In the Wild (1992) s01e02 Episode Script

This is tropical rainforest, sometimes called jungle, one of the most complex environments that you can find.
Here in Australia, it's less than 1% of our total land mass.
And of that, less than half of it is this sort of monsoon rainforest.
It's existed in one form or another on the face of the Earth for 100 million years, perhaps longer, and is the wellspring, the source, of most forms of terrestrial life.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) (RAIN FALLS) Most people never see it like this.
And the reason why is very simple.
It's the wet.
One minute, it's pouring rain, the next minute, it's boiling sunlight.
Complete extremes.
Complete violence.
Look at it.
All chopped off.
To a man, to any man, that sort of violence means destruction.
But to the environmentalist, it doesn't.
To the environmentalist, that, and those treetops, and all of that tangle, just mean a recycling, a start of a new life cycle.
Nature cannot be static.
Man tries to be, but nature keeps turning things over and over and over.
There's no waste.
There's no loss.
All those trees choking the creek there, they dam it up, and so the silt, instead of flowing out to sea, gets caught and creates new beds.
All of that is eaten up by termites and fungus and things like that.
And all of this violence of sunlight beating down, 100 degrees, of rain pounding down, an inch in 10 minutes, all adds up to a lushness, a richness.
Most people come up here in the dry, the good times.
They marvel at it.
It's wonderful.
There's thousands upon thousands of buffalo and pigs.
There's millions of birds in the waterholes.
Why am I up here in the wet, the bad time? Because nobody ever comes up here.
It is the bad time! As a biologist, I want to know what's happening up here in the wet.
Where do all these animals come from, and where do they go to? These jungles are alright.
These animals are used to living in wet all the time.
These are the refuge areas.
When the dry comes, everything centres back on them, on the waterholes and the jungles, but when the wet comes, the whole thing explodes out, because the whole Top End becomes an enormous jungle and lake.
(BIRDS CALL) Lakes form as the rivers flow out over the surrounding plains.
It's the huge flocks of birds that are one of the spectacular sights of this area during the tourist season in the dry.
And yet it's the buffalo that's become the symbol of the Top End, an introduced animal that destroys thousands of acres by eroding, silting up waterholes and so destroying all the wildlife that depends on those waterholes.
Same applies to the wild pigs.
'Cause they have to be controlled, to save our native birds and native wildlife, like these magnificent magpie geese.
They're all totally dependent on these waterholes, and it's the introduced animals which destroy them.
These plains are the open, easily seen habitats of the Top End, but the others, especially the jungles, are closed, impossible to reach during the wet.
They're probably remnants from past jungles that have survived fire and changing climate, but in them have survived an enormous range and variety of plants and animals.
Everywhere you look, there's life.
There's a land snail.
A close relative of the snail that lives in your garden.
This one is a jungle animal, and the moment it gets wet, they come out, and just like the snails in your garden, they're hermaphrodites.
They can be male and then female and then male again.
Literally the best of both worlds.
At this time of the year, you need it up here.
They lay about 40 eggs at a time, deep in the litter.
Then when, of course, they hatch out, they're much smaller - it's tiny little snails - then just at that time, the birds feeding young that feed on the floor of the forest come in, and so there's another cycle of life.
These monsoon jungles are different from the east coast jungles.
They've got a wider range of habitats, which means that more animals can live in them.
There's a real jungle animal.
A camp of flying foxes.
They're the biggest bats in Australia.
They feed at night, like all bats, but These are a special group of bats that don't have radar.
They rely on their eyesight.
That's why they have such big eyes, and that's why they're called flying foxes.
'Cause of their teeth and their claws, they don't have a lot of enemies.
Their main one's the crocodile, and he uses their quarrelsome habits.
A lot of their camps are over water in these jungles, over the streams.
And the little freshwater crocodiles get up and lie just underneath the camp.
By and by, when they start squabbling and fighting, one gets knocked off his perch and flops down to the water and bang - he's gone.
Crocodile's got him.
These particular ones will probably move right down to the eastern coast of Australia.
They move up and down during the year and during the season.
They do a lot of damage in orchards, but up here, of course, in the jungle, they live on the blossom of the various cajuputs, paperbarks and other things, and the fruits, the wild fruits, of the jungle.
That was a goanna, one of the biggest lizards that lives here.
And there are lots of different sorts here.
There's skinks.
