Original subtitles

The monsoon.

(thunder)

The greatest weather system on earth.

(thunder)

Giver of life and the destroyer...

...From the himalaya

To australia.

Shaping magical lands.

Its impact felt by giants.

The exquisite...

And the bizarre.

Where spectacular nature meets the colors of many cultures.

♪ ♪

Our journey takes us into the tropical heart of the monsoon.

A place of remote islands.

Where the monsoon collides with the fires of the underworld.

(rumbling)

Creating homes for some of the most spectacular and peculiar

Species on the planet.

(chirping)

♪ ♪

(thunder)

(thunder)

Sulawesi, a lush island straddling the equator.

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Deep in the forest there's a new arrival.

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He's a crested black macaque.

And he's growing up in an unusual family.

Crested black macaques

Like to live in extraordinarily large groups.

At times there are more than 100 in just one group.

But what sets them apart is their character.

Something that's intimately connected to their home.

♪ ♪

Crested black macaques live in northern sulawesi,

In rich forests

Sitting directly in the path of the monsoon.

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Torrential rains batter the forest for months on end.

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(screech)

But it's thanks to these monsoon rains

That this baby will develop certain behaviors.

Behaviors that, more so than with other kinds of monkeys,

We might recognize in ourselves.

But first, the youngsters have a lot to learn.

(squeaking)

Starting with the monkey basics,

Like perfecting their climbing techniques.

(squeaking)

But most important for the crested black macaque

Is to learn their code of etiquette.

Lip smacking is a request for a hug,

Showing a desire to be friends.

(bark)

Blowing kisses and sharing cuddles

Is not only reserved for close family.

Anyone in the troop can join in.

They are among the most affectionate monkeys

On the planet.

With the coming of each monsoon the forest presents a banquet.

Over 100 varieties of fruit.

♪ ♪

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There's more than enough to go around.

So much that they don't need to fight over it.

Instead, they put their energy into the good things in life,

Like friendships and exploring their forest home.

A discovery draws them all close.

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A tiny casualty on the forest floor.

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Sometimes their sensitive behavior

Can seem touchingly human.

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The monkeys' character is a result of the riches

That the monsoon brings;

Life with abundant food.

But in these islands,

The effects of this great weather system

Are not always so benevolent.

Like a giant letter k,

Sulawesi sits at the epicenter of the monsoon region.

Lying southeast is australia,

And far to the northwest is continental asia.

For much of the year,

It seems that sulawesi is swamped in cloud,

But there is an annual rhythm.

From December, moist winds blow from asia

Bringing very heavy rains from the north.

Then, from June, they blow from australia,

Bringing more rains from the south.

Most islands between the two continents get monsoon rain

Not just once, but twice a year.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

It's November.

The monsoon winds are about to change again.

It's a race against time

For another of sulawesi's unique residents.

(warbling)

A maleo.

(warbling)

(clucking)

Normally, they're creatures of the forest.

But once a year they hit the beach.

It's breeding season.

But instead of spending all that time sitting on a nest,

Maleos use solar power...

...Burying the eggs in sand warmed by the sun.

That means eggs can be laid only between monsoons.

And there's not much time left.

One couple has secured a prime spot,

Away from the water and safe from the coming storms.

♪ ♪

But two late arrivals spell trouble.

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The early birds have to dig fast.

Their new neighbors make the job twice as hard.

(chirp)

♪ ♪

It's frustrating work.

(warbling)

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At last, the hole is deep enough for her to lay eggs.

The maleo's egg is five times larger than a hen's.

It must provide enough energy for the chick to grow quickly,

Fight to the surface, and survive the oncoming monsoon.

Job done.

(thunder)

But is it too late?

As the monsoon clouds arrive, beach temperatures plummet.

The latecomers may have lost the race against time here.

(clucking)

But sulawesi's maleos don't rely on solar power alone.

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Deep in the forest, the ground stirs.

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Hatched from an egg buried three feet deep.

A maleo chick.

His parents have an ingenious way to beat the monsoon.

(bubbling)

They've discovered underfloor heating.

(bubbling)

Sulawesi is pocked with hot springs.

Water superheated by several hundred degrees

Rises up from deep fissures in the earth.

The island, and hundreds of its neighbors,

Sit above great cracks in the earth's mantle.

And the consequences are explosive.

(rumbling)

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It's part of what is known as the ring of fire.

Five tectonic plates shifting below the sea

In continual collision,

Creating island after volcanic island.

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All pushed up directly into the path of the monsoon.

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When the monsoon winds collide with a large volcanic mountain,

Moist air is forced upward, forming immense clouds.

And the result,

Arriving in great deluges is even more rain.

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Java. At its heart lies a mysterious and deadly place.

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Every morning fog drenches the land.

