Wildlife Stories: Eat or Die | Free Documentary Nature

eating provides great pleasure similar to sexual pleasure although it's not as intense of course the lack of food is deadly however the lack of sex well no most animals have sexual relations once or twice a year and although there are a few that eat only once a year the general rule is to eat more frequently even every every day and that when it comes to sex is a Utopia we're all on somebody's menu and that's why the specializations that are developed in nature to savor each prey and each diet have evolved in such amazing [Music]

ways snakes don't eat much they have a slow metabolism because their body temperature is regulated according to the heat or cold of the environment around them since they don't need to burn calories to keep their body at a constant temperature they can go without food for weeks or even months if they have to and they never feel hungry their feeding instinct only wakes up when they discover a prey that is if they're not still digesting the previous one this snake is using its sense of smell it flicks out its tongue regularly at a steady pace

and follows the root marked by the greatest concentration of aromatic particles in the air it recognizes the smell as food and stalks its prey the normal thing in snakes is to wait for the victim to approach and so catch it by surprise but in this case that won't work this snake eats eggs and eggs don't go wandering around from one place to another you have to go look for them the first thing is to make sure that the eggs are alive eating a rotten egg could be lethal the egg's temperature is higher than that of

the air so everything is all right [Music] now it has to prevent the egg from Rolling away so the snake wraps its body around the egg to keep it from slipping away or [Music] breaking this time it has found a nest with eggs that are five or six times larger than its head but that's no problem it can swallow even bigger eggs the disipela scabra has no teeth or very tiny vestigal teeth teeth would only get in the [Music] way we don't know how but it can distinguish between unfertilized eggs and eggs that are home

to a developing embryo and so normally it doesn't wolf down developing eggs it doesn't want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs after all eating an egg with an embryo would also be more complicated since after swallowing an egg this species crushes it against some of the vertebrae in its neck and once the egg has been perforated and broken the snake can squeeze it to get out all the precious nutrients that otherwise no one else could make use of this living lesson in ecology won't touch the rest of the eggs even though it

won't have abundant food like this until the bird's next breeding season and some people don't appreciate snakes [Music] [Music] culturally we have come to associate reptiles with danger even evil and often that has prevented us from seeing what extraordinary beings they [Music] are the crocodilian order is prodigious in many ways and as regards their feeding Behavior they are quite disconcerting some Nile crocodile colonies live in such isolated desert areas that nobody has been able to figure out what they feed on it's believed that they eat very sporadically perhaps less often than once a year Caymans

live in places with abundant resources and yet they don't eat every day [Music] either the birds that fish around them know enough to keep their [Music] distance and the fish are quick swimmers Cayman can only catch them when they take them by surprise that's why their hunting technique involves stalking and waiting for an [Music] opportunity camouflaged disguised as drifting tree trunks or hidden among the floating vegetation they patiently B their time practically everybody recognizes the silhouette of a Cayman especially if it moves and that's the reason why they spend so much time not moving as

still as a statue getting a bite to eat is hard when what you're trying to hunt knows that it has to be on the watch what's more Cayman live in groups but they don't share the Little prey so they also have to be on the lookout for anyone who might steal their prey their stomachs don't work regularly so it's well adapted to fasting and they also can eat just to about anything whatever crosses their paths whatever it may [Music] be if it moves and fits in their mouths they won't turn their noses up at anything

even if it's a poisonous fish [Music] Cayman can't afford to be too picky about what they eat and poisons are usually ineffective in the digestive tract a little spicy maybe but that's all [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] submerged under the Cayman there's an ideal habitat for an animal that searches for prey without being seen [Music] it moves slowly so slowly that its prey can't detect it [Music] the matam mat is a fearsome Hunter of [Music] fish fish have a sensory organ called the lateral line which detects all sorts of waves in water but their lateral lines

don't sound the alarm when this strange creature moves [Music] around it seems like something lifeless floating in the current it doesn't seem in any way dangerous it's very stealthy and a great hunter its body looks like it's made out of wood and its skin has uneven edges and folds that give it an irregular silhouette it looks as if it's made of algae and water plants nobody's afraid of what looks like a piece of wood floating in these calm Waters its head and long neck looked like a rotten Old Branch its eyes are barely noticeable and

