Original subtitles

Brazil has a secret.

A big secret.

The wide open spaces at its heart.

The country is best known for the rainforests of the Amazon,

yet, the little known central highlands

are home to some of the most extraordinary animals on Earth.

This is a place of extremes of climate, and of great drama.

It can be both a hell on earth and a paradise.

The grasslands of the central highlands

once covered over two million square kilometers,

and even today, they extend to 300,000.

This makes this part of Brazil

10 times the size of the Serengeti.

And the animals that live here couldn't be more different.

Perhaps the strangest inhabitant is the giant anteater.

The anteater is a specialist,

highly adapted to feeding on ants and termites.

The termites are the architects of the many mounds

that dot the grasslands.

A hard outer wall protects these social insects

from most predators.

But, not the anteater.

It has powerful front legs

armed with impressively large claws.

No termite mound can resist this savage onslaught.

Once the wall is breached, the anteater extracts the insects

with his long, sticky tongue.

As much as 60 centimeters in length,

the tongue reaches deep into the mound.

Each sweep picks up dozens of insects.

The anteater needs to eat as many as 30,000 termites a day.

But, it only stays long enough at each mound

to slurp up a few thousand.

The reason is the termites themselves.

Well armed soldier termites attack any intruder,

irrespective of size.

The anteater knows when is time to leave,

perhaps just by the number of termites biting its tongue.

The termites rush to repair the damage.

They use a mixture of mud and saliva

to plug the gap in the defenses.

They must work fast, for they have enemies on the grassland,

including several kinds of ants.

This time, the termites are too slow.

A raiding party of ants

discovers the open mound and attacks.

The ants overrun the termite defenses.

They steal the grubs and eggs.

All seems lost.

But reinforcements arrive,

and the termite soldiers fight back.

Their only role in life is defense,

and they're prepared to die to save the colony.

The ants retreat.

The conflict has been terrible, the casualties huge,

but the colony will survive.

The termites redouble their efforts.

At last, the mound is again intact.

The anteater walks as much as six kilometers a day

on its strange, clawed feet,

just to satisfy its hunger for termites.

As it travels, it encounters other bizarre beasts

of the grassland.

If the termites are the architects of the grassland,

then armadillos are the engineers.

They are constantly digging, both for food and shelter.

Old tunnels don't remain empty for long.

Burrowing owls soon take up residence.

A grasshopper makes a big meal for these small owls,

and an owl would make a big meal for the maned wolf.

It's the largest wild dog in South America,

yet it spends much of its time chasing the same insects

as the owls.

The two insect killers keep a wary eye on each other.

The maned wolf must hunt alone,

for there are no herds of grazing animals

to support a pack of wolves.

This is one of the mysteries of the Brazilian highlands,

why so few large animals?

No vast herds, for there is grass aplenty.

The mother anteater sets out

in search of a shelter for the night.

The anteater's strange appearance

is not just down to its heavy duty front legs

and long, pointed head,

its tail is just as bizarre.

But it has a purpose.

The large tail acts like a blanket,

and shields the mother and her baby

from the cold of the night.

After the long walk in search of termites,

the mother needs to sleep.

But her baby has different ideas.

She wants to play.

She's both hungry and curious,

a ticklish combination for Mom.

The baby has reached the dangerous age

where she wants to explore.

For now, she's content to keep warm with her mother.

The highlands suffer from an extreme climate.

As the days roll by, the grassland is becoming ever drier,

and a harder place to live in.

But to the north and east, the highlands are even tougher.

The rolling grasslands gradually transform

into a strange landscape.

Here, droughts are common,

and nothing is guaranteed except hardship.

The rock outcrops stand like fortresses in the landscape.

They are home to bands of Capuchin monkeys.

They use their inquisitiveness and intelligence

to investigate for food.

Even in the most unlikely places.

For a time, hummingbirds join the monkeys

in their rocky stronghold.

They fight amongst themselves,

and take care to avoid the fierce wasps

that nest on the rocks.

And then they depart as mysteriously as they appeared,

leaving the rocks to the Capuchins,

for this tough place is their permanent home.

An alpha male bosses the troupe.

But he's not just a big bully,

for he's old enough to have learned

where food and water can be found

in this unforgiving land.

The scant rain that falls gathers at the base of the cliffs.

And here, springs offer precious water.

Trees keep their leaves deep into the dry season.

The alpha male will lead his troupe to the promised land.

But it is no easy road.

The springs are drying up,

but for now, there is just enough.

And the trees still have a few fruits left.

But those that are left are hard

and have bitter tasting skins.

