All language subtitles for The Living Planet s01e08 Sweet Fresh Water.eng

A strangely shaped mountain
catching the clouds high above

the jungles of Venezuela.

Its summit rocks have been carved
into a multitude of grotesque shapes.

The sculptor, an agent that is
continuously at wor on much of the

landscape of our planet: Rainwater.

It washes over the rock,
eroding it chemically.

It permeates the cracks, freezes,
and chips it off in flakes and splinters.

As the water flows downwards,
it starts on a long journey

that will take it from the
mountains to the sea,

and here, with a leap of over 3,000
feet, the highest made by any river,

it forms the Angel Falls.

Our journey begins not far from
that towering waterfall

on the high moorlands of Peru,
15,000 feet above the sea.

Water is a very extraordinary
and very precious substance,

the only one on earth,
apart from mercury,

which remains liquid at normal
temperatures and pressures,

and because of that, it is an essential
part of the bodies of all living organisms,

animals and plant.

Without it, life would come to an end.

But this particular water is
a very rare kind.

97% of the water on earth
is salty, the sea,

but this was distilled from the surface
of the sea by the heat of the sun,

rose into the sky as vapour,
condensed to form clouds and then

fell again as rain and snow to form
streams of pure, fresh, sweet water.

But this particular stream is on its
way to the sea a very long way away,

because these are the Andes,
and this is one of the many streams

that can claim to be a source of the
biggest river on earth, the Amazon.

The difficulties of living in this young
and violent river are formidable.

Its waters are thick with powdered
rock and mud, but they have

gathered few nutrients,

and they rush down the valley
at tremendous speed.

Anything that lives here has to be
a prodigious swimmer.

And these are. They're torrent ducks.

They exploit the swirls and eddies
with consummate skill,

paddling with powerfull strokes
of their large webbed feet.

They head always upstream, bracing
themselves against rocks with their stiff

quilled tail,and using small horny
spurs on the wrists of their wings

to give them purchase.

A pair owns a stretch of the river,
working their way up it to the frontier

of their territory when they abandon
themselves to the flood and are swept

downstream to begin all over again.

Anchored firmly to the rocks
is a kind of moss.

Mosses are primitive, ancient
plants that appeared on earth

long before flowering plants.

This torrent moss is found in young
rivers and streams all over the world,

and wherever it grows, whether
in the Andes or here in Europe,

it provides shelter for
a multitude of insect larvae

In summer, these creatures will become
transformed and fly briefly above

the river to mate, but most of
their lives are spent underwater.

Some are streamlined
against the current.

The caddis fly larvae live in protective
tubes, the hollow stem of a reed,

or a construction of bits of wood
stuck together with silk.

Some weight themselves down
so that the current doesn't

shift them by building their shelters
from heavy grains of sand.

The larva of the blackfly holds
on to a pebble with its back end,

while it grabs at food particles
that are swept past it

with the antennae on its head.

It grips the rock with a ring of hooks,
but even if it loses its hold, all is not lost.

It has a lifeline of silk which it has
attached to its chosen pebble.

Having hauled itself back,
it now has to get a new grip.

First it spins a tiny pad of silk from
a spinneret just beneath its mouth,

then it fixes its hooks into that.

The nets with which it collects its
food are modified antennae,

and the larva brushes off what
they catch with alternate flicks

of its mouthparts.

Not all caddis larvae live in solid tubes.

This one builds a construction
that serves both as a home and

a food-gathering device.

It uses its silk to produce
a funnel-shaped scaffold

of criss-crossing threads.

Undulating its body is a way
of aiding its breathing,

for the movement speeds the flow of
oxygen-bearing water through the funnel.

It holds on with the hooks
at the back...

...leaving its jaws and front legs
free to do the construction work.

This blackfly larva wasn't
saved by its lifeline.

But the caddis fly larva itself,
ferocious and art trapper though it is,

is also at risk.

The dipper relishes it.

Dippers live both in the rivers
of North America and Europe.

Underwater, their swimming
technique is quite different from

the torrent ducks in the Andes.

Its feet are not webbed like a duck's,
so it propels itself with its wings,

flying underwater.

In similar cold, fast-flowing
streams in North America

lives a kind of giant newt,
the hellbender.