its mouth doesn't look threatening it doesn't have a beak nor teeth nor serrated edges its mouth is just big huge in fact and it works like some sort of terrifying vacuum cleaner when the matamata Hunts its slowness suddenly turns into an explosion of speed and when it opens its enormous camouflaged mouth it does it so fast that it creates a current that sucks water into its [Music] throat any fish passing too close by is doomed its movement is fast as Lightning other fish swimming nearby don't even detect it they're completely unaware that one of their

companions has suddenly gone missing unfortunately for them fish can't count [Music] either they'll never know what attacked them because the Mata mat turtle is an extraordinary predator [Music] these animals have opted for the opposite strategy to that of reptiles instead of alternating copious Banquets with long fasts they never stop eating they spend most of the daylight hours gobbling down food or Chewing It Up to obtain the energy they need to maintain their level of physical activity these animals are forced to devour large quantities of greens not to mention the tough cellulose lining the walls of

the plant cells some species require several digestion processes and several stomachs in order to break up all those cellular wrappings and reach the nutrients [Music] a ruminant chews swallows and digests a little before then regurgitating that food to chew it all over again a buffalo for example has to secrete more than 100 L of saliva a day but the biggest problem with a vegetarian diet is the huge amount of resources that the ecosystem has to supply to feed the herbivore and indirectly to feed the animals that eat them in the dry season some ecosystems run

out of supplies and the herbivores have to travel elsewhere to find new pastures [Music] in some places the feeding problems are really serious there's not enough food to maintain the trophic Network the ecosystems are becoming too small especially for the biggest species an adult male elephant can consume up to 200 kilos of grasses and tree leaves a day and in order to eat what it needs it frequently destroys even more kilog of vegetation than that which reaches its stomach the ecological impact of these giant padm is very worrisome there are beginning to be too many

elephants for the little Savana that we've left for them we could say that the elephant is the species that produces the second greatest damage to the environment but that's not true in a natural way elephants don't destroy the landscape they do modify it but by doing so they prevent the bushes from taking over the whole ecosystem for example and that creates these PLS where so many other species can live and secondly we are the ones who prevent the elephants from traveling freely along their old routes in the ancestral territories before humans began to invade Africa

in massive numbers in the late 19th century this species traveled along circular paths that ran from the savanas of South Africa all the way to Northern Kenya and years even decades went by before they return to graze in the same spot elephants gave the trees and bushes enough time to grow and renew themselves there was a balance today the elephants can't leave the national parks in search of food because they are surrounded by Agricultural Development progress doesn't allow elephants to roam freely [Music] fortunately the biggest eaters in the animal kingdom are the smallest creatures a

caterpillar forms part of the past of any butterfly caterpillars are butterfly babies larvi the immature phase to become a beautiful adult with colored wings and sexual organs they have to eat and eat lot [Music] [Music] nonstop it's calculated that these larvi can devour and digest up to 86,000 times their own weight in plant matter which must be the world record for gobling power but a glutton is someone who eats more than he should and caterpillars don't eat so much because they're greedy pigs but because they need to a metamorphosis like the one that allows caterpillars

to change into butterflies consumes a lot of energy it requires storing a lot of nutrients as well as very specific fats and proteins the transformation of insects is a really amazing process that is still [Music] unexplainable a living being makes juice of itself inside a hermetic container and after a few hours or months or even years according to the species and the climate the liquid reconstructs itself into a new solid being adopting a shape that is profoundly different from its form in the larval stage some insects after going through their metamorphosis no longer need to

eat their only objective is to procreate many are even born without a mouth and die of exhaustion sometimes just 24 hours after being reborn [Music] this animal species is a unique case among living beings and it's one of those insects that does feed itself during the adult stage [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] the females are vampires and only drink blood their mouths are like hypodermic needles and they use them to puncture their victim's skin inject anesthetics and anti-coagulants and then suck out the red juice of life with which to make more mosquito eggs the

