Original subtitles

It's crawling up the black light.

It's about to go over the top. Get it, get it, get it.

Hmm, Coyote, why's there

a car battery on our porch?

Well, guys, today we're going to do

something a little different.

It is around 6 o'clock, and it gets

dark early in the rainforest.

When it gets dark, the bugs come out.

So what we're going to do tonight,

with all these things you see on the porch,

is build a bug theater.

A bug theater?

Like, is there going to be a performance

of acrobatic insects, or what's happening?

Oh, there's certainly going

to be a performance of insects.

What we're going to do is run a stretch

of paracord between these two poles and then hang from it

a white sheet.

Now, the past couple of nights, we've been filming episodes out

here on our jungle base camp porch, and with the lights,

in come the bugs.

This may be a little hunt going on right here.

Let's have you get out of there praying mantis,

this is the glass frog segment.

So we thought to ourselves, why not

bring the bugs in intentionally and film

the bugs you want to hang out with us in the first place?

That sounds awesome.

So we actually going to go anywhere,

they're coming right to us.

No, and then we're going to light

up this enormous 250-watt bulb.

Mario, bring that monster over here.

250 watts.

And it gives off these UVB rays that the insects

are attracted to.

Right, there are

all sorts of bugs that are going to come to our theater tonight.

I guarantee you we're going to see cicadas.

There will also be moths, some sort of wasp and hornet type

creatures, and if it lives out here in the rainforest,

there's a good chance they're going

to want to show up to share popcorn with us tonight.

So Mario's going to help me get everything set.

Then, we're going to sit back, relax, and wait for the bugs

to come to us.

You know, Coyote, that theater screen looks

an awful lot like a bed sheet.

You know, Mark, as a matter of fact,

it is a bed sheet, but it's extremely high

thread count so it'll be extra comfortable for our insect

friends.

Really?

Mario, I heard you got the bed sheet from Walmart.

That's not my sheet, is it?

No.

All right, so you got this modified black lamp,

which is going to soothe the insects

into landing on the sheet.

Kind of looks like a red lamp.

Kinda, this is just for protection.

We were traveling with this.

All right, Coyote, why don't you go ahead and put that over that

beam right there, and we could hang

it down on top of the lamp.

So Mario, explain the theory

behind having a black lamp with the Mercury vapor lamp.

Yeah, so it's pretty complicated.

Both these types of lamps will actually

emit UV rays in different frequencies,

and insects are attracted to them.

Different species like different frequencies of UVB or UVA.

So this black lamp is actually going

to help soothe the insects into landing,

whereas this big boy here is going to attract

them from a distance.

So this is like the bat symbol.

Yeah.

And then this is like, this

is like the spa mood lighting.

Exactly.

Yeah, It's going to give them the moon to be like hey,

let's land on this sheet.

I gotcha.

All right, let's clamp this down.

Right there, secured.

Let's run that stuff behind the sheet here.

Yeah, there you go.

All right, we'll get this set up on the car battery.

Here's the fun part, guys.

Mario, start the lights.

Let's see if it works.

Light it up.

There's one, and there's two.

Woah!

Yeah!

OK, you guys ready for the big one?

Let's see it.

All right, here we go.

Woah, man that is bright.

I'm going to go around the other side, see what that looks like.

Hey, we already got a beetle.

I think it's working already.

First bug of the night came right in.

Wow, look at that.

We've already got our first bugs coming to lights.

That means the show is about to start.

But you know we're missing, right?

Oh, yes.

You can't watch a show without some snacks.

You guys hungry?

I'm ready, let's get popping.

All right, get the popcorn in the microwave.

I got buttered popcorn, too.

Nice.

I have been known to make a pretty good bag of popcorn

in my day.

First step is get those kernels nice to loosened up.

Now, it does have palomitas.

Is that popcorn?

I think so.

Yeah.

Looks like popcorn, let's give it a shot.

All right, now there is a trick to popcorn.

You don't wait till they're all popped,

you wait until the frequency slows down.

So it's getting there, hold on.

The microwave knew.

I was just about to say that was it.

OK, there we go.

That smells good.

Act 2.

Get the steam coming out of that, nice.

Popcorn in the jungle.

I always like to have a hot piece,

get a hot piece out of there.

Hot, hot.

It's so hot you're safety goggles are fogging up.

Is it good?

Oh it's good.

Here, try some.

Ooh, that is hot.

Perfect pop.