When it's young, it also, like a
dipper, takes insect larvae,

but it can grow to over two feet long,
and then it seeks much bigger prey.

A crayfish would suit it admirably.

A narrow escape. The crayfish saved
itself at the last moment by a convulsive

snap of its tail, but the hellbender
doesn't give up easily.

Both animals try to keep out
of the current and habitually

creep into crevices.

But that sometimes is a mistake.

Streams that tumble down the sides
of the valleys and feed young rivers

have their own population.

In Malaysia, the big-headed turtle
clambers around the waterfalls,

using its tail as a prop.

In West African waterfalls,
and nowhere else,

lives the extraordinary hairy frog.

Its so-called hairs are filaments of
skin on its flanks which act as gills,

helping it to absorb oxygen
from the water.

And, almost as unusual, it has claws
that help it grip the slippery stones

The many sources of the Amazon
began as rivulets on the eastern

flanks of the Andes.

Now, 5,000 feet lower down,
each has grown beyond recognition

and cut its own zigzag valley.

White water, tumbling down the
valley wall, joins the brown water

of a larger tributary,

heavy with mud and sediment.

And as it gets bigger and bigger, so
it becomes more and more powerful.

It's the dry season at the moment
and the river is comparatively low.

But during the rains, when it's in
spate, its waters rise up over here

and the sheer volume and weight
and force of them can shift boulders

the size of these.

The volume and speed of its waters
are not the river's only weapons.

It also has teeth.

And in this empty rainy-season part
of its bed, you can see them.

Sand and gravel, fragments of rock
that have been eroded from higher

up in its course

and which the river hurls with enormous
force at the rocks of its river bed.

With such tools, it can carve away
the sides of mountains.

Young, vigorous rivers transform
the land, demolishing the mountains,

breaking down the debris into smaller
and smaller particles and carrying

them away downstream.

This river in China is perpetually so
turbid that it's called the Huang Ho,

the Yellow River.

It carries a bigger load of sediment
than any other river in the world.

During floods, each cubic yard of
water contains over 2,000 pounds

of soil and pulverised rock.

Rivers in the full vigour of their
youth are terrifyingly strong.

They roll great boulders
along their beds,

they cut away at the banks,
undermining trees which crash into

the waters and are swept away.

When a river encounters a band
of unusually hard rock, such as an

ancient flow of basalt lava,
its progress is temporarily slowed.

It spreads out across the barrier
and then tumbles over the front edge.

So are formed some of the
loveliest cascades.

These are the falls of Iguacu
on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

They can't compare in height
with the Angel Falls,

but in terms of the volume of
water that passes over them,

they are incomparably bigger.

The falling waters pound away
at the base of the falls,

undercutting the basalt
until blocks split off the face.

So the falls steadily work their way
upriver, leaving downstream a deep

gorge, and animals live even here,
within the falls themselves.

Swifts perch on the rock face
behind the cascade.

Every evening they congregate
high above Iguacu.

After a day of hawking for insects,
they're ready to roost.

And where safer than behind
a screen of falling water?

Some dive down with such speed
that they shoot right through the fall.

And now the river has left
the mountains far behind

and has changed its
character considerably.

It's bigger, it's broader, and its waters
carry not only sand and gravel

but rich nutrients washed in from
its vegetation-covered banks.

And after it's gone over its last
rapids and tumbled over its last fall,

it becomes a very different
river indeed.

It's middle-aged: Ampler,
less violent, more sluggish and richer.

On the banks of the Amazon
tributaries, the jungle stands thick.

Birds like the sun bittern
stalk quietly in search of a meal.

Huge fish cruise through
the slow waters.

The arapaima, one of the largest
of freshwater fish,

grows over six feet long.

The Amazon contains over 3,000
different kinds of fish.

That's more than live in all the Atlantic

Rays almost certainly
evolved in the sea,

but this species has managed
to make the change to fresh water

and lives high up the Amazon.

Many fish have evolved here
in fresh water

and have become suited to all its
variations of depth, speed and chemical

composition, to muddy water
and to clear, to stretches that are

thick with plants and places
where there are none.

Their variety is enormous.

Take, for example,
just one family: The catfish.

They're bottom-dwelling fish,
with feelers or bubbles on their snouts

that have sense organs on them,
so the fish can feel and taste

their way through the thick,
muddy water or at night.

