Wild Congo (2014): Season 1, Episode 1 - River of Monsters - full transcript
The second largest river on Earth rises as a brook in the north of Zambia and provides a stage for one of the world's biggest mammal migrations
- (insects buzzing)
- (birds chirping)
NARRATOR: The Congo River,
a pounding pulse across Africa.
The deepest river in the world,
home to untold untamed creatures.
(squawking)
(bellowing)
(trumpeting)
The river is born here.
He blows bubbles like a baby.
He is the Congo.
Trekking 3,000 miles
across Central Africa,
he grows stronger, brazen, ferocious.
Only the Amazon River moves more water,
but the Congo is the world's deepest.
Locals call him Chambeshi.
He answers to many names,
takes on different identities,
touches countless lives.
Each November, this river hosts
Central Africa's most swinging party.
(squawking)
The largest mammal migration on Earth
starts slowly.
These straw-colored fruit bats
fly in from all over Central Africa
and gather in one grove.
Swarms of hundreds...
become hundreds of thousands,
then up to ten million.
(squawking)
These unconventional conventioneers
pass up food
in their mad rush to get here,
a place called Kasanka.
(squawking)
Like a Roman orgy,
they come to gorge themselves and mate.
They cram together for safety and warmth,
forming one of the largest
fruit bat colonies in the world.
(crickets chirping)
The millions of bats, tight as roof tiles,
roost in an area that would cover
just 60 football fields.
Quiet comes to Kasanka again.
(wings flapping)
As the sky brightens,
this latecomer brushes his teeth
and goes to bed.
At twilight, they get the party started.
(squawking)
The famished animals
tear into their buffet.
Each night, the half-pound bats eat
twice their weight in fruit,
about 6,000 tons' worth.
With bellies full of mobola plums,
wild loquat and waterberry fruits,
the bats add about ten tons
to each tree they cling to.
In ten weeks,
they've picked the grove clean.
Party over.
The bats move on,
spreading seeds on their trip home.
(squawking)
Everything goes back to normal
just before Christmas.
But there's nothing normal
about the Congo River,
who begins his journey in Zambia,
south Central Africa.
Here, north of Kasanka,
the Congo's suckled by Bangweulu,
one of the largest marshes on Earth.
The Bangweulu wetlands cover an area
about the size of Connecticut.
Seventeen rivers feed it,
but only one drains it.
In Kadende, the local language,
"Bangweulu" means
"where the water meets the sky".
Wildlife thrives here.
Just as the Bangweulu feeds the Congo,
fish from these waters
feed about 50,000 Zambians.
Locals build fishing camps
deep in the swamps,
reachable only by wooden pirogue boats.
Papyrus plants grow thick,
creating a mini marshland jungle
16 feet tall.
(squawking)
In this jungle,
the major predator isn't a lion,
but a giant bird...
the shoebill.
He stands four-and-a-half feet tall,
and if his bill were a real shoe,
it would be about a man's size four.
But he's really a sneaker.
Waiting for prey, he can stand for hours,
motionless as a gargoyle.
Near the floor of the papyrus forest,
weavers brood by the water.
(chirping)
The picky chicks assert their independence
and want nothing to do with this worm.
A few feet up,
in the top-heavy papyrus canopy,
other weavers start families of their own.
The males build their love nests
to attract a mate,
and if she likes it,
she'll move in and redecorate the nursery.
But every motion
starts the cradle rocking...
(shrill chirping)
(splash)
...until disaster strikes,
flinging a little one out of its nest.
(chirping)
The weaver chick, too young to fly,
drops in on the shoebill for lunch.
Unfortunately for the weavers,
Bangweulu's shoebills
will always be hot on their heels.
Below the surface of the marsh,
the roots of the papyrus jungle
reach back in time
to the domain of a creature
that first settled here
almost 400 million years ago,
long before the dinosaurs.
Like the papyrus plants,
the African lungfish spans two worlds.
This fish has gills,
but it still needs air every half-hour,
otherwise it'll drown.
Unlike most fish, it has a primitive lung,
and what's more,
it can perform a truly breathtaking feat.
