Micro Monsters 3D (2013): Season 1, Episode 5 - Family - full transcript

Our world is not always the same.

Hidden from our view

lies a different world.

Creatures utterly unlike us.

THUNDER RUMBLES

Almost alien.

Yet they are more numerous

than any other group on the planet.

Welcome to the fascinating world
of the arthropods -

spiders,

scorpions



and insects.

Today we have new camera techniques

that will allow us to reveal in
greater detail than ever before

their lives.

The way they fight and feed
and reproduce.

This series uses specially developed
3D camera technology

to study the micro world
in extraordinary detail,

both on location and in specially
constructed environments.

We'll witness their births,

the challenges they face

and the moments when their lives
hang in the balance.

And that may help us understand
how it is that today

over 80% of all animal species
on this planet are arthropods.

In this series we'll see
the way they have evolved,



from the comparative simplicity
of the millipede

to vast colonies

that contain hundreds, even
millions, of individuals.

We'll witness the most
extraordinary transformations

in the animal kingdom.

We'll meet ants that farm,

spiders that can cast their webs...

..and the bug that wears the bodies
of its victims as a disguise.

Welcome to a strange
and dangerous world.

The struggle for survival
amongst arthropods

is often brutal

but that's a key to their success -

the strongest survive to produce
the next generation.

The birth of offspring is not always
an end to parental responsibilities.

Whilst most arthropods leave their
young to fend for themselves,

a small minority look after them.

They become families.

And in the tropical forests
of Australia

lives one of the most surprising.

This is the giant
burrowing cockroach.

It is one of the largest
cockroaches in the world.

If you were to hold it, it would
fill the palm of your hand.

Despite its appearance,
it isn't a pest.

In fact, it's one of the most
useful insects in the forest.

Australians call it the litter bug

because it cleans up the forest
floor, eating leaves and detritus.

This one is a female.

She's pregnant and she's digging
a tunnel in order to create

a safe place where she can
produce her young.

Her tunnel is a metre deep,

the equivalent of you or me
digging down more than 20 metres.

And here she gives birth.

Having done so, most insects
would leave,

and their young would be left
to fend for themselves.

But not her.

She will care for her young
for months,

keeping them moist and warm
under her shell.

Occasionally, she'll return to the
surface to collect eucalyptus leaves

for them to eat.

This cockroach will live
for eight years or more.

During that time, she will produce
around 150 young.

And by caring for them for the first
six months of their lives,

she ensures that every one of them
gets the best possible start.

Eventually, they will leave the
nest, and begin life on their own.

But some creatures have taken
social living a step further.

Their youngsters never leave.

The family stays together for life.

This mass of white silk is home
to a very unusual spider.

Spiders are usually solitary.

But these spiders are different -

they're social.

They live in groups of up to 100

and they are all related -

brothers and sisters, parents,
uncles and aunts -

all on the same web.

They live side-by-side,
and hunt together.

Here, too, the mothers care
for their young.

Once these eggs have hatched,
she'll feed the spiderlings

by regurgitating food until they're
old enough to hunt for themselves.

For now, with so many spiders
guarding the web,

it's safe for her to leave the eggs
in search of food.

This mantis is far too large
for any single spider to attack.

So instead, they collaborate.

All the nearby spiders
help to hold it down.

Even the smaller, young spiders
lend a hand.

Eventually when their prey
is exhausted the spiders feed.

It's not unusual for spiderlings
to eat the bodies of older spiders

that have died in the web.

In fact, in some species
of social spider,

the mother always dies
when the spiderlings hatch

and they feed on her corpse.

So the generations pass,
and the family thrives.

This vast web will persist
for perhaps five years,

until eventually the family
moves on.

By living together
as an extended family,

and all looking out for each other,

these social spiders have helped
guarantee their survival.

But some insects have taken this
practice a stage further.

Family members have begun
to specialise.

In the rainforests of Australia,

green ants live in groups
of up to half a million.

But these communities
have small beginnings.

This family consists of just
a few hundred ants.

And they're searching for a place
to build their home.

The family seems to have found
a suitable location.

Now they can start construction.

Climbing on each other's backs,

the strongest ants
reach across the gaps...

and pull the leaves together.

Their nest will be made
by joining these leaves.

But to do that, they need help from
the youngest members of the family -

the larvae.

These tiny white youngsters
are immobile,

but they have a remarkable ability,

which the worker ants have
the skills to stimulate.