There are small ones
and immense ones,

some that give electric shocks
and others that swim upside down.

Those who lives in fast-flowing
waters have suckers on their chins

or undersides with which
they cling to rocks.

In South America alone, there are
1,200 different species of catfish.

In these crowded waters, many fish
give special protection to their young

for the first few weeks of their lives.

This fish, the discus, goes even further.

It provides its fry with special food.

The parents exude a nutritious
slime from their skin

and the young graze over their
flanks, feeding on it.

After a week, they're big enough
to feed on small particles

floating in the water.

These are now a month old and
have already assumed the disc-like

shape of their parents.

They're becoming independent,
but they've strayed past the lair

of an electric eel

The eel has poor eyesight,

but it detects the presence of objects
around it with short electric discharges,

a kind of radar.

It rises for a gulp of air.
This time the young discus

seem to have escaped detection.

But the eel can also produce a major
electric shock which stuns its prey.

It releases its capture. Perhaps
so small a fish is not worth eating.

The young discus, apart from the
marks of the eel's jaws on its flanks,

seems no worse off.

One Amazonian fish puts its eggs
beyond the reach of any

water-living predator:
On leaves overhanging a river.

A pair of splashing tetras are courting.

They curve their bodies and,
for an instant, leap clear of the water.

Sometimes a third fish joins in.

The bigger of the two is the male.

For a moment the pair hang on
the leaf, supported by the suction

of the male's floppy fins.

Again and again, they jump.
In this one moment, the female

lays her eggs and drops off, and the
male fertilises them and follows her.

Each time, they leave behind
a dozen or so eggs.

A few infertile eggs drop off the leaf,
but they're not wasted.

Eventually as many as 200 eggs
are safely placed out of harm's way,

and the river can be an
exceedingly dangerous place.

Piranha, the most savage
of all the Amazon's fish.

A swimming capybara suddenly
realises their presence and tries

to retreat, but it's too late.

The splashing, the taste of blood
spreading through the water,

attracts more of the shoal until
there are hundreds of the fish,

all possessed by a frenzy for flesh.

None are much more than a foot long,
but their teeth are sharp enough

to cut clean through bone.

Within minutes, there's little left.

As the river gets older, it slows down.
A minor obstacle in its path is now

enough to deflect it.

The water flowing round the outside
of a bend has to travel farther

and speeds up and cuts
away at the bank.

On the inside of a bend,
where the current is slow,

the water can no longer support
its load of sediment and drops it

to form a shoal.

So the bend becomes more and more
exaggerated as the elderly river

swings from side to side in a
series of loops and meanders.

One bend may approach another
until the neck of land between the two

is so narrow it collapses.

Then the river takes the shorter
course and the meander is left

isolated as a curving lake.

There the water, at last, is still.

Plants no longer have to fight
against a current, and the lakes

become clogged with vegetation.

These are the largest floating leaves
of all, the leaves of the famous

giant Amazon lily.

Covering the water with leaves
of this size is very aggressive act,

for it cuts out the light below,
making it very difficult for other plants

to grow there.

The upturned rims of the great pads,
as they grow, thrust to one side

all other floating plants

And to prevent these leaves being
destroyed by being eaten by fish,

they are protected with very effective
and ferocious spines underneath,

as you can see most clearly
on this half-opened bud.

It can develop from the size of a
soup plate to a huge emerald disc

six feet across in only a few days,

growing at a rate of one
square inch in a minute.

The flowers develop
with similar speed.

Each opens first in the evening and
remains with its petals spread

and fragrant all night.

By the morning, however,
it's closed again.

But during the night
it's taken prisoners.

Inside the flower are beetles.

Sometimes there are as many as 40
of them in a single bloom.

They're not there just by accident.
They've been attracted by special

sugary outgrowths in the
centre of the flower.

And while they're trapped in there,
during the day, they will feed on those.

This evening the flower will open for
second time, the beetles will be released

and they'll fly off carrying
with them pollen to cross-pollinate

another lily flower.

And then, after just two nights,
this bloom, by now turned purple,

will crumple and die.

The leaves, strengthened by air-filled
ribs beneath, can support the weight

of a small child,

and water birds can walk over them
with complete confidence and safety.

