Original subtitles

♪♪

In inky blackness of space,

the planet turns,

majestic and alone,

except for the other planets.

But this planet is different.

This is a place of fire,

of ice,

of rock,

of cloud--

No, don't run too fast, Tabitha.

A place of life.

Here, under the canopy of air,

life thrives in all sorts.

[chuckles] Liquorice allsorts.

You know, I haven't had liquorice allsorts in ages.

My favourite ones are the bobbly blue and pink ones;

an acquired taste, like llama. The one thing that is certain,

here, on this glistening sphere,

life sustains life sustains life.

This is Round Planet:

The Story of Everything.

Everything?

Good lord, I've got a taxi coming at 5:00.

♪♪

We might have to chivvy it along a bit, Tabitha.

[page turning]

The tropical rainforest.

There it is.

Girdling mother earth,

like a shimmering green boob tube.

Where would we be without it?

Oh, running out of oxygen, probably.

Here, in this primeval forest,

dinosaurs once flourished.

And even though there's probably a CGI button we could press

that would fill these trees with drusilasaura,

we're not going to.

It'd get us overseas sales, sure,

but we are better than that.

In this sopping wet paradise

live over half of Earth's plant and animal species.

And humans.

Some with lenses,

some with penis gourds.

No, we're not gonna show them.

This film is about plants and animals, so get used to it.

Here, the perfect combination of sunlight and rain

makes trees grow like billy-o.

And amongst those trees, an entire world springs into being;

a world of hairy things,

orange things.

and other hairy things.

Everything has a crucial part to play in this,

one of our round planet's oldest ecosystems.

All interlinked, whether they like it or not,

like a perfectly dysfunctional family.

There was a fair bit of biodiversity in my car yesterday.

There shouldn't have been.

I had paid for a valet service.

But this isn't the time or place to mention things like that, so don't worry.

Rainforests.

I think I've spelt that out, but in case not,

we're at the rainforest.

-[insects chirping] -[gibbon hooting]

I recognise that din.

Take my word for it;

most rainforests look the same from the air,

but you can rely on a gobby gibbon to give the game away.

[gibbon hooting]

And in Indonesia,

king of the canopy is the siamang gibbon.

I wonder what they're saying.

"What's the weather forecast?"

"Rain."

"Oh, jolly good."

[chuckles]

This is the largest of the gibbons,

and is characterised by its large throat pouch.

That's the thing under his chin that looks like a giant scrotum.

[laughs]

Oh, come on, Tabitha, we were all thinking it.

It acts as an amplifier

and can be inflated to the size of its head.

And it's not just a great party trick.

These gibbons are actually marking their territory.

[gibbons hooting]

Symphalangus Syndactylus may look foolish on the ground,

but long arms, hooked hands, and swively shoulders

are the perfect adaptations to a life in the trees.

They can travel at over 50 kilometres an hour

through the branches.

Which, to me, seems faster than necessary

when the only place you're going is another tree.

It's hardly going anywhere.

[hooting continues]

[insects buzzing and chirping]

With so many leaf-chompers about,

rainforest trees do their best to scare them away.

They're either all ouchy,

or rammed to the gunnels with toxin.

But what's natural razor wire to some

is a three course meal with a selection of cheeses to this sloth.

Oh, look.

Cute. [chuckles]

You just want to take one home as a pet don't you?

Well, don't. The costa rica customs people take a very dim view of it.

I spent six months finding out the hard way.

To us, these leaves are pretty much toxic and indigestible.

But not if you're a sloth with a super gut full of symbiotic bacteria.

Still takes a week to digest each meal,

and then manage a number two.

And when dump day comes round, it's the highlight of the week.

Not only for her,

but for the insects that benefit from her lax beauty regime.

Adult Cryptoses moths live exclusively in sloth fur,

but lay their eggs in their poo.

Once the moth kids have grown up,

they'll fly back up the tree in the hope there's still a sloth there.

Which there normally is,

because it's a sloth.

So, anyway, I found this boiled sweet stuck to the side of the glove box.

It was very hairy, so I couldn't eat it.

[chuckles] Silver valet service.

I know it's not gold, but gold costs £4 more, so...

Look, I'm not fussy,

but they hadn't polished the sat nav,

and my magic tree was just lying there in the foot well.

-What's that, Tabs? -[indistinct voice]

Alright, I'll get on with it.

Now, where were we?

Ah, yes.

It's down here where the rainforest gets really interesting.

Here, the insect is boss.

And when you look very closely,

you'll see a whole world of activity going on.

Luckily, some wave flags, so you can see them.

Leafcutter ants.

They'd rather not be pigeonholed like that.

They've got loads of other interests, but, you know,

cameramen see you doing one thing and that's what sticks.

They look like they're on a political march for leaves.

Or against them.

One of those two.