The most common are geckos, found all over Australia, so most people know them.
There's a leaf gecko.
Look at those pads hanging onto the leaf's shiny, slippery surface.
See if I can get my hand in there.
Gently, now.
He's not afraid as long as I move slowly and steadily.
Suckers on the feet let him run over leaves.
Great big eyes, because he's a nocturnal animal, but here in the jungle, of course, it's pretty dark most of the time.
Late afternoon or wet days like this, going to rain, he comes out.
He's an insectivorous fellow.
Likes the sandflies, mosquitoes, all the little bugs and beasts that live in the forest.
He, in turn, gets eaten by the owls, and even a frog would snap this fellow up.
You can see those little suckers on his toes.
They're not really suckers.
They're sort of ridges underneath.
That lets him grip that leaf very, very well indeed.
He won't slip off the shiny surface.
Where'd he go? Oh! There he is.
You see him? Just hiding behind the trunk, pretending he's not there.
He's changed colour too.
Let's see if we can bring him back.
Come on, little man.
Come on.
That's it.
Come on.
Look at that.
That tip of his tail.
He's obviously been a bit uncautious and left it hanging out of a crack in the bark, or under a leaf, and some bird has come along thinking it was a caterpillar and snapped at it, and he's lost it.
Where that little joint is, he'll grow a new tip.
Where that bit of a break is, he may grow two new tips or even three.
That's one way that these animals protect themselves, by camouflage and by sacrifice, by losing part of themselves, and while the enemy is eating that, they can get away with the rest.
Oh.
Nest.
Stay.
Shining flycatcher, I think.
We'll soon know if it is.
(BIRD TRILLING NOISE) It's the male, very upset by the territorial call in his area.
Brilliant bird.
Completely blue.
Oh.
Oh, well.
Try again.
There's his lady.
Quite different, isn't she? Beautiful animal.
Straight on the nest.
There she goes.
Oh, look at this one.
(INHALES SHARPLY) One of the big forest centipedes.
Bit too bitey for me to take.
Come on, let's have a look at you.
Be nice.
These things bite.
Their front legs change into biting jaws.
It's only if you tread on them or sit on them.
They'll never attack.
That one's only trying to get away from us.
He's not interested in eating people.
It's only defensive biting.
His main enemy are the goannas.
They love centipedes.
The name means 'having 100 legs', but it rarely has 100.
Each body segment has got one pair of legs, and each leg is independent, which makes for extreme mobility on the forest floor or wherever else.
Now, just look at this one.
Isn't he beautiful? That's the spotted green tree frog.
Little bit different to the ones you get in other parts of the country.
Great big glands up here hold poison, which passes down through his back Let's see.
Now, he's not really frightened of me.
But you'll see it coming out as a white fluid when he gets really annoyed.
That's coming out now, that white sticky slime.
Now, if you get that on your skin or in your eyes or in your mouth, it'll burn - and burn very badly.
This gives rise to the old story that frogs give you warts.
It is quite a strong poison.
This is a tree frog.
Look at those sucker toes reaching out.
Hanging on.
He can jump, but he prefers to walk.
Ready to jump? Ooh, and See how beautifully camouflaged he is on those leaves.
Look at those powerful legs.
And those suckers.
They help him over branches and leaves to climb and cling.
His main diet is insects, spiders, centipedes.
And he, in turn, is food.
He's eaten by owls, goannas and snakes.
Jungles are associated with snakes, and Australian jungles are no exception.
There's lots of them.
And our biggest ones are 25 feet long, in the jungles up around Queensland - the amethystine python.
This one is one of our common jungle snakes - the brown tree snake, or Territory tiger.
He can be black-and-white right through to this brilliant orange-and-gold.
A superb animal.
There's a jungle bird, rainbow lorikeet, one of the clowns of this area.
(BIRDSONG) Ha! They don't mind the wet weather.
They're getting ready for courting now.
Oh, you swine.
From our point of view, not so good, but from their point of view, a perfect time of the year.
Everything wet.
They can move about.
The leeches.
They attack anything and everybody who moves through the jungle, right out onto the grass flats.
Bit later on, they, in turn, will get eaten by all the things that eat them.
Bit unhappy on my hand 'cause the skin is very thick.
But he's able to come down on the thinner skin and get in.
Lots of legs.
You see, there's an old bite there.
Not much good there, sport.
All the blood's gone.
