all the traps that spiders build are webs trapdoor spiders dig underground to that are lined with their silk of course although it's not sticky silk it just has to hold the soil in place and avoid uncomfortable friction it also controls the humidity when the hole is finished the trapdoor spider covers it with a door made with sticky silk and sand that's how it perfectly hides its [Music] layer no one could suspect that someone is

lying in weight Underground the Builder has laid threads around the door so it can feel the vibrations of its praise footsteps as they approach the [Music] Trap perhaps the only construction that can rival spider silk in importance is the hexagon the polygon that forms every beehive and wasp's nest in reality wasps and bees have almost nothing in common except this geometric shape that they use to build their nests unlike bees wasps are carnivorous insects with an enviable waistline and they are able to sting many times not just once their constructions are generally smaller and simpler

wasps hexagons are made of paper and card board chewed up wood really and they're useless after one season the Honeycombs of bees however can last decades almost indefinitely they're made of wax a liquid that young bees secrete and that hardens when it comes into contact with the air the composition of the wax can include up to seven different types of antibiotics bacteria can't survive in that environment bees and wasps both keep their larvae in the hexagons but bees also use them to store honey their food this geometric figure is able to fit together the greatest

number of cells per unit of surface area thus reducing the amount of construction material to the minimum so hexagons are the most sustainable ecological constructions [Music] insect societies are one of the most widespread forms of life on the planet their success is due in large measure to the insect's Mastery of [Music] construction specifically bees are responsible for pollinating the plants in many ecosystems and also of a major part of human crops nonetheless we also appear to be putting bees in grave danger of extinction and without them our world couldn't survive as it [Music] is perhaps

we should reconsider the way in which we are building human civilization [Music]