Oh, Yeah.

All right, guys, let's head out to the theater

and wait for the bugs to show up.

All right.

Coyote, how's that popcorn?

Popcorn's great,

but you may notice that we are missing

our enormous light bulb.

That's because we blew the bulb.

And then, we had a backup bulb, and we also blew that one.

So we have replaced it with a metal halide bulb,

and we still have the UV bulb.

Now, you see that some insects have shown up.

We've got a little sweat wasp here, we've got a beetle,

we've got a cicada, and several different species of moths.

Now, the lights have only been on for about 10 minutes

so what we want to do now is simply

sit back, relax, and wait for the insects

to show up to the show.

Oh, man, these glasses really work.

It totally looks 3D.

Yeah, I'm just waiting for something huge

to fly in, some sort of big katydid or praying mantis.

We're kind of waiting for some larger bugs

to end up on the screen before we really

get the cameras up close.

Check out this field guide, Insects and Other Arthropods

of Tropical America.

Pretty much anything you can think of is in here.

Actually, let's look at this little critter right here.

Mario, bring your camera and close for a second.

Let's see if I can identify it.

That appears to be some variety of tiger moth.

It's really interesting because its wings

are clear, except for the black outer edges.

And then the abdomen is brightly colored,

which I'm guessing is apesomatic to warn any potential predator

that hey, I may be toxic, or because I kind of look

like a wasp, I may sting you.

However, the antenna look exactly

like the antenna of a moth.

So there you have it, our first identification of the night.

Some variety of tiger moth.

That's pretty cool.

Lot of little bugs, tiny bugs.

Look at these little, itty bitty moths

and whatever these little treehoppers are.

Woah, woah, woah, what's this?

Look at that thing. What is that?

I don't know, but it

looks like it might sting.

Definitely looks like it might sting.

Grab it.

No, I'm not going

to just grab it, who knows.

Woah, here it comes.

Ooh, yeah, that's definitely some sort of wasp.

Let's see if it'll come back down.

Where'd it go?

It's up there in the rafters.

You see it up there?

Yeah, I think, think it's some kind of night wasp.

There's a wasp right there.

Great, poke to wasp.

Well, I want it to come

down here on the theater.

We do have some things up in the rafters here.

It's actually because we got some light reflecting

off up onto this silver area.

So far so good.

Ooh, look at that little.

Whoa.

What was that?

There's a little click

beetle of some sort.

Hold on a second, I scared it and it came right down here

in the dirt somewhere.

All right, well.

Here it is.

This is awesome, little click beetle.

Never see in this color before, watch this.

You ready?

Mario, you're going to have to zoom in on my hand.

The thing that I love about click beetles

is they jump like a little Mexican jumping means.

You ready?

OK.

Oh, that's on my hand.

You see that, that's how they get away.

They click with their thorax and their abdomen.

They have very rigid outer exoskeleton,

and their wings are also very rigid.

very, pretty, I never seen one that color before.

Hi, buddy, I see you.

Cool, did you get that?

I got that.

Where did it go, right back on the theater?

Yeah.

Neat, that was one

very colorful little click bug.

All right, well, got more visitors showing up.

Here's one that we definitely can easily identify.

Come here, buddy.

That's a noisy one.

That right there is a cicada.

It's loud like an alarm clock.

Really annoying alarm clock.

These are out in force right now.

I'm trying to hold on to you gently.

There we go.

See that?

What I love about the cicadas here

Costa Rica is they're really brightly

colored, green and blue.

Look how gorgeous that insect is.

Here's a really interesting thing about the life

cycle of the cicadas.

The adults, and this is an adult right here,

will lay its eggs on the side of a tree,

and those eggs start to hatch, the nymphs fall to the ground

and bury themselves beneath the surface.

And what they turn into is this.

But that's actually just a shell right there because once they

become large enough, they crawl up from the ground

and then metamorphesize into an adult.

And that cycle just repeats itself

over, and over, and over again.

Now, some summers you will have major hatch

outs of these nymphs, and you'll have hundreds of thousands

of these cicadas up in the trees,

which is what we're experiencing right now here in Costa Rica.

What would you say, Mark, literally thousands of them

have been kind of orchestrating the background of every episode

since we've been here.

I would say tens of thousands, it's deafening.

Yeah, and you can hear that sound right now.

Are you gonna not make the sound?

Where is this coming from?

The sound is, is actually

a vibration in the abdomen.