The jacana has greatly elongated toes
that can spread its weight so effectively

that it can tread on very flimsy leaves
without submerging them.

It seeks insects, and there are
plenty to choose from.

The pond skater sits on a leaf,
but it could equally sit on the water,

for the surface forms a platform
that supports many small creatures.

Water molecules are bound to one
another by a force akin to magnetism.

They're not attracted to molecules
of air above, so their on the surface

have their forces concentrated
sideways,giving the surface

a specially strong tension,
and the pond skater hunts on it.

It's lost its prey under the leaf.

This time there is no escape. The pond
skater stabs its victim and sucks it dry.

It's crucially important for the pond
skater to keep meticulously clean.

The waxy surface of its body and
the fine hairs on its feet repel water,

but any dirt on them that is wettable
would break the surface-tension film.

They're aggressive insects, each with
its own territory among the lily pads.

Intruders are immediately chased away,
and fights between rivals are common.

The surface-tension film is not only
the pond skaters' platform,

but their sounding board.

Through sense organs on their feet,
they can detect the vibrations caused

by the struggles of an insect,
and by bouncing up and down

they communicate to one another,

sending keep-out signals to rivals and
come-hither signals to potential mates.

Whirligig beetles use vibrations of the
surface film in a slightly different way.

By girating they create ripples, and
by monitoring the returning echoes,

they detect the presence of other
creatures and obstacles around them.

They have excellent eyes,which
are partitioned so that the lower half

peers downwards to see what's
happening in the water beneath.

Hanging from below the surface
is another hunter.

Its tail has two tubes which penetrate
the surface film and collect air

so that it can breathe.

At its other end, its head has ferocious
jaws with which it seizes its prey.

This is the larva of the giant diving
beetle, and it's caught a tadpole.

It has to come to the surface, even
when it's adult, so it can collect air

to sustain it on its hunting forays
down into deeper waters.

The water boatman patrols the
surface looking for pray

not from above, like the
pond skater, but from below.

The two kinds of insects between
them manage to collect most of the

creatures that have trapped
in the surface film.

The camphor beetle lives
on plants at the water's edge,

but it is perhaps the most versatile
of all water-walkers.

It can run over water,
like a pond skater.

It can also produce a substance
which greatly reduces the tension

between water molecules.

In emergencies it squirts this from
its tail, and with the tension pulling

hard at the front, it shoots across
the surface so fast that the only way

to see it clearly is in slow motion.

And, as a final demonstration
of its versatility, it can,

like most good beetles, fly.

One particularly ferocious hunter
lives on the edge of lakes and ponds

in Europe, the fishing spider.

It uses the surface-tension film
in the same way as other spiders

use their webs.

With its front legs resting delicately on
the surface, it feels for tell-tale vibrations.

But it also has excellent sight and can
see potential prey below the surface.

The stickleback sees only the
spider's feet.

That is a greatly slowed-down
version of the kill.

In reality, the pounce is rapier-swift

and the stickleback had little chance
once it strayed within range.

The lakes and ponds fed by streams
or cut off from the main course of

the river are comparatively small.

But where rivers flow into basins
created by geological faults,

their water accumulates
in immense lakes.

This is Lake Prespa in Yugoslavia.
Not the largest of lakes but, even so,

20 miles long.

As the rivers enter its still waters,
they lose their impetus and drop their

sediment, so such lakes are potentially
very fertile, and their animal inhabitants,

no longer harassed by a perpetual
current nor hemmed in by

a shallow bottom or narrow banks,
can proliferate, and they do.

Fish swarm in their waters.

And fish-eating birds,
like pelicans and cormorants,

swarm correspondingly.

Land-based creatures haunt its margins.

These may be its most fertile parts,
for the lack of strong currents

in a very deep lake can leave
the bottom waters starved of oxygen,

but in the shallows, especially when
they're warmed by the summer's sun,

algae and other plants flourish,
small invertebrates proliferate

and there's food for even
the least agile of hunters.

But in one way these large lakes
are very special.

This trout, with distinctive red spots,
lives in Lake Ohrid,

a few miles away from Lake Prespa,
but nowhere else in the world.

Isolated in the lake, communities
of fish become very inbred.

Small characteristics that could be
lost in bigger populations become fixed,

and the fish evolve into new species.