Even after some food processing,

the unripe fruits are hard to digest.

Eat too many, and you risk terrible stomachache.

Nearby, other animals, found only in the northern highlands,

have found ways to cope with the problems

of this spartan land.

Mocos live in a harem,

with a single male and several females with their young.

The male guards a pile of rocks and its neighboring trees.

These benefit from the rainwater

that the rocks funnel to their roots,

so they keep their leaves

long after others have lost theirs.

And that is the key to the moco's survival.

They can harvest the leaves all year.

Unless the dry season turns into a major drought.

The mocos share their rocky mound with other creatures,

some as specialized to living amongst rocks

as the mocos themselves.

Clefts and crevices in the rocks provide a sanctuary

for the mocos from their many predators,

including boa constrictors.

The snake approaches, and the mocos call out,

alerting the other mocos all around the rock stack.

As the snake moves ever closer,

the nearest moco keeps calling,

allowing the other mocos,

even those that can't see the snake, to escape.

With this advanced warning system,

the mocos survive to eat another day.

But food is getting scarce.

The rains are now a distant memory.

The monkeys strip bark, in a desperate search for insects.

The mocos eat the few remaining leaves.

Most of the trees around their mound are bare,

and the rains may be months away.

On the grassland, too, the dry season is biting hard.

The armadillo makes a rare appearance.

He's normally nocturnal,

but hunger has driven him out into the heat of the day.

All the creatures are waiting for the rains.

But, for now, life is tough.

The female anteater carries her youngster

on her never ending search for food.

She has poor eyesight,

but finds the termites by her finely tuned sense of smell.

Even those termites that build no mound

but instead, live underground.

After a few licks, it's time to move on.

In the air conditioned constant temperature

and perpetual dark,

the many hundreds of thousands of blind termites

go about their work.

Every termite has a place and role in this complex society

ruled by the queen.

She is enormous, a vast egg laying machine.

She may live for more than 10 years.

The queen produces chemicals, pheromones.

These are collected and passed from worker to worker,

helping control the colony.

She can lay as many as 1,000 eggs a day.

As she lays egg, after egg, after egg,

she is brought food by her workers.

The eggs are taken to special chambers

and cared for by the workers.

Outside, the relentless heat finally brings storm clouds.

At last, the rains are coming.

But instead of rain, the lightning triggers fires.

They spread rapidly through the dry grasses.

The termites are safe in their air conditioned mound

insulated by the mud wall.

But, other creatures are not so fortunate.

An owl is out of harms way in an old armadillo burrow.

The fires race on, driven by the wind.

The morning light reveals a scene of devastation.

The anteater searches for her young one.

The baby is dead,

the victim of the storm and wind fed fires.

Only the scavengers benefit from the desolation.

Another storm, but this time,

it brings long awaited rain.

Fresh brush shoots emerge from the ashes.

Within days, the grassland starts to turn green.

The land is transformed from hell on earth

to an earthly paradise.

Plants grow rapidly,

and the lush vegetation feeds a myriad of bugs.

The land fills with the hum of wings.

There is fresh grass to eat,

and clean water to drink.

There's even enough for a bath.

And not just for the birds,

though the armadillo prefers to roll in the mud.

An anteater washes away the smoke and soot of past fires.

The rains continue for weeks.

And even paradise becomes a little soggy.

Now, termite kings and queens make their maiden flights.

They've waited for the rains to soften the soil

before they mate and found new colonies underground.

There can be over a hundred mounds per hectare,

and the sky fills with millions of termites.

The vast clouds of protein on the wing

do not go unnoticed.

Marmosets don't know which way to look.

So many insects are in the air.

Anteaters make the most of this brief moment of abundance,

and gorge on the winged termites.

Birds are quick to pounce on the open mound.

It's in this time of plenty

that the armadillos become frisky.

Males detect the scent of a female.

The air is full of the aroma of armadillos.

The males are drawn in by the fragrance of the female.

One seizes the moment, and goes acourting.

Male and female follow each other's odors.

The smell of success.

An unrequited onlooker can only hope

for better luck next time.

The rainy season is a better time for armadillos,

winners and losers, as they can easily dig down for food.

Burrowing owl chicks have emerged above ground.

They quickly learn how to hunt insects.

But, a beetle is too big a handful for the young birds.

They must find out about their new world,

including what constitutes danger.

A large hawk poses a threat,

and the young owls scurry back to safety.

The juvenile owls aren't the only youngsters out and about.

The rhea is the largest bird in South America.

It's the male we heard that keeps

a nervous eye out for his young chargers.

The grasslands are at their most verdant.