When the dry season comes...
and water turns to puddles...
and puddles turn into mud...
the African lungfish
finds himself in the thick of it.
(squelching)
That's okay.
The secret to lungfish longevity
starts with a drought-defying burrow
in the mud.
(squelching)
About ten inches below the surface,
the fish spews mucus.
It solidifies
to form a cocoon-like shelter
that traps moisture and lets in air.
The lungfish enters estivation.
While most animals burn fat for energy
to keep alive,
the lungfish digests muscle in its tail.
It can survive for months
until the season changes...
and salvation comes raining down upon it.
(thunder rumbling)
Just a few days of rain
changes everything,
plunging Bangweulu underwater again.
(frogs croaking)
As the ground starts to soften...
(squelching)
...the lungfish rise like zombies
all over the place.
If need be, they could have waited
two years or more.
They climb back to the real world
with help from their modified,
finger-like fins...
and hit the water.
Then a quick trip to the surface
for a refreshing gulp of air.
(bird whistles)
But maybe this fellow
should have stayed in bed.
The lungfish waited months
to breathe again.
Now he awakens
to a world of familiar dangers.
(bird whistles)
Adapted for life in and out of the water,
he's built for survival...
but then, so's the shoebill.
Almost before the Congo River
has even begun,
the thirsty Bangweulu Swamp
sucks up 90% of its water,
keeping it in perpetual second place
to the mighty Amazon.
Most of the water
flowing into the marshland evaporates,
or gets absorbed by plants.
The 10% that's left leaves the swamps here
as a single river, Luapula.
The Congo River wanders
like a roving teenager,
traipsing across Africa to find himself.
He makes his way
into the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
a country inaccessible to most
and dangerous to many.
The river starts at a height
of more than 3,000 feet.
It snakes through the acacia trees
of the African bushland,
which provide a comfortable habitat
for guys like this.
The African rock python...
the biggest snake on the continent,
and one of the largest in the world.
Over his 20-year lifespan,
he'll never stop growing,
and could reach up to 22 feet.
(birds chirping)
He lacks venomous fangs,
but the constrictor's deadly embrace
does the trick.
He can even sneak up and crush
a full-grown monkey caught napping.
But today, no such luck.
If need be, he'll hang out inconspicuously
on the tree for hours.
Right now, the action's on the ground,
where helmeted guineafowl
scratch for a meal of their own.
(squawking)
This small family mob searches
for seeds, worms and insects.
They're also on constant lookout
for danger,
ready to squawk at the slightest threat.
One would make a nice snack
for the python,
but predator and prey
don't seem to notice each other.
Two days later, the snake is still hungry.
He's in the middle of molting,
his smooth scales turning flaky,
and until the scales fall from his eyes,
it's as if he's looking
through a plastic shopping bag.
He sniffs out a path to the river.
Nothing like a cool bath
to soothe dry, flaky skin.
(grass rustling)
(squawking)
The guineafowl,
which never live far from the water,
head there too.
They're hard to miss.
The snake could be in luck.
(squawking)
The guineafowl huddle together,
a squawking, formidable mob.
The python can probably feel
the vibration on the ground,
but his blurred vision keeps him from
locking on to just one to call dinner.
The guineafowl aren't defenseless.
If pressed, they'll gang up
and attack the snake.
In his current state,
he's at a real disadvantage.
The peeling python backs down.
No matter how hungry he might get,
during the molt,
this hunter's off his game.
All the more reason to hit the water
and soak off that skin.
A molting snake is a vulnerable snake.
At least he still has his tongue
to sniff with, for now.
At some point, even his tongue will shed,
but by then, he'll be able to see again.
In just a few days,
he'll be rid of his scales
and back in business,
and very hungry.
Traveling through
the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
the river goes by the name Lualaba.
About 1,200 miles from its birthplace,
the wide and lazy river hastens its pace,
crosses the equator...
and plunges over the edge of the world.
The Boyoma Falls mark the end
of the river's untamed course.
From this point on,
nature and commerce share the water.
On the other side of the Boyoma Falls,
the wayward river reaches maturity,
becomes navigable,
and is at last called "the Congo".
The city of Kisangani,
directly downriver of the falls,
marks the start of a thousand-mile
trade route to Kinshasa, the capital.
