The Tiny World Of Insects | BBC Earth

These don't touch me. Balsams have emerged to cover the forest floor each night, the leaves becoming limp as the balsam exudes excess moisture and the waterlogged soils of the Lake District. This is a useful adaptation, soon its flowers unfold like the petals of these strangers. the shaped flowers fall the seed pods begin to form these pods are the favorite food of the carpet moth caterpillar although once thought to be extinct the carpet moth survives here in the Lake District its last remaining bastion don't touch me Balsam is their only food source these plants have a surprise in store their seed heads explode this is how they met like don't touch me but no one told the caterpillars this thank you the caterpillars have no warning when you are small bombs explode only says that they get hurt all over the forest floor the Namib Desert one of the most exposed places on Earth while the sun rises everyone protects themselves from the extreme heat everyone except the hot rod ant while others take shelter their day As soon as you start cleaning the nest, the foreigners can reach a scorching temperature of 70 degrees Celsius.

The ants with long legs raise their bodies above the surface where it is 10 degrees colder, but if they stay still they will fry, they must keep moving or run the same way. des

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than its quarry. The creatures that have collapsed from heat stroke, thank you, are buried deep, but it is a good place. to cool down foraging decisions must be quick too big perfect return to the nest before they too die but have strayed into a minefield each of these strange cone-shaped chunks is a death trap strange larvae

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ambush predators With pincers full of poison, some of the ants managed to escape, but the antlion has other tricks: it throws sand into the air, which creates an overlap in this cone of death.

The walls are so angled that sand slides under the ant's legs while rocks rain down from the sky. Escape seems almost impossible. he hunts ants eating ants can give him more than just food, he can get something more from them that helped him fight his enemies the ants launch a counterattack and bite his ankles, but he just kicks them away the Valiant ants chase him away right into the real danger a mongoose is curious but also wary of the UK track a black and white pattern is a warning sign the beetle points and shoots formic acids directly at the mongoose its eyes and mouth the beetle probably picked up this acid from the Ants certainly make the beetle very unpleasant and that in turn makes this helpless little lizard worth imitating.

It has the Beatles warning pattern. It also mimics the way the beetle runs. Not particularly good, admittedly, but good enough to fool predators into thinking what it could be. an acid-shooting beetle all kinds of

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have developed chemical weapons a pair of devil's horsemen stick

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taste bitter terpene oils European wood ants under attack by a hungry crow have the kind of acid that gives nettles their stinger so this is how one of us falls into a field of nettles, but the master of chemical warfare is the bombardier beetle. He can create a chemical reaction inside his body so violent that a boiling caustic liquid explodes out of his abdomen by pulsing the jet 500 times per second that he holds in his butt. ends up cold enough to prevent it from cooking, the wettest chore is the New Zealand equivalent of a mouse and a worthy snack for a pig searching for food with pigs snorting behind, there's only one place to go and that's the last place to go. what would you expect, thanks this.

The weather is an escape artist, pigs can't see or smell you when you're underwater, thank you, you can stay underwater for up to 10 minutes and now the coast is clear. 80 million years of isolation have endowed this ancient creature with extraordinary survival skills. ant this may look like a ball of a million individuals, but making a mistake The Colony acts as one a superorganism with a sensory system of 2 million antennas a skeleton made of living bodies of workers a defense system of soldier ants ready to act at any sign of danger a digestive system that processes piles of food deep down even a coordinated system to deal with all the waste these are insects that by working together transcend individual size The colony can search the entire jungle and expel its life wild every day it sends a silent probe into the forest the search for food does not use scouts like other ants, but rather a large search party goes into the virgin territory in search of the sun for anything living, they spread along a 10 meter front sweeping the forest floor to find prey the ants must first touch it the iron is that this is the most successful player of hide and seek in the forest is almost completely blind distinguishes the living only by their movement as long as an animal remains at except but the slightest movement will give it away in a matter of seconds, the prey is immobilized in a matter of minutes, it tears at its joints the more the praise fights, the more the ants get involved in the attack front, the prey of all sizes They are driven out of their hiding places instead of their homes when the ants arrive alive at the Raiders overwhelmed by the sheer number of people to survive here, you have to be prepared to die here, okay, but the sun can return as quickly as the storm came. and an increase of just a few degrees is enough to cause a Thor, even underground, frozen, solid mountain.