A similar thing has happened
to the shrimps.

And among the many different
species of water snails, several are now

unique to Lake Ohrid.

In the heart of Russia lies a stretch
of fresh water so huge and so ancient

that these processes have produced
new species on a scale unequalled

anywhere else in the world,

Lake Baikal.

The lake lies in a great depression
formed by faulting in the earth's crust.

It's 400 miles long and 5,000 feet
deep, the deepest of all lakes.

In the depths of the lake, 1,000 feet
down, lives a unique kind of salmon,

the omul.

In summer, they move up into the
shallows and feed on caddis fly larvae

and sand hoppers,

and here they're caught in great
numbers for their delicious eating.

But this is only one of Baikal's
special inhabitan

Of the 1,200 different kinds of fish
and other animals and 500 plants

that it contains, over 80% are unique.

There are unique molluscs,
unique flatworms and even

one unique mammal, the Baikal seal.

This tiny seal is almost certainly
descended from the ringed seal

of the Arctic Sea.

Today the lake is over 1,000 miles
away from that sea.

It's likely that the ancestors of these
creatures arrived during the Ice Age,

when the journey may have been
shorter and easier.

Since then, cut off from other ringed
seals, they've developed in their own way.

The Amazon has no great lake
on its course,

so even in its middle stretches
it still carries mud from the Andes.

The Rio Negro, which joins it, is clear,

for it has come from the north-west
where the rocks are hard and bare.

The two immense rivers flow for miles
alongside one another in the same bed,

scarcely mixing.

As well as sediment,
they also carry abundant nutrients,

and life on their banks flourishes
as never before

Herds of capybara wade through the
shallows, cropping the luxuriant plants.

They're excellent swimmers,
with webs between their toes,

and they have that placing of eyes,
ears and nostrils so valuable to mammals

that swim, on top of the head,
so as the animal lies submerged,

they can see, hear and smell what's
going on above water around them.

Giant otters have a similar head
design and sometimes lift themselves

above the surface to get an even
better view of their surroundings.

This Amazonian species is the
biggest of all the worlds otters,

six feet long and and a most
powerful swimmer.

It's well-equipped with large,
webbed feet, a flattened tail

and sensitive whiskers.

A pair lays claim to a stretch of river
by making teritorial patches on the bank,

marking them with their
own personal smell.

There are otters in many of the
great rivers of the world and they are

the most graceful of swimmers.

In India they share the harvest
of fish with the gavial.

Most members of the crocodile family,
when adult, feed largely on carrion,

but the gavial eats only fish,
and has long, narrow jaws,

studded with abundant teeth,
with which it catches them underwater.

A host of birds also claim
a share of the river fish

This is the hooded merganser, one
of a group of ducks called sawbills.

Its beak, like the gavial's jaws,
is long and narrow so it's easily

snapped together underwater,

and it also has a notched edge
to give it a grip on the slippery fish.

But their feathers trap so much air
that the pair have to work very hard

to get down to any depths.

Coming up again is easy enough.

But the meal was a mere mouthful, and
the merganser must look for another one.

And on the bottom lurks more
danger for a fish.

A worm, perhaps?

No, the deceiving tongue of a turtle.

And in the sky above the river,
more trouble for a fish.

The kingfisher.

And there's still one left for next time.

The fish eagle is not a diver but
a pouncer, with a marvellously

coordinated action.

The aerial onslaught on the fish
continues not only throughout

the day but at night.

An owl goes fishing in Africa.

Its legs are bare.
Feathers would drag in the water.

And it has spines on the
underside of its toes

which give it a firm grasp on a fish.

In the last phase of their lives, these
great rivers often flow out of control.

Their tributaries far away in the
mountains, fed by the heavy storms

of the rainy season,
pour so much water into them

that they burst their banks.

The Amazon rises every year to
flood tens of thousands of square

miles of forest, in some parts
as much as 40 feet deep.

Some of these trees are flooded
for eight to ten months every year.

They need only a couple of months
annually out of water for them to grow

and for their seeds to germinate
and sprout.

We still don't know exactly
how they manage it.

As the floods well out over the land,
fish from the river travel with them.

This is going to be their best
feeding time in the whole year.

And so it is for other creatures too.