Hundreds of miles of dense jungle thicket
borders these banks.
Further north,
jungle surrenders to savannah
and becomes Garamba National Park.
The watershed that forms
the park's northern border
feeds the Congo and his sister, the Nile.
Garamba,
three times the size of Los Angeles,
is one of Africa's first national parks,
established by Belgium in 1938.
But decades of civil war and poaching
have not been kind to the inhabitants.
This open grassland,
which attracts huge numbers of animals,
invites an even swifter enemy.
When fire comes to Garamba,
the breeze can whip the flames
into frenzy.
But the news isn't all bad.
The blaze is a boon
to yellow-billed kites,
which flock to catch insects
fleeing the fire.
It's a risky mission...
but it satisfies a hankering
for a lightly-toasted locust.
(kite cries)
(wind whistling)
Like rain, or the ebb and flow
of the Garamba River,
fire is simply
part of the savannah's rhythm.
(flames crackling)
(bellowing)
(snorting)
During the current dry season,
the riverbed pokes through,
and that means cramped quarters
for the 2,000 or so hippos living here.
(splutters)
A single bull rules each herd.
But when the water is this low
and space gets tight...
tensions build.
And to top it off,
this bull's looking to mate.
His age and size
wins him the top mating spot.
He picks the best place
to impress the cows
and secure his dominance.
Hippos spend most of the day
keeping cool in the water.
They're buoyant
and can walk along the bottom,
but can't really swim.
The bull parks himself by the bank
where he can mate
without the cows getting in
over their heads.
When he wants to mark his territory,
the poop hits the fan.
He makes his point among the herd.
(crickets chirping)
When dusk falls...
the hungry herd
wants to leave the water to graze...
but the stubborn old bull
blocks their way.
(bellows)
(grunting)
A young upstart moves in
to challenge his authority
and take the boss down a peg.
Game on.
The challenger faces off
against the old bull.
(snorting)
(bellows)
(grunting)
(splutters)
(bellows)
The unhappy hippo holds his ground.
His rival retreats.
(grunting)
(bellows)
The old bull, proving he's still
the chief hippo in charge,
confidently lumbers onto land.
The others hesitate, respecting his space.
Eventually, they'll follow his lead.
They'll eat their fill of grasses,
then return to the water before sunrise.
In other parts
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
hippos face extinction,
hunted and poached for meat
and illegal ivory from their teeth.
Here, the Garamba's remoteness
protects them.
The Garamba River winds its way
hundreds of miles through the savannah
before heading back into the jungle
and joining the Congo.
Here, the mighty river grows wider
and more powerful,
a superhighway
fed by hundreds of tributaries
that sand and sediment hitch a ride on.
Over the centuries,
the Congo has grabbed it
to build elaborate sandcastles.
The largest is almost as big
as New Orleans.
The towering island of sediment
stands like a fortress.
Small streams manage
to cut into the remote center,
but they pay a toll.
Along the way, the jungle plants steal
almost all the nutrients in the water.
- (insects buzzing)
- (birds chirping)
This is an island
of small, highly specialized creatures.
Cut off from the nourishing waters
of the Congo,
the residents of this nutritional desert
had to evolve cunning ways
to scare up a decent meal.
The African butterflyfish gets its name
from its wing-like pectoral fins.
But this little fish owes its life
to the shape of its body.
Its flat, straight back
lets it sneak close to the surface,
hunting without sticking out.
Its eyes focus ahead and above,
not down and to the sides like most fish.
That lets it lurk under the foliage
with its eye trained on what's above.
Things are looking up
for the butterflyfish.
- (insects buzzing)
- (birds chirping)
The Congo basin
is the world's second-largest rainforest.
Many plants and animals in the basin
live nowhere else on earth.
But this is no perfect paradise.
Just like anyplace else,
the law of the jungle never changes...
kill or be killed.
The African mantis, a hunter by stealth,
survives by blending in.
The taxicab beetle,
named for its markings,
doesn't realize
he's about to pick up a fatal fare.
The mantis lost the battle,
but not the war.
Months ago,
she laid a walnut-sized egg sac
by the banks of the stream.