You can see, let me kind of pull the wings back there,

you see that little hole behind the wings there?

It's like a little speaker.

Yep, that is where all

that loud sound is coming from.

And it's interesting how they

can make the calls in unison.

There's definitely like a chorus, like rhythm, to it.

Yeah, for such a simple creature,

they certainly do have an elaborate form

of communication.

There you go.

Now you're getting more comfortable.

See, I wasn't gonna eat you.

This is a great food source for--

Oh, there it goes.

Is a great food source for a lot of the other animals

out here in the rainforest.

As far as the little shells go from the nymph stage,

it's not exactly a potato chip.

All right, let's see what other sort of bugs

are showing up to the theater.

Coyote, got something big.

Ooh!

Crawling up the black light.

It's about to go over the top.

Get it, get it, get it.

Oh, it is an enormous katydid.

Hold on.

Wow, the hooks on his legs are strong, let me get it off here.

Ow, ow, ow, ow.

It's legs are incredibly spiky.

Hold on, I don't want to let it go.

I didn't even see this fly in, I turned around for a second.

These can actually give you a pretty good chomp.

Really, they bite?

Oh, yeah, they will.

OK, there we go, Ahh, it is just latched onto my arm.

Let me hold it like that.

Ooh, it's biting my bracelet, Oh, it's

like pierced through my skin.

All right, I'm going to actually just have to hold

it right there for a second.

I think maybe if I let it walk on my arm, I can get it off.

It's about to bite you.

It's getting over the edge of your--

There we go.

Wow, those legs have incredibly sharp

little grappling hooks on them.

Now, that is some variety of katydid.

Oh, it's trying to bite me.

Let me turn it like this, I'm trying

to get a good hold on it.

Wow, it's actually really aggressive,

and it's actually really good at spinning its body around.

And what's going to happen if it grapples on to me

is it's going to be locked in place,

and then I'm going to take a pretty nasty little bite.

All right, that's kind of an awkward hold right there,

but I think for the moment that's

going to have to suffice.

I'm gonna put it on my leg.

All right, let me see if I can just keep--

Bit your pants, I can see it.

Did it bite you?

Yeah, jeez.

OK, now on the ground, let me pick it up with something else.

Man, that walloped my hand.

Jeez.

Saw that coming.

Gosh.

Let me kinda get off the ground here.

Wow.

Man, Oh, yeah, it broke skin.

Let me see.

Wow, right there, it dug into my thumb.

Hold on, let me see it.

You see starting to bleed?

Yeah, two little white marks there.

Wow, who would have thought?

And look what it's doing?

It is actually, it is turning its body.

I can't hold onto it properly.

It's biting into my pants now, Let me just hold it there.

Oh, he's one angry little insect.

OK.

OK.

Stay.

Stain.

Do you know anything about this insect, Coyote?

Well I'm used to catching katydids,

in Ohio, that are not capable of giving you

a really painful chomp, but this variety here is far different.

And it put a wallop on my thumb.

Now, this is the largest bug that we have seen show up

to the theater tonight, and of course, it's just fitting

that it would chomp into me.

I'm not sure exactly what variety this is,

but it is the largest katydid I have ever come across.

Uh, it's much more comfortable now,

and that's what it wants to do, stay completely up

on top of its legs.

And look at how long its antenna are.

OK, look, there you go.

It is cleaning its legs, and its legs are

like little grappling hooks.

Look at those wings, what an impressive insect.

OK, I'm going to let go of him.

There we go.

You gonna stay on my knee there.

That can be good.

Yeah.

Oh, look at that display.

Well, how cool was this?

We set up a bug theater and came across all sorts

of interesting and bizarre insects,

but I would definitely say that this enormous katydid

topped off the night.

I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild.

We'll see on the next location.

I'm very nervous to have it like this.

Like, I'm really confident that they don't bite,

but now he's waking up.

For most people, the idea

of being deep in the Costa Rican rainforest in the dark sounds

like a literal nightmare, especially

given the snakes, spiders, and other creatures

that crawl in the night.

However, for the Brave Wilderness team

there is no greater place to be when it comes to making

episodes of Breaking Trail.

And on this dark, rainy night, we

are exploring a reserve located in the mid-elevation slopes

of the central Caribbean zone, a biologically rich environment

that is home to many unique species,

including the one I'm about to get in front

of the cameras that almost looks as if it should

exist on an alien planet.