Among the fallen tree leaves that carpet
the bottom lies the mata-mata turtle,

marvellously camouflaged,
waiting for a decent-size fish.

And there are plenty already here,
sheltering, like the turtle,

among the still unrotted leaves.

Piranha are here too.
These are not the flesh-eating kind.

Their teeth are used for
something different: Fruit

As the river becomes older and older,
its riches increase still further.

All over the world as rivers approach
their end, they begin to deposit the sand

and mud that they've gathered
from so far and carried for so long.

In many parts of the world reeds grow
thickly on these shoals and banks,

and their stems collect even more
sediment as the river waters

swirl through them.

Living in these dense reed beds
requires considerable skill.

The little bittern somehow or other
is able to find its nest

hidden out of sight somewhere in this
seemingly uniform stretch of reeds.

It regurgitates from its crop ample
supplies of fish and frogs for its young.

Their world is an infinity of vertical
stems, but they're nimble climbers

from an early age, and they leave the
nest within a few days of hatching.

There they wait, almost invisible,
for their parents to return with

restocked crops.

The reed-clogged waters of a river
delta are full of potential riches,

not only for birds but for human beings.

The reeds themselves
are used for many purposes,

but it's not an easy life here.

Firm land on which to live
is hard to find.

In the delta of the Danube,
the few solid sandbanks are tightly

packed with dwellings.

Earth has to be conserved with
piles to prevent a slight change

in the current from washing it away.

And there's the ever present threat
of a rise in the water level caused

not only by heavy rainstorms
upstream but an unusually high tide,

backed by a storm sweeping up
from the sea, which can cause

devastating floods.

In the twin joined deltas
of the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq,

the marsh Arabs have become
specialists in an amphibian life.

Their houses seem to have
solid enough foundations.

In fact, they are floating
on rafts of reeds.

Some are the most elaborate
constructions,

yet all these soaring arches and roofs
are also made from bundles of reeds.

And reeds provide food for the
livestock, so gathering them is a daily

and never-ending chore.

The herds have to be as much
at home in the water are they are

on their floating platforms.

The rewards of this precarious
existence are, of course, the abundant

fish which live all around the houses
and even underneath them.

So the fish and the marsh Arabs
and the pelicans all flourish

in one integrated community.

The river has finely delivered the
minerals it eroded from the mountains

and the nutrients it collected
from the forests.

They sustain plants which are the
food for small animals which are

eaten by bigger fish and which are
gathered by great flocks of birds

that, from the tropics to the Arctic,
are the glories of the deltas.

A blizzard of snow geese
in northern Canada.

Across the world in the tropics,
on a delta in Papua New Guinea,

magpie geese.

In Australia, brolga cranes.

Scarlet ibis in Venezuela.

Plovers on almost any delta in the world.
And, equally widespread, stilts.

Flamingos in Africa.

And spoonbills.

Of all the deltas in the world, none
is greater than that of the Amazon.

For hundreds of miles along
its lower course, the river has been

so broad that it has been impossible
to see from one side to another.

Now, instead of receiving more
tributaries, it splits into

a tangle of separate channels.

And on the last firm land on its banks
stands a great and thriving port,

for the river is so wide and deep
that cargo ships from overseas

can use it as a highway that can take
them for 1,000 miles into the heart

of South America.

The Amazon's vital statistics
are astounding.

At any one time, two thirds of all
the river water in the world is flowing

between its banks.

Here at its mouth, at Belem,
it's 200 miles across a maze

of channels and islands,

one of which is, alone,
bigger than the whole of Switzerland.

The river maintains its identity far
into the sea. It was because

of this that it was discovered.

In 1499 a Spanish sea captain,
sailing well beyond the sight of land,

suddenly became aware that the water
he was crossing was fresh and not salty.

He turned west and discovered
this immense river.

Indeed, it's not until 100 miles
beyond the edge of the continent

that particles of water which fell on
the Andes complete their 4,000-mile

long journey and mingle with
the salt water of the ocean.

But far along the coast, where the
thrust of the river flood is not so great,

is a halfway house.

Here the water is neither fresh
nor salt, but brackish.

It's neither land nor sea,
but banks of mud and sand

that are half the time submerged
and half the time exposed.

And that intermediate, ever-changing
territory is where we will be next time.

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