Hundreds of freshly-hatched mantis nymphs
greet the world,
each the size of an ant.
Very few of the nymphs
will reach adulthood.
If food is scarce,
they may even devour each other.
This is the Sangha River
as it merges into the Congo.
Even in a part of the world
brimming with life,
the Sangha rainforest takes the prize,
with more species of plants and animals
than almost anywhere else.
(gibbering)
Besides providing an all-you-can-eat
salad bar to gorillas and others,
rainforests generate
more than 20% of the world's oxygen.
In a forest of herbivores,
plants need to defend themselves.
They wage a bitter battle by tasting bad,
or being toxic or hard to digest.
Sometimes it works.
But in the war between plants and animals,
one heavyweight has a secret weapon.
(chirps)
Along the Sangha River,
the dense and seemingly endless jungle
gives way to a huge clearing,
the Dzanga Bai,
the "village of elephants",
(trumpeting)
Unlike most elephants,
these African forest elephants
have almost completely straight tusks
to keep from getting tangled
in the dense forest.
The wide-open space, or even the water,
aren't what draws them here.
They've come to Dzanga Bai
for one thing...
(trumpeting)
...the mud.
Dzanga Bai is like a spa,
with minerals and salts
the animals need for their health,
but can't get enough of
from the plants or the water.
The minerals in the mud
also neutralize caustic compounds
in some of the plants they eat,
an antidote to their poison.
(bellowing)
The elephants squabble
over the best places.
It's not just the large ones who bicker.
The young want their share too.
(trumpeting)
Mothers and their calves
try to keep clear of the commotion
while still managing
to scarf up their minerals.
(sniffing)
The grass also contains
the nutrients the elephants need.
(snorts)
This young calf
could use a bit of practice.
(trumpets)
Those who haven't mastered
the grass-cutting technique
simply vacuum up the minerals
from the surface.
Here, it's perfectly okay
if the kids eat dirt.
Elephants aren't the only foodies
to find this spot,
they're just the biggest.
There's plenty of dirt to go around.
As the Congo ripples and roars
over its 3,000-mile course,
changing everything in its path,
it can often be harsh,
but it always takes care of those
tough enough to survive.
- (birds chirping)
NARRATOR: The Congo River,
a pounding pulse across Africa.
The deepest river in the world,
home to untold untamed creatures.
(squawking)
(bellowing)
(trumpeting)
The river is born here.
He blows bubbles like a baby.
He is the Congo.
Trekking 3,000 miles
across Central Africa,
he grows stronger, brazen, ferocious.
Only the Amazon River moves more water,
but the Congo is the world's deepest.
Locals call him Chambeshi.
He answers to many names,
takes on different identities,
touches countless lives.
Each November, this river hosts
Central Africa's most swinging party.
(squawking)
The largest mammal migration on Earth
starts slowly.
These straw-colored fruit bats
fly in from all over Central Africa
and gather in one grove.
Swarms of hundreds...
become hundreds of thousands,
then up to ten million.
(squawking)
These unconventional conventioneers
pass up food
in their mad rush to get here,
a place called Kasanka.
(squawking)
Like a Roman orgy,
they come to gorge themselves and mate.
They cram together for safety and warmth,
forming one of the largest
fruit bat colonies in the world.
(crickets chirping)
The millions of bats, tight as roof tiles,
roost in an area that would cover
just 60 football fields.
Quiet comes to Kasanka again.
(wings flapping)
As the sky brightens,
this latecomer brushes his teeth
and goes to bed.
At twilight, they get the party started.
(squawking)
The famished animals
tear into their buffet.
Each night, the half-pound bats eat
twice their weight in fruit,
about 6,000 tons' worth.
With bellies full of mobola plums,
wild loquat and waterberry fruits,
the bats add about ten tons
to each tree they cling to.
In ten weeks,
they've picked the grove clean.
Party over.
The bats move on,
spreading seeds on their trip home.
(squawking)
Everything goes back to normal
just before Christmas.
But there's nothing normal
about the Congo River,
who begins his journey in Zambia,
south Central Africa.
Here, north of Kasanka,
the Congo's suckled by Bangweulu,
one of the largest marshes on Earth.