male's diet however is completely different from the female's diet the males search for the nectar of flowers which is why their prascus is so strangely shaped full of protuberances to collect pollen the female mosquito's gory feeding habits makes them one of the most dangerous animals on the [Music] planet they are a terrible factor for illnesses especially malaria and so they are responsible for the deaths of millions of people but mosquitoes attack every living being mercilessly no matter how thick their [Music] skin their sharp blood sucking perosis can perforate any epidermis they even used to suck

the blood of the dinosaurs and they also know how to find the best spots on their victim's bodies in order to sip on their vital fluids and in many places they're a real plague the trophic Network that is who eats who stays in Balance because there are always animal species that prey on and control the populations of other species in order to keep their numbers within safe limits if no one ate the proverbially prolific rabbits these animals would become a serious problem for the vegetation and the other herbivores in the ecosystem would be in trouble

too [Music] this fellow is a rabbit Hunter although it also hunts lots of other things too the eagle owl is what's called a super Predator that means that it is so powerful that it can kill other predators and so the eagle owl contributes in an extraordinary way to controlling the populations of the species that live in its natural habitat if rabbits are temporarily a little scarce in its territory then it eats more rodents or more foxes and so it is that this owl is able to help keep the environment in balance sh [Music] today however

it's not going to eat it's already killed its prey but even though it's very hungry it's waiting for the dark of night to wrap everything up in Shadows it doesn't want anyone to see where it's going hidden where no light can give them away the chicks are waiting for dinner their parents often dish out the food but as the chicks grow they'll start to settle accounts amongst themselves on their own that's part of the learning process and of natural selection today the largest one has decided that he has no reason to share but that decision

could kill him the rabbit is too big the owl's mouth isn't expandable like a snake's and he could choke to death for being greedy sharing at his age would have been beneficial to him and his brother he pulled it off but that was very close swallowing prey without chewing them up first is a specialization that is exclusive to snakes and well as we've seen to some over ambitious owl chicks each animal has a mouth and a digestive tract perfectly adapted to its diet the intestines of primates are more delicate than those of reptiles and we

have to send it food that is well processed by our chewing system so that we don't suffer blockages or gases in our intestines since we're omnivores and can eat almost anything we primates have a large mouth that can sometimes seem too large a real big mouth shall we say and while not all of us are long in the tooth young and old alike have lots of different teeth our teeth are very well differentiated for a reason to eat plants or meat or seeds some teeth have to cut others have to shred and still others have

to crush and grind but the Thousand and One adaptations for feeding purposes can be seen particularly clearly in Birds beaks this is a hammer cop and it's very thick beak a hummingbird and its much thinner beak a stor and its longer beak and this is a MAA and its hooked beak the strongest of all beaks Perhaps it is in their beaks where the evolution of the species is most evident the impressive biodiversity among Birds clearly shows us to what degree they modify select and adapt their shapes their techniques and their [Music] behavior the part of

the body that is the most essential for birds to be able to eat is also the best exponent of Darwin's theory of evolution [Music] the cross bills are a particularly extreme case the result of almost complete specialization the crossbills have linked their survival to the cones of conifers here in southern Europe above all to the maritime Pine and its nuts which are available all year round as long as they don't disappear or no one chops the Pines down of course with their Twisted beaks the cross bills have pretty much eliminated the possibility of eating anything

else but by taking that risk they can eat something that no other bird can they've found a niche in the market where there's no competition birds have the bad habit of eating on a daily basis they can't withstand long fasts their metabolism is high because they have to keep their bodies very warm like a human being with a high fever and to do that they have to burn calories constantly which is why there's such frenetic [Music] feeders the specialization of flamingos isn't found in what they eat but rather in the the size of what they

eat and how they eat it they live off a tiny crustation the artmia Salena but eating things that are so little represents a pretty big handicap if we humans had to feed only on small breadcrumbs which we had to pick up off the floor with our fingers there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to collect enough crumbs and we'd die to be able to feed on Tiny things you need to have some kind of super efficient Gathering tool and that's what flamingos have by opening and closing its mouth quickly and rhythmically the flamingo f

filters the mud from the bottom and retains all the food particles it finds but to get the most out of its filtering system it has to synchronize the movement of its mouth with the movement of its feet which stir up the Muddy Bottom and and that's precisely the origin of a dance and Rhythm that is now famous around the world and which Bears the name of this [Applause] bird flamco means Rhythm art and beauty and its most fundamental step is a tapping of the heels [Music] [Music] the spoon bills specialized beak is apt for a

more varied diet than that of the flamco although a spoon bills meal also consists of small prey and its food also hides in a similar way in the mud but instead of stirring up the mud with their feet the spoon Bill sweeps its half open beak through the mud in Broad arcs it has a very fine sense of touch and when it detects something alive it snaps its beak shut and quickly throws its head back to swallow its prey curiously its tongue is very short not even a quarter of the length of its long beak

so it has to eat like that it's common to see them hunting in groups which means that they help each other by driving the prey towards their companions it's a kind of cooperation that is very rarely seen in [Applause] nature for example corant certainly don't help each other at Meal Time and their table manners aren't exactly Exquisite either quite to the contrary they fight for every mouthful and if they can get away with it they will literally steal a bite from the beak of one of the other members of the flock the most abundant fish

in these Waters at least at this time of year is the gar or log sucker the scales of this fish have gradually evolved into hard plates while the G's pectoral fins and in a thick sharp spine these fins can be fixed in an extended position and driven into the esophagus of a predator to asfixiate it but Corrs having choked on these fish plenty of times have learned how to place them in a specific position so that they can swallow them without suffocating to death it looks like they're playing with their food but it's no game

it's a very specialized technique to tire out and make their prey dizzy as they try to break the fish's defense of dangerous sharp fins Corrin have developed this strange behavior only in the swamps of Brazil and nowhere else and they don't use this technique with any other type of fish it allows them to eat what no other want water bird in this habitat can the only weak spot where they can kill these fish is the eye socket and once it's dead agara isn't the least bit dangerous although Corrs often swallow them alive he [Music] many

animals diets depend on the climate specifically on the ripeness of the fruit in the plant kingdom of course plants certainly try to defend themselves from herbivores but they also try to forge alliances with them on occasion especially when the time comes to reproduce that's why plants invented fruits and nuts which have become an essential element of many animals diets fruit is food in abundance with no side effects that's an unbeatable offer the acorns of hokes are a nutritious dish that allows Red Deer and many other animals to get ready for winter which is a period

of scarcity the deer also use their horns to knock down the acorns a few days ahead of the home Oak's natural schedule and that way they can make sure they don't eat any wormy acorns either all the species are connected to each other in some way the large red deer eat the acorns of the hoks the hokes are pollinated by beetles and the beetles eat what the Red Deer leave behind everything is made use of and recycled so that the habitat doesn't run out of [Music] resources these little beings are coprophagous they eat feces and

in the season when the hoks produce their nuts the deer's waste is more nutritious than ever and that's why we're seeing these [Music] boms they're not part of a game they're a future edible crib [Music] the female Beetle will bury it and lay an egg on top of it and next year a new well-fed Little Beetle will emerge from the [Music] soil eating to survive has to establish the right balance between consumption and production at all levels of the food chain eating for life includes the last supper the big carrying eaters feed on corpses removing

them from the [Music] habitat that's why they are given a fundamental role in the Ecology of each environment but the true Wizards that make all the remains of dead plants and animals disappear the ones in charge of completing the cycle of each piece of the cake are invisible countless microorganisms play a role similar to that of vultures but more profound they decompose all the way down to the molecular level everything that was once alive bacteria turn organic material back into inorganic material into minerals that dissolve into the Earth so they can feed the plants again

so that everything can start over [Music] again the vultures we do see show us the physical destination that we will all share someday forming part of the Grand Banquet eating and being eaten hunger is the engine that drives the world it guides the planet's inhabitants all the species contributing to decide their [Music] adaptations this should also encourage us to share and to save since a scant few of us are gorging on everyone's planet [Music] you