He has the most extraordinary survival technique of all, the ability to return from the dead, only in a specialized film camera can we capture the extraordinary talent of him. The waiter has developed special proteins that prevent ice crystals from forming inside his cells. A remarkable trick for a creature whose ancestors lived in hot, humid prehistoric forests, but when the mountains of New Zealand grew beneath them about 5 million years ago, they were forced to develop this incredible ability to survive temperatures close to to the lethal ones. Defrosting consumes a lot of energy, so mountain berries are welcome. view the waiter needs to stock up while he can the next Antarctic storm could be the return of winter he can tolerate more than 80 percent of his body frozen and he can do it day after day for weeks at a time nowhere else in New Zealand Does life come to such extremes to survive?

Those bees are too young to forage. They are housewives like the Wasp Queen. The queen bee has the immeasurable task of laying enough eggs to ensure the health and future of the colony. The custom of raising wild Japanese bees is so old. as the society itself and Yamaguchi have raised bees since their childhood. Japanese bees are so sensitive that it takes a lot of patience and skill to keep them. The art of raising them is to understand their behavior. They make reserves of honey for the winter, but they also produce enough for Yamaguchi to feed himself. harvest Japanese bees They can produce less honey than European bees, but the flavor is very special.

It's the smell of this growing reserve of energy-rich honey that could be their downfall if it attracts a Scout hornet, but right now the Hornets have other problems to deal with. With The Nest now monstrous, the workers have excavated over a ton of Earth. There are so many bodies living in the Close Quarters that the queen and her dynasty are in danger of overheating, so the workers create air conditioning by keeping a constant flow of fresh air circulating. Not being able to cope with the high temperatures is the Achilles heel of the giant hornets, the warmth of the hornet's nest belies the change of season, the change is rapid here in the mountains and when autumn comes there are many fewer insects around, This means my hives are even more vulnerable to attack.

For me it is a moment of anxiety in the search for autumn food a scout hornet discovers the wild bees of yamaguchi the bees fan an alarm pheromone in the air this alerts the entire hive to the presence of the hornet the scout smells the honey inside a prize worth marking with such a rich foreign scent, but unlike European bees, these Japanese bees do not attack, but rather attract the Scout inward, still the bees hang. Then one is caught, it's the signal the others have been waiting for forever surrounded by vibrating bodies. The hornet in the center of the b- the ball begins to overheat the bees have the advantage a heat tolerance two degrees higher than that of their enemy 46 degrees Celsius the aggressor is roasted alive the wild bees have spent millions of years living with the enemy, that is why only they have developed this extraordinary survival strategy. he begins his search a female is probably on the trunk of a tree but the trees in this part of the

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are very tall his search could be long unfortunately for him she is 25 meters above him near the top she has more normal sized mandibles but then she only needs them to feed, but he needs huge jaws to fight because there are other males around with the same mission.

Pure strength is not enough in these battles. The technique involves reaching over your opponent's head and hooking your jaws under his wing covers. Why are his jaws so long and strangely shaped? He has grip, now he has to lift and that takes strength. Another lift is needed and that's because the Beetle's armor is strong, so it bounces around. The winner goes up. There are more males ready to fight him. Up here and here she is at last, but she doesn't seem to be in a foreign mood, so now she has to use her big jaws as a containment cage, but the throwing habit dies hard.