The mystery remains as to why no large herds of antelope

graze on these plains.

It's on humid nights in the rainy season

that an extraordinary spectacle takes place.

Glow worms take up station on the mound wall.

They've lived inside the mound with the termites.

Now, their lights attract passing insects.

The glow worm's lights are not to guide,

but to lure.

This ghoulish display lasts for several weeks.

The glow of another killer,

but one of a very different nature,

and hunting a very different prey.

Maned wolves are now active in the night,

their preferred time.

The wolf has the scent of food.

But it's not insects.

It's a fruit.

The low bearer tree is a true survivor of the grasslands,

for it has thick bark that protects it from the fires.

It produces large fruits that the maned wolf eats,

and, in doing so, spreads its seeds.

Other creatures stir at night,

ones that hold the answer to the mystery of the grasslands,

the lack of large herds of herbivores.

There can be many different species of termites

living under one mound.

All the types are fed by workers who venture outside,

under cover of darkness.

The different species work in diverse ways.

Some build covered trails, others travel underground.

They have evolved to feed on poor quality food,

living on dead grasses, wood, and the roots of plants.

Termites are able to consume

the low nutritional value grasses

that wouldn't sustain large grazing animals.

This is the secret to the empty grasslands.

The maned wolf returns to feed her pups.

The young still depend on food brought back by the parents.

It will be one year before these pups

are able to scratch a living for themselves.

Soon, this time of plenty will be over,

and the young animals will face the dry season

for the first time.

But however harsh life becomes here,

it is nothing compared to the conditions in the north.

Here, there has been no rain,

and it may not rain for many weeks to come.

Each day just brings more suffering.

The sun heats up the rocks to 50 degrees centigrade.

Most of the trees have long shed their leaves

in an attempt to survive the increasing drought.

For the young monkeys in the troupe,

even the trees at the base of the cliffs,

those that have leaves, offer no food.

All the usual cupboards are bare.

A termite mound offers only false hope,

for the soldiers are quick to repel the Capuchin.

All he receives for his efforts are bites.

The babies are most at risk.

Mothers try to suckle their little ones,

but the moms must drink water if they are to produce milk.

Water is an even greater concern than food.

The springs at the base of the cliff dried up long ago.

It is the Capuchins' group memory

that holds the secret to surviving the hardest of times.

The troupe are forced to travel far from their fortress

in their desperate search for water.

They now have one tree that produces these strange fruits.

The monkeys don't eat the fruits,

but bite a hole in them

and then drink the precious liquid inside.

Revitalized, the Capuchins set out again to find food.

An old wasp nest might harbor a grub or two.

Everything tastes good when you're hungry.

Even in the hardest of times,

there is a rich source of food for the Capuchin monkeys.

Palm nuts.

The problem is, you have to break through

the tough outer shell.

The young monkeys know the principles,

but they haven't quite mastered the technique.

Frustration sets in,

and leads to a painful mistake.

The young monkeys learn by their mistakes,

and by watching the older males at work.

First lesson, you need to test the rock

to see if it's strong enough for the job.

Not this one.

The Capuchins can walk upright, and that's important,

for it frees up the hands to carry the stones.

They can weigh more than a quarter

of the Capuchin's body weight.

It may take more than 10 attempts before the nut cracks.

Success is not just a matter of intelligence,

for the larger the monkey,

the heavier the stone it can lift.

And so, the older males have a real advantage.

Success at last.

The young monkeys watch and learn.

The Capuchins, with their quick wits,

have found a way to live in this hard place,

even during the deepest drought.

After many months of searing heat,

the land looks completely lifeless.

The trees resemble nothing more than dead sticks.

The mocos are starving.

They have stripped their trees of leaves.

The mocos are now reduced to eating bark,

and as they do, they may be sealing their fate.

If the mocos chew the bark around the trunk,

the trees will die,

and without them, this little group of mocos

will perish, too.

The creatures of the northern highlands

are able to endure great hardships.

But unless the rains arrive soon,

there will be more deaths.

The first clouds for many months.

The morning brings more hope.

A sound not heard for over a year.

Rain on hot rocks.

Is it too late for the mocos?

The water tumbles off the cliffs

and down to the dry plains.

Within a couple of days,

the rain transforms the rocky highlands.

For a few months, this will be a generous land.

Their stomachs full, young monkeys have time to play.

The hummingbirds reappear.

When the dry season returns, the hummingbirds will depart,

leaving the land to its true residents.

The highlands of Brazil are harsh and little known lands

that have forged strange animals with bizarre adaptations

and clever ways of making a living.