They transfer leaf confetti to their underground home,

because it turns into a special fungus,

which they eat.

Yes, these ants are like tiny farmers.

We got our junior researcher, Lily Butterworth,

to calculate how many leaves these ants harvest.

Don't ask how. The important thing is she's out of hospital and doing well.

Lily discovered that a colony of 100,000 ants

carries a mind-boggling 3,855 square metres of leaf a year.

Stunning work, Lily.

Well worth a bit of therapy, I say. It's horribly humid here.

Sweaty nethers; good for neither man nor beast.

But by going as nature intended,

with just a penis gourd to protect my modesty,

I avoided jock rot entirely.

Unlike cameraman Garth de la Spong,

who spent most of the trip waddling like a duck.

-Anyway... -[pages turning]

The intense humidity of the rainforest provides the perfect stage

for two of nature's most committed tree lovers.

This stuff might look like your tongue after a night on the sauce,

but, actually, it's a slime mould,

and it's part of nature's plan to recycle this tree back to soil.

Like the ants, it's just one of many organisms

that form part of the rainforest's master plan.

Fungi are another.

Although a fungi sounds more like a wacky children's entertainer,

they are in fact nature's undertakers.

But unlike actual undertakers,

who love their clients stiff and woody,

fungi are one of the few organisms that can break down lignin,

the stuff that makes trees all stiff and woody.

And that's not the only trick they have up their sleeve.

The rainforest is so wet that nutrients in the ground are washed away

faster than a wedding ring down a gents' urinal.

She still goes on about it to this day.

But these foop tops are just the tip of the toadstool.

They swap crucial minerals in return for sugar

via a vast network of underground filaments.

Pixie brollies.

I saw a pixie once, actually,

but I'm not allowed to talk about it on television,

or I'll get moved to badger watch.

Little fellow.

His name was Piers... yes.

Nice chap, actually.

Alright, Tabitha. I'm just adding colour.

Another crucial function of the fungi is to control the insect population.

There are over 100 billion insects in the amazon,

and the way the fungi deal with them is truly exceptional.

This ant doesn't know her arse from her elbow knees.

She's off her noggin on cordyceps,

which round these parts is the latest street fungus.

The fungus takes over the ant's mind and gets it to do what it wants.

It could get the ant to rob a bank, or dance like Mick Jagger.

It's a bad fungus.

It makes the ant die facing northwest,

which just happens to be the optimum position

for the fungus to grow on its decaying body.

Oh, dear.

Oh, dear.

Don't have nightmares,

especially ones about mushrooms growing out your brain.

Ooh, I've had one of those;

gives me the cold sweats just thinking about it.

[animals hooting]

So, rainforests bring insecticidal maniacs and mushroomy death.

But the animals who are really the most gripping...

are the ones who do the most gripping.

Like this pygmy gecko.

This one's a hunter,

looking for arthropods on the forest floor.

There's just one snag with the whole business.

Yes, I think you can see what the issue is here.

At three centimetres long, this is one of the smallest lizards in the world,

and there are a lot of things he's scared of...

like beetles,

and having to give his height on dating websites.

[chuckles]

But one thing the pygmy gecko's not a wuss about is water,

which is handy in a sopping wet rainforest.

And while millions of his annoying insect neighbours drown,

he can look on,

smug in the knowledge that he's super hydrophobic.

Water rolls off him like water off a pygmy gecko's back.

Thanks to millions of tiny microscopic bumps on his skin.

He can even walk on water.

Yeah, you heard me;

walk on water like an actual Jesus.

My favourite Jesus is probably the baby Jesus.

[laughs]

♪♪

So, I'm out in Papua New Guinea, wearing just my penis gourd,

when one of the locals sides up to me

and says, "We only really wear those in the rainforest, sir.

Here, in the formal dining room of the Port Moresby Hilton,

we normally insist on a jacket and tie."

And I said, "I'm wearing a tie. How do you think I'm keeping this thing on?"

Yes, Tabitha, I'm getting on to the frogs.

[ribbeting]

When froggy goes-a-courting, he does it with the lights out.

Well, hello.

Their croaky serenades form a cacophony.

A frog chorus if you like.

Only, one without Sir Paul McCartney,

and Rupert the bear.

[frongs croaking]

Ooh, lordy. Ha!

It's got eyes like a wedgewood dinner service.

[laughing]

Incredibly, the female is able to filter out this racket.

So she only hears the call of the male she's interested in.

I'll tell you, that won't last once they're together.

Take it from me. [laughs]

Oh, no, not how the world works.

[thunder crashing]

These tenrecs are looking through the leaves for worms to eat.

If they'd found a calzone or a chicken and mushroom pie

that would slip down nicely, but normally it's just worms.

Tenrecs have a very poor sense of sight,

so they don't even know that they look like badly drawn hedgehogs.