Mantids will eat anything that moves, including other mountains. It's time to let this little insect now be open to attack by predators lurking in the undergrowth. Whether an individual mantis survives or not is partly a matter of luck. The spider is still in pursuit, a mantis is born with exceptional eyesight, but like other spiders it is even better, although this young mantis cannot fly yet, its four long legs evolved to catch prey and catch up with it, there seems to be no escape, but this mantis has an amazing line in the Kung Fu praying mantis style of self defense, of course it's all Bluff trying to look bigger and confuse his enemy, but he gets away with it, just staying alive for his first few hours is a significant achievement for a newborn insect, but there is still a long way to go with a little luck, within two months it will be big and beautiful as this Orchid rode or maybe not, after all, the mantises They are cannibals by pooling their resources, the Queens have survived their first great challenge, but this Coalition can.

The latest tensions are already rising as the Queen fights for position within the Royal Court, the weakest crouching submissively before the most dominant, including the founding Queen, thus begins the delicate maneuver that will soon take on a deadly meaning for those which are at the bottom of the hierarchy. They have little chance of surviving the coming trials. Another fight for control is also beginning on the surface. The Corral nest is not the only one in Horseshoe Canyon. The desert floor is full of colonies of similar size and there is not enough room for all of them now.

The dark side of honey ants The moment arises for the Corral colony to organize a preemptive attack against its closest neighbors. This cull continues throughout the summer until the Corral colony has eliminated all other new nests in its immediate vicinity. The foundations of the empire have been laid underground. 2 events have taken a darker turn one of the queens lies dead in the royal chamber, it is not clear why, but the workers have begun to select the weaker queens to receive special attention at first, it is all very subtle, no It is not fed or cleaned as frequently. diligently, but then the workers begin to intimidate and harass their chosen victim, eventually it turns into a direct attack and the workers tear the chosen Queen to pieces.

Nothing can go to waste, even a real corpse. The workers bring hungry larvae to feast on the dead Queen, including many who must have been her own offspring. As the weeks go by, the revolution continues. Only the most dominant royals seem immune to the attack. They simply watch and wait as the workers gather. They go about their gruesome business when the air is saturated and the temperature is just right red giants emerge a paella snail Fanta can grow to the size of a foreign man's fist they can only be filmed in captivitywhere his extraordinary behavior is revealed.

How exactly they track down their food is still a mystery, but one thing is for sure this snail has unusual characteristics. flavors and disgusting table banners its mouth envelops and suffocates the worm it sucked like spaghetti for something bigger it has six thousand teeth ready to shred the next meal in this oversaturated environment this specialized snail is the ultimate predator the rains have reached the mountains from East Africa Oh, one of the most organized swarms on Earth has appeared on the surface. They are driver ants, an insect with a fearsome reputation in the rainy season. They form these extraordinary hunting trails.

Large soldier ants line the trail protecting the smaller workers within their enormous mandibles. an impregnable barricade the soldiers create these protective tunnels every time they cross open terrain please the paths radiate from the nest in all directions a stretch of 100 meters a worker running at full speed takes 45 minutes to travel the entire length the soldiers protect the path At all costs although blind, they are very sensitive to vibrations and air currents and become instantly defensive when attacked. Stress pheromones put the entire work group on alert. They are ready to take on anything, including people. They are programmed to keep the road moving or die trying.

Our ants are the stuff of legend. It is said that they kill everything that crosses their path. It is said that no animal is safe when they are on a warpath. It is even said that they will enter huts to attack people or kill babies that are left. unattended in their yards The truth is somewhat different, although the bites are painful for people, they are purely defensive. Jaws can cut through human flesh like butter, but it is simply a warning despite the myths. The driver ants are still ruthless killers, but in a way that often benefits the villagers.