Oh, hey, Mark, Mario, come here.

What do you got?

I'm searching up in this tree stump

and look what I found, definitely something

worth getting on camera.

Right there.

I'm gonna let you bring in the light,

I'm going to pull my flashlight away.

That is awesome.

You know what that is?

It's some kind of millipede,

Yes, it is a millipede.

Good news for me because, as we know, I don't particularly

care for centipedes, but this one, completely safe,

it's actually a python millipede,

one of the largest millipede species here in Costa Rica.

Let me see if--

OK, curling onto my finger there.

Now, I am 99% sure that they do not bite,

but his little mouth is definitely

nestled right up next to the side of my finger there.

My hand is even shaking a little bit just because any time you

have a creature like this that wraps around your finger,

even though I feel like it's not going to bite me,

if it wanted to, yeah, I would be in a very,

very stuck situation.

OK, here we go.

Now, it's getting calm.

Woah, all those little tiny legs just moving across my hand.

They are spiky.

It doesn't really hurt, but it does tickle.

Now, woah boy.

OK, good thing I caught it there.

I want to make sure that this creature stays

as calm as possible because they are incredibly toxic,

and I wish I hadn't dropped it like that.

Let me give it a little smell here.

Oh, yeah, it's getting agitated, and it's

actually starting to secrete the toxin, which contains cyanide.

Yeah, you heard me right, cyanide.

Now, if I were to eat this little creature--

Hold on.

Cyanide, like the lethal kind of poison?

Like lethal cyanide.

Not likely lethal to me.

Although, I would never take the chance of actually eating

this millipede, but if another predator tried to consume

this creature, it would get very sick

and could even potentially die.

Now, there are some species of mammals, and some birds,

that have built up a resilience to that toxin,

but for the most part, you see how slow this creature moves,

it's not afraid of anything because it

knows how toxic it truly is.

Let's talk about the name for a second, the python millipede.

I imagine that scientists must have given this creature

that name because the camouflage on their backs

almost looks like the scales of a python.

It kind of has a face that looks like a caterpillar,

and I don't actually see any, like a centipede has fangs,

this has no fangs, just a little mouth part

and eats a lot of mosses and little plant matter

that's out here in the environment.

They actually do a great thing for the ecosystem

by breaking down all of the decomposing plant

matter that goes right back into the rainforest.

Are these rare?

They're fairly common,

but this is really a large one.

I mean, they only get to about four inches in length.

Look at that.

I see you here, crawl on my finger.

This is definitely the biggest one

that I have seen since we've been here in Costa Rica.

Now, look at all the segmentation of its body.

All these individual little plates are like armor,

and the exoskeleton of this creature

is calcified, making it extremely rigid.

I'm going to just take a little risk

here and kind of push on it.

It is incredibly solid.

Now, I imagine even if you were to accidentally step

on this creature as you were moving through the rainforest,

nothing would even crunch it.

And when they do curl up into a ball,

each one of these little sections curls in.

Let me see if I can do that.

Here you go.

Perfect, look at that, Just like a snail shell.

And that calcified exoskeleton is

very, very tough, which is what sets them

apart from other arthropods.

That is so cool looking.

Let me see if I can go ahead and hold

up so you can see the legs.

Can we see your belly?

Look at that, not something you would

want crawling in your bed, huh?

Now millipede doesn't actually mean a million legs,

it means 1,000 legs.

And looking at this creature, each individual body segment

has two pairs of legs.

So I'm guessing, let me try to just do a quick count here,

this creature probably has about 60 legs.

Oh, I certainly can feel them all just

crawling across my arm.

Now, you look at a creepy creature like this,

and I'm sure you're thinking to yourself

there is no way that this guy is getting

a date on a Saturday night.

But believe it or not, with this specific species of millipede,

the males are very committed to the females.

So committed in fact, that they will ride on the female's backs

to deter other potential suitors from coming in

and stealing the female away.

Mario, have you ever seen millipede of this size before?

No, man, that's crazy.

Right, I mean, the ones of the Sonoran Desert

are close to this size but not nearly as cool looking.

I mean, look at that exoskeleton.

Looks like an alien.

It really, really does.

The animals of the rainforest never fail to amaze me,

and every night we come out, I feel like we found the most

bizarre creature imaginable.

Then tonight, we come across the python millipede.

I'm Carrie Peterson.

Be brave, stay wild.

We'll see on the next adventure.

All right, little guy, back up onto the moss.