The Bangweulu wetlands cover an area
about the size of Connecticut.
Seventeen rivers feed it,
but only one drains it.
In Kadende, the local language,
"Bangweulu" means
"where the water meets the sky".
Wildlife thrives here.
Just as the Bangweulu feeds the Congo,
fish from these waters
feed about 50,000 Zambians.
Locals build fishing camps
deep in the swamps,
reachable only by wooden pirogue boats.
Papyrus plants grow thick,
creating a mini marshland jungle
16 feet tall.
(squawking)
In this jungle,
the major predator isn't a lion,
but a giant bird...
the shoebill.
He stands four-and-a-half feet tall,
and if his bill were a real shoe,
it would be about a man's size four.
But he's really a sneaker.
Waiting for prey, he can stand for hours,
motionless as a gargoyle.
Near the floor of the papyrus forest,
weavers brood by the water.
(chirping)
The picky chicks assert their independence
and want nothing to do with this worm.
A few feet up,
in the top-heavy papyrus canopy,
other weavers start families of their own.
The males build their love nests
to attract a mate,
and if she likes it,
she'll move in and redecorate the nursery.
But every motion
starts the cradle rocking...
(shrill chirping)
(splash)
...until disaster strikes,
flinging a little one out of its nest.
(chirping)
The weaver chick, too young to fly,
drops in on the shoebill for lunch.
Unfortunately for the weavers,
Bangweulu's shoebills
will always be hot on their heels.
Below the surface of the marsh,
the roots of the papyrus jungle
reach back in time
to the domain of a creature
that first settled here
almost 400 million years ago,
long before the dinosaurs.
Like the papyrus plants,
the African lungfish spans two worlds.
This fish has gills,
but it still needs air every half-hour,
otherwise it'll drown.
Unlike most fish, it has a primitive lung,
and what's more,
it can perform a truly breathtaking feat.
When the dry season comes...
and water turns to puddles...
and puddles turn into mud...
the African lungfish
finds himself in the thick of it.
(squelching)
That's okay.
The secret to lungfish longevity
starts with a drought-defying burrow
in the mud.
(squelching)
About ten inches below the surface,
the fish spews mucus.
It solidifies
to form a cocoon-like shelter
that traps moisture and lets in air.
The lungfish enters estivation.
While most animals burn fat for energy
to keep alive,
the lungfish digests muscle in its tail.
It can survive for months
until the season changes...
and salvation comes raining down upon it.
(thunder rumbling)
Just a few days of rain
changes everything,
plunging Bangweulu underwater again.
(frogs croaking)
As the ground starts to soften...
(squelching)
...the lungfish rise like zombies
all over the place.
If need be, they could have waited
two years or more.
They climb back to the real world
with help from their modified,
finger-like fins...
and hit the water.
Then a quick trip to the surface
for a refreshing gulp of air.
(bird whistles)
But maybe this fellow
should have stayed in bed.
The lungfish waited months
to breathe again.
Now he awakens
to a world of familiar dangers.
(bird whistles)
Adapted for life in and out of the water,
he's built for survival...
but then, so's the shoebill.
Almost before the Congo River
has even begun,
the thirsty Bangweulu Swamp
sucks up 90% of its water,
keeping it in perpetual second place
to the mighty Amazon.
Most of the water
flowing into the marshland evaporates,
or gets absorbed by plants.
The 10% that's left leaves the swamps here
as a single river, Luapula.
The Congo River wanders
like a roving teenager,
traipsing across Africa to find himself.
He makes his way
into the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
a country inaccessible to most
and dangerous to many.
The river starts at a height
of more than 3,000 feet.
It snakes through the acacia trees
of the African bushland,
which provide a comfortable habitat
for guys like this.
The African rock python...
the biggest snake on the continent,
and one of the largest in the world.
Over his 20-year lifespan,
he'll never stop growing,
and could reach up to 22 feet.
(birds chirping)
He lacks venomous fangs,
but the constrictor's deadly embrace
does the trick.
He can even sneak up and crush
a full-grown monkey caught napping.
But today, no such luck.
If need be, he'll hang out inconspicuously
on the tree for hours.