Pests like scorpions are quickly attacked by the ants, even the scorpion's deadly stinger is powerless against this invincible army. Both workers and soldiers join the attack by dividing their rules according to their size, some look for armor on their leg, others open their body. dishes like a can opener with its stinger immobilized and faced with such overwhelming odds that the Scorpion finally gives up the fight the dismembered body is dragged back along the path to feed the nest the farmer's fields provide even more opportunities for the Strike Force the pests Disturbed by digging they are soon picked off by hundreds of sharp jaws Ants make a clean sweep capturing up to 100,000 insects in a single raid Despite the ants' formidable reputation most farmers value their role as defensive pest controllers The ants take no prisoners, but even a harmless-looking insect can be surprisingly dangerous.

The millipede on the ground dies quickly, but the soldiers' highly sensitive antennae immediately reveal that it is poisonous. The message soon reaches nearby ants. They know exactly what to do. pieces of mud and bury the Harm's Way millipede problem, the trail can continue its journey safely, but more dangers await the pioneers. A praying mantis plucks unsuspecting ants from the column. It seems to have the upper hand, but the ants it kills send a dying message in reaction to this pheromone. Reinforcements arrive. The Mantis. It's a deadly predator, but ants know exactly what they're dealing with. a soldier grabs the mantis' jaws preventing it from doing any more damage.

Other ants swarm over the mantis and slaughter it with surgical precision. The mantis's fate is sealed by clinical decapitation. taken to the new nest here they are safe the millions of intertwined ants that make up the superstructure of the nest create an impenetrable barrier only from the outside is it possible to get an idea of ​​the enormous scale of the nest literally millions of individuals form a nervous network that communicates using pheromones as ants pass messages to each other, they effectively act like brain cells through millions of interconnections, they come to a decision that works for the benefit of the colony, like human brain cells.

Individual ants are not intelligent, but the links between them create a mind. A Super Brain ant deep down is its rule is to replenish The Colony by laying two million eggs a month is simply an egg-laying machine under the collective command of all the ants. ants forming the hive mind ants creating a different type of intelligence a brain that exists outside of any foreign body there is no other species on the planet that responds as quickly and dramatically to good times as locust eggs begin to do from the desert that have remained in the ground for 20 years Young locusts hatch and are known as Hoppers because at this stage they cannot fly, they find new feeding areas by following the smell of sprouting grass.

Typically it takes four weeks for Hoppers to become adults, but when conditions are right, like now, their development shifts onto the fast track as the vegetation in a location begins to deplete, the winged adults release ghosts, send messages They tell other members of the group that they should move on and when the groups merge they form a swarm. Oh, an adult Lucas eats his entire body weight every day. and an entire swarm can consume literally hundreds of tons of vegetation they have to keep moving the swarm travels with the wind it is the most energy efficient way to fly following the flow of the wind means they always head towards low pressure areas places where the wind encounters rain and vegetation begins to grow as they fly, the swarms join other swarms to form gigantic pests several billion in power and up to 40 miles wide, they will consume everything edible in their path. way, this is one of the planets of planet Earth.

The larger shows are rarely seen on the stopover and won't last long once the food is gone. The constant roar of a billion locust wings will once again be replaced by nothing more than the sound of the desert wind that we have seen how managing Forests and farmland for butterflies can preserve the countryside we love and also how the Butterflies may inspire the next generation to protect it, but if you still have doubts about whether butterflies can make our countryside a better place, then you need look no further than the humble caterpillar because If there is one thing we have learned from them it is that the change is possible.

This is a sulfur that hatched from an egg a few weeks ago but is now ready for a change. First he spins a silk pad to anchor hooks to the back of his body in a move to rival a contortionist, passes strands of silk behind himself creating a sash to support him during the shift to come with anchor and secure line for the transformation. may take place the caterpillar is little more than stomachs on legs but that body has served its purpose and can be discarded the favor head is about to open wide and when it does something very different it will emerge chrysalis the caterpillar was a machine devouring an identity rolled up like a sock and discarded, this body is for something different, an almost miraculous agent of change and responsible for making butterflies powerful symbols of hope and transformation.

This is a sign that something beautiful is surely on the way. The chrysalis is one of the most enduring symbols of the natural

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.