But when the intense sun burns it off,

It reveals no rain forest.

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This is the sand sea.

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And once a year, pilgrims risk their lives to come here.

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Sarina and her family are tengger people,

Descendants of a great hindu empire

That once stretched from sumatra to new guinea.

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(horse neighs)

Now their traditional culture survives

Only around the edges of the sand sea.

(bells ringing, drums playing)

(bells ringing, drums playing)

Today they are gathering for a time-honored ritual

Observed for more than six centuries.

(bells ringing)

It's a ritual that for some in the past proved fatal.

♪ ♪

But sarina's family, like most tengger, are farmers.

They believe the success of their next harvest

Hangs on this day.

♪ ♪

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The climb is steep and treacherous.

As many as 3,000 people will ascend the narrow rim.

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This is what sarina's family have come to honor.

Mount bromo, a huge and still very active volcano.

Bromo belches rocks and sulfurous gas daily.

It could erupt at any time.

The tengger risk all to bring sacrifices for a volcano god.

(reciting prayer in native language)

(reciting prayer in native language)

Legend has it that once these sacrifices were human.

♪ ♪

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But these sacrifices aren't made out of fear...

(squawk)

...They're made in gratitude for a rich harvest.

(shouting)

Though not much makes it into the volcano god's belly.

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For those who dare enter the mouth of the volcano,

Anything caught is said to be a blessing.

The catchers risk their lives.

The angle of the slope is up to 80 degrees.

♪ ♪

One slip, and the sacrifice might be human after all.

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The chicken escapes the fire,

But not the frying pan.

(bird shrieks)

The tengger are deadly serious

About thanking their volcano god,

And they have good reason.

With the gifts of nutrient-rich ash and cinder,

The desert can bloom.

The island of borneo.

Home to the oldest rain forests on earth.

And yet they seem strangely empty.

Mammals are seldom seen.

Their calls rarely heard.

♪ ♪

What life is found is secretive

And often quite odd.

A giant red leech.

And it's hungry.

Without mammals to provide a meal,

This forest is like a desert for a bloodsucker.

But the leech has risen to the challenge with deadly effect.

The heavy rains trigger the emergence of another giant.

A bornean blue earthworm, two feet long.

♪ ♪

It follows an irresistible chemical trail to find a mate.

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But leaving trails in this forest is dangerous.

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The leech has an extremely sensitive mouth.

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It tastes its way towards its prey.

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Feeling up and down the worm's body,

It searches for an end.

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Then it starts to suck.

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The worm fights back, but there is no escape.

♪ ♪

The leech sucks its prey down like spaghetti,

Crushing the worm with its muscular throat.

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It will be a whole month before this leech needs to hunt again.

On borneo there are no live volcanoes,

So no regular deposits of mineral-rich ash

To feed the land.

What there is in abundance is rain.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(thunder)

Monsoons have drenched this land for 130 million years,

Continually flushing away nutrients.

Without volcanic ash to replenish the goodness,

The monsoon has rendered

Borneo's ancient soils infertile.

Yet, somehow,

The world's tallest rain forest trees grow here.

At first glance, the tall trees suggest abundance.

But this is an illusion.

They've simply evolved to become super-efficient

At gathering miniscule, trace amounts of nutrients,

Before the monsoon can wash them away.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Like being locked up in a giant fortress,

The hard-won gains can't escape.

♪ ♪

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On the island of borneo,

A nephila spider joins the monsoon banquet.

♪ ♪

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For her prey, there's no chance of escape.

Her web is strong enough to capture small birds.

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But there's a catch.

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She's caught a tiger butterfly, and he's toxic.

So she snips at her web and lets him go.

The butterfly lives another day.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The trees in this forest are forced into battle

To protect their nutrients.

A miniscule caterpillar emerged from a butterfly's egg

Laid just after the rains.

Food surrounds him.

But he faces a big problem.

The tree guards its nutrients with fatal poisons.

He begins to chew.

But he's not eating.

He's excavating a trench.

The plant fights back, oozing a noxious sap.

But the caterpillar has created a barrier.

The sap, pumped from the stem, can't reach him.

♪ ♪

Finally, he finishes his circle.

The heist is complete.

The portion inside is now isolated and safe to eat.

♪ ♪

As he grows, he raids the tree's reserves time and again.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Each time he ingests tiny traces of poison.

And with each dose, his resistance builds.

Until eventually he achieves complete immunity.

Now the caterpillar can gorge himself.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

He has harnessed the tree's defenses for himself.

Protected by the poisons in his body,

No predator could safely eat him,

And his ostentatious warning colors

Ensure that they won't even try.

Safe in his cocoon with poisons coursing through his veins,

The insect is completely protected...

Through his development

And into his second life

As a tiger butterfly.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Across the forest