Right now, the action's on the ground,
where helmeted guineafowl
scratch for a meal of their own.
(squawking)
This small family mob searches
for seeds, worms and insects.
They're also on constant lookout
for danger,
ready to squawk at the slightest threat.
One would make a nice snack
for the python,
but predator and prey
don't seem to notice each other.
Two days later, the snake is still hungry.
He's in the middle of molting,
his smooth scales turning flaky,
and until the scales fall from his eyes,
it's as if he's looking
through a plastic shopping bag.
He sniffs out a path to the river.
Nothing like a cool bath
to soothe dry, flaky skin.
(grass rustling)
(squawking)
The guineafowl,
which never live far from the water,
head there too.
They're hard to miss.
The snake could be in luck.
(squawking)
The guineafowl huddle together,
a squawking, formidable mob.
The python can probably feel
the vibration on the ground,
but his blurred vision keeps him from
locking on to just one to call dinner.
The guineafowl aren't defenseless.
If pressed, they'll gang up
and attack the snake.
In his current state,
he's at a real disadvantage.
The peeling python backs down.
No matter how hungry he might get,
during the molt,
this hunter's off his game.
All the more reason to hit the water
and soak off that skin.
A molting snake is a vulnerable snake.
At least he still has his tongue
to sniff with, for now.
At some point, even his tongue will shed,
but by then, he'll be able to see again.
In just a few days,
he'll be rid of his scales
and back in business,
and very hungry.
Traveling through
the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
the river goes by the name Lualaba.
About 1,200 miles from its birthplace,
the wide and lazy river hastens its pace,
crosses the equator...
and plunges over the edge of the world.
The Boyoma Falls mark the end
of the river's untamed course.
From this point on,
nature and commerce share the water.
On the other side of the Boyoma Falls,
the wayward river reaches maturity,
becomes navigable,
and is at last called "the Congo".
The city of Kisangani,
directly downriver of the falls,
marks the start of a thousand-mile
trade route to Kinshasa, the capital.
Hundreds of miles of dense jungle thicket
borders these banks.
Further north,
jungle surrenders to savannah
and becomes Garamba National Park.
The watershed that forms
the park's northern border
feeds the Congo and his sister, the Nile.
Garamba,
three times the size of Los Angeles,
is one of Africa's first national parks,
established by Belgium in 1938.
But decades of civil war and poaching
have not been kind to the inhabitants.
This open grassland,
which attracts huge numbers of animals,
invites an even swifter enemy.
When fire comes to Garamba,
the breeze can whip the flames
into frenzy.
But the news isn't all bad.
The blaze is a boon
to yellow-billed kites,
which flock to catch insects
fleeing the fire.
It's a risky mission...
but it satisfies a hankering
for a lightly-toasted locust.
(kite cries)
(wind whistling)
Like rain, or the ebb and flow
of the Garamba River,
fire is simply
part of the savannah's rhythm.
(flames crackling)
(bellowing)
(snorting)
During the current dry season,
the riverbed pokes through,
and that means cramped quarters
for the 2,000 or so hippos living here.
(splutters)
A single bull rules each herd.
But when the water is this low
and space gets tight...
tensions build.
And to top it off,
this bull's looking to mate.
His age and size
wins him the top mating spot.
He picks the best place
to impress the cows
and secure his dominance.
Hippos spend most of the day
keeping cool in the water.
They're buoyant
and can walk along the bottom,
but can't really swim.
The bull parks himself by the bank
where he can mate
without the cows getting in
over their heads.
When he wants to mark his territory,
the poop hits the fan.
He makes his point among the herd.
(crickets chirping)
When dusk falls...
the hungry herd
wants to leave the water to graze...
but the stubborn old bull
blocks their way.
(bellows)
(grunting)
A young upstart moves in
to challenge his authority
and take the boss down a peg.
Game on.
The challenger faces off
against the old bull.
(snorting)
(bellows)
(grunting)
(splutters)
(bellows)
The unhappy hippo holds his ground.
His rival retreats.
(grunting)
(bellows)
The old bull, proving he's still
the chief hippo in charge,
confidently lumbers onto land.