They use smell and sound to get about.

This youngling has spotted a worm, and he breaks from the pack to get it.

Down the hatch.

But now he's lost and all alone.

And as you may have noticed,

one bit of rainforest looks like another bit of rainforest,

which, in turn, looks like another bit of rainforest.

But the tenrecs have an amazing way of finding each other.

Special quills on the adults backs rub together to make,

and I'm going to use a technical term here,

a scrapy noise.

Impressive, isn't it?

All tiny tenrec has to do is follow the din.

Now, hurry up, because if you're late for dinner,

mummy and daddy tenrec will lock you in the cellar.

Ha!

There you go, all safe and sound.

Nighty night, tenrecs.

Oh, that was in Africa, by the way. I completely forgot to say.

The act of rubbing body parts together to make a sound is called stridulation.

Many insects stridulate.

The katydid does...

Did-- does--

Is that confusing, Tabitha?

Well, yeah, we'll look at that script, and-- and do it again later.

It doesn't matter anyway, I'm so over stridulation.

Let's talk about that furry fuzzball in the background.

Evolution designed this animal from some leftover bits of owl and monkey.

It's called the tarsier.

Tarsiers look cuddly,

but they're actually the only completely predatory primate on the planet.

They make excellent best mates

because they look genuinely interested in everything you say.

"Oh, really? How interesting."

Their eyes are so big they don't move in their sockets,

making it hard to read what they're thinking...

other than, "Amazing!"

To compensate for a fixed stare,

their heads can rotate almost 180 degrees in either direction,

which is very useful for spotting prey.

The tarsier's hind limbs are twice the length of its head and body,

so that it can pounce on prey from up to six half-metres away.

Why say six half-metres? Why not just say three metres?

Bad news for Mr. Flappy here.

Ooh, that's nice.

Boom.

Ooh, lovely. Another BAFTA for that.

A lot of tarsier communication is outside the frequencies we can hear.

So we'll never know if they're saying, "Look at that piggy-eyed goon over there,"

to each other.

When the tarsier isn't eating,

it's avoiding being eaten.

Snake!

Right there, you prune.

Luckily, the tarsier can alert its friends to danger

by doing these dinky little warning squeaks.

The music's trying to build the tension,

but we can all see that the snake's about as fast

as the emergence of eukaryotes in the precambrian.

[laughs]

Little biologist joke there.

And, surprise, surprise,

the tarsier's got away.

Sometimes, when you're in a forest for weeks with your crew,

and you're waiting desperately to see some form of animal life,

it's tempting to make something happen.

For instance, to push over a tree.

Ah, but we would never do that, and I want to make it clear,

we just happened to catch this tree dramatically falling.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yes, the pygmy elephant.

Another vital and surprising piece in this turbo-charged ecosystem.

They act as giant seed dispensers,

guzzling jackfruit and pooping their seeds hither and yon.

Some trees have evolved fruit to attract elephants by smell,

luring them in from several kilometres away.

By casting seeds far and wide,

the parent tree increases the next generation's chances of survival.

These elephants are like nature's postmen...

-[elephant roars] -...only with bigger sacks.

Once these baldy mini-mammoths have processed the seeds,

they come out in their poo,

which cleverly acts as a ready-made compost heap.

Amazing.

Horribly smelly, but brilliantly amazing,

and all wonderfully connected.

Everything, even the poo,

is integral to the rainforest's ecosystem.

If I'm lucky enough to be nominated for a second BAFTA next year,

I'd find great honour in collecting the award

on behalf of a squitting pachyderm.

From the minuscule yet mighty ant...

to a bunch of seed dumping jumbos...

and a gang of very empathetic tarsiers...

to a group of evil fungal masters,

everything has a role to play.

[gibbon hooting]

Vibrant,

verdant,

and beautifully intertwined,

this life is real life;

penis gourds, warts, and all.

♪♪

Filming in rainforests presents some truly unique challenges.

Elephant specialist Philby Wetherspoon

was sent to Borneo with the most challenging task of all:

to capture footage of elephants defecating.

Philby's philosophy is:

to film the animal, you've got to be the animal.

He stayed in his hide for days,

collecting any waste material he produced

in tupperware containers.

He coped with several near misses, like this,

using the ancient art of zen meditation.

And, in the end, his patience paid off.

Despite being slightly out of focus on the main action...

[bleeps]

...he redeemed himself with the stool shot.

Good work, Philby.

You're still our go-to guy for the big jobs.

♪♪

So, you won't believe this,

but the garage accused me of placing the boiled sweet there

to get a refund for their so-called valet service.

So, I drove home, grabbed the old award, drove back,

and said, “How dare you call me a common liar! I've got a BAFTA!”

Didn't work. I still had to pay.

Fred Lemington Car Valeting in Bristol.