When the adult workers stroke them
with their antennae,

the young larvae produce silk.

The workers use the silk
to stitch the leaves together.

Some workers pull the leaves
into position...

..and the delicate silk weaving
continues.

Finally, the nest is complete.

It will provide a strong,
waterproof, safe home for the ants.

But it serves an even more important
purpose, as home to their leader.

Their queen.

She is the mother
of the entire family,

and the sole producer of young.

Without her, the community
will fail.

Arthropods typically produce
their young in huge numbers.

Some look after their offspring,
and stay together as families.

As these families grow in size,
they need organisation.

And many have a central figure,
their mother.

Their queen.

Across Europe and North America

there is an insect that starkly

illustrates the process

by which insect families
choose their queen.

These are paper wasps,

and they live in family groups
of no more than 80 individuals.

The small size of the group
makes them easy to observe.

And shows that the queen
is constantly under threat

from her daughters.

The queen's role is to lay eggs

and keep her unruly daughters
in line.

The daughters tend the young,

their newly-born sisters.

They clean them.

And water them.

They even chop up their food
for them...

..and feed it to them
piece by piece.

And the queen constantly bullies
her daughters

to make sure they do their job.

But in this small family the role
of queen is not fixed.

And deciding who is queen
is settled by aggression.

These tests of strength
have a purpose.

The strongest will become the queen.

To avoid unnecessary fights

the wasps have evolved the ability
to recognise each other by smell.

Some have even learned to recognise
faces, much like humans.

This enables them to constantly
keep track of who has beaten whom,

maintaining this uneasy truce.

But the system only works because
the family is so small.

Just a few more wasps,

and the queen would no longer
be able to fight them all.

Bumblebees have found a way around
this obstacle.

Instead of dominating
by brute force,

their queen controls her family
with chemicals.

Bumblebees are able to live
in larger families of about 300.

The majority are workers,

who collect nectar and pollen
to feed the rest of the family.

And this is their queen.

Her swollen abdomen is full of eggs.

She alone lays...

..so she is the mother
of every bee in the family.

To prevent competition
from her offspring,

she releases a chemical -
a pheromone -

that renders the workers unwilling
to lay eggs themselves.

Unable to produce larvae,

these offspring become
the queen's workers,

looking after the day-to-day
running of their home.

They clean up the debris
at the bottom of the nest.

And build and repair
the nest walls using wax.

They fill and look after special
food stores called honey pots.

They use this honey to feed new
larvae produced by their queen,

their own sisters.

And if any larvae aren't perfect,

the workers will kill them.

The queen's chemical control
of her family is total.

But by the standard of some insect
families, this one is small.

Bumblebees are found all over
the northern hemisphere,

there are about 200 different
species of them.

But pheromones released by the queen

can only control a certain number of
individuals - 100 or so at the most.

To organise bigger colonies,

workers need to be able to send
messages to one another.

It's no longer about control,
it's about communication.

In the rainforests of Africa,

some insects live
in immense families.

By solving the issue
of communication,

their size has become
almost limitless.

These are driver ants.

With up to 50 million individuals,

this is more than just a family.
It's a colony.

the queen is the mother of them all

She is the only individual
that's able to reproduce.

And the entire community,
in their millions,

exists purely in order
to support her.

Like all of the simpler families
we've seen,

their success is built on hierarchy,

and is made possible by
division of labour.

Every ant has a specific role,

whether it's tending to larvae,

guarding the nest,

or guiding a column of its sisters
to a source of food.

But the distance over which
they can operate

- and the sheer size of the family -
is made possible by communication.

Communication is the key to making
a simple family a complex colony.

A collection of insects that is far
greater than the sum of its parts.

And capable of achieving feats equal
to those of far larger animals.

Of all the arthropod innovations,

the most revolutionary has been the
ability to live in immense colonies.

That has enabled them to hunt
en masse,

to build huge constructions
for their homes,

and to dominate their surroundings.

Next time, I want to look at this
pinnacle of arthropod achievement.

Vast colonies capable of shaping
the world around them.

Termites that build castles that,
on our scale,

would be two kilometres tall.

Bees that communicate by dancing.

And the ants that farm fungus
on a grand scale.

These creatures are
individually tiny,

yet they live in colonies
that are truly immense.

And they act entirely as one.

Together they form a single
super-organism.

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