The others hesitate, respecting his space.
Eventually, they'll follow his lead.
They'll eat their fill of grasses,
then return to the water before sunrise.
In other parts
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
hippos face extinction,
hunted and poached for meat
and illegal ivory from their teeth.
Here, the Garamba's remoteness
protects them.
The Garamba River winds its way
hundreds of miles through the savannah
before heading back into the jungle
and joining the Congo.
Here, the mighty river grows wider
and more powerful,
a superhighway
fed by hundreds of tributaries
that sand and sediment hitch a ride on.
Over the centuries,
the Congo has grabbed it
to build elaborate sandcastles.
The largest is almost as big
as New Orleans.
The towering island of sediment
stands like a fortress.
Small streams manage
to cut into the remote center,
but they pay a toll.
Along the way, the jungle plants steal
almost all the nutrients in the water.
- (insects buzzing)
- (birds chirping)
This is an island
of small, highly specialized creatures.
Cut off from the nourishing waters
of the Congo,
the residents of this nutritional desert
had to evolve cunning ways
to scare up a decent meal.
The African butterflyfish gets its name
from its wing-like pectoral fins.
But this little fish owes its life
to the shape of its body.
Its flat, straight back
lets it sneak close to the surface,
hunting without sticking out.
Its eyes focus ahead and above,
not down and to the sides like most fish.
That lets it lurk under the foliage
with its eye trained on what's above.
Things are looking up
for the butterflyfish.
- (insects buzzing)
- (birds chirping)
The Congo basin
is the world's second-largest rainforest.
Many plants and animals in the basin
live nowhere else on earth.
But this is no perfect paradise.
Just like anyplace else,
the law of the jungle never changes...
kill or be killed.
The African mantis, a hunter by stealth,
survives by blending in.
The taxicab beetle,
named for its markings,
doesn't realize
he's about to pick up a fatal fare.
The mantis lost the battle,
but not the war.
Months ago,
she laid a walnut-sized egg sac
by the banks of the stream.
Hundreds of freshly-hatched mantis nymphs
greet the world,
each the size of an ant.
Very few of the nymphs
will reach adulthood.
If food is scarce,
they may even devour each other.
This is the Sangha River
as it merges into the Congo.
Even in a part of the world
brimming with life,
the Sangha rainforest takes the prize,
with more species of plants and animals
than almost anywhere else.
(gibbering)
Besides providing an all-you-can-eat
salad bar to gorillas and others,
rainforests generate
more than 20% of the world's oxygen.
In a forest of herbivores,
plants need to defend themselves.
They wage a bitter battle by tasting bad,
or being toxic or hard to digest.
Sometimes it works.
But in the war between plants and animals,
one heavyweight has a secret weapon.
(chirps)
Along the Sangha River,
the dense and seemingly endless jungle
gives way to a huge clearing,
the Dzanga Bai,
the "village of elephants",
(trumpeting)
Unlike most elephants,
these African forest elephants
have almost completely straight tusks
to keep from getting tangled
in the dense forest.
The wide-open space, or even the water,
aren't what draws them here.
They've come to Dzanga Bai
for one thing...
(trumpeting)
...the mud.
Dzanga Bai is like a spa,
with minerals and salts
the animals need for their health,
but can't get enough of
from the plants or the water.
The minerals in the mud
also neutralize caustic compounds
in some of the plants they eat,
an antidote to their poison.
(bellowing)
The elephants squabble
over the best places.
It's not just the large ones who bicker.
The young want their share too.
(trumpeting)
Mothers and their calves
try to keep clear of the commotion
while still managing
to scarf up their minerals.
(sniffing)
The grass also contains
the nutrients the elephants need.
(snorts)
This young calf
could use a bit of practice.
(trumpets)
Those who haven't mastered
the grass-cutting technique
simply vacuum up the minerals
from the surface.
Here, it's perfectly okay
if the kids eat dirt.
Elephants aren't the only foodies
to find this spot,
they're just the biggest.
There's plenty of dirt to go around.
As the Congo ripples and roars
over its 3,000-mile course,
changing everything in its path,
it can often be harsh,
but it always takes care of those
tough enough to survive.