Don't really think we want him.
You don't have to go very far in this country to find a different environment, and in this case, it's the beach.
Doesn't look like a beach.
It looks like a battlefield.
And 'cause that's exactly what it is.
On one side is the jungle, and on the other side are the mangroves and the tidal flat.
And in between, the disputed area - the beach.
Many animals have learned to use the best of both of these environments.
Look at this.
(LAUGHS) Hermit crabs.
That's a land snail shell.
There's another one, another one, another one.
The others are sea snails.
And this is another animal that's adapted to this battleground between jungle and mangroves.
Hermit crab's a marine animal, but they go right up there in the jungle, fight the snails, take the empty shells and come back and live in the sea in the empty snail shells.
These are the scavengers of the beach, and obviously, they're now learning to move out from the beach into the jungle.
And what a protection they've got - legs everywhere, a heavily armoured front Just have a look at this fellow.
Ooh-hoo! Out he comes.
Tough fellow.
Big nippers and claws.
When he goes back in, though, he pulls right back in, and all there is is one great big claw blocking the entrance.
Here's another one.
Just look at that.
He jumped right out of his shell.
Danger is so great, he preferred to leave his shell to being taken by an animal.
So hermit crabs have established a 2-way method of living.
They're really a mangrove animal, and it's learned that because the jungle moves backwards and forwards, they've learned to move backwards and forwards too and get their food wherever they can find it.
A struggle for existence.
The best answer to it is to find a form of food or a place to live where no other animals live or food that no other animals eat.
People usually avoid mangroves because they're full of mosquitoes and sandflies and mud and ooze.
Not much is known about 'em for this reason.
But they're full of fascinating life forms.
The mangroves are the first stage of the land claiming the sea.
And I suppose this and this are among the strangest animals that live here.
They're really a fish.
They can live in water, but mostly, they live up on the land.
They're called mudskippers.
Hang on a minute.
There he is.
Great big eyes like on periscopes, so that one can look one way and one can look the other way all at once, and he can watch his missus and his tucker all at the same time.
Big mouth, and those great big gills are full of water.
That's how he lives on land.
He keeps his body wet and charges the oxygen through his skin.
Goodbye to him.
(LAUGHS) Here's an old man popping out, and again, you can see, the eyes and the big gill structure.
They hop, rather than walk, and some scientists use them as a sort of proof that marine animals came out of the sea and managed to survive on land.
There's living evidence today.
These are mangrove roots.
They actually build their own gardens.
The roots catch silt and debris and mud, which builds up around them, and this, in turn, catches more debris and mud, and so they really create their own micro environment.
There's the seed.
Fat, fleshy, green, just as it falls off the tree.
Armoured point for digging in the mud.
There's stage two - the seed's upright among the old roots.
Its growing tip has got very fine roots starting to establish themselves in the mud, and it's living on the food stored in its trunk.
As yet, it hasn't developed any leaves.
And the next stage is right alongside it.
The old seed is just about unrecognisable.
The roots are solid, buttressing out, holding it firmly in the mud.
It's used all the food in the trunk, and up here at the top, the big aerial buttressing roots are just beginning to shoot, to come out and support it.
And it's already developed its leaves.
It's away to a young mangrove, the new generation.
It's an ancient battle.
The jungle had it for a long time and built up all of that soil.
Then the sea came in again and won for a brief period till the jungle took over.
The mangroves, of course, won the battles all the time.
That must have been when the Aboriginals were here, because that charcoal is an old Aboriginal fireplace.
And these are the food, the shells the Aboriginals were eating.
They always broke the points off like that when they cooked them.
Yes, there were quite a few of them eating here.
You can see them stuck in the cliffs, still in when the jungle was here.
Of course, last on the scene was white man, with his concrete blocks and rubbish.
That's a wartime tin that's completely rusted away.
But it goes back into history.
Down there, it's even more ancient.
10,000 years ago, that was a mangrove tree.
You can see the root structures.
You can even see some corals and shells and rocks that came in from the mainland, all caught.
And due to the action of sea water and salt and minerals, the whole thing is fossilised.
So this battle's been going on on this point for at least 10,000 years.
And all along the coastline of Australia - in fact, the whole world - this is happening - the fight between the sea and the land.
It's not the way of man to accept that constant change in nature.
All we can do is try and understand the process so that our own attacks on the environment never reach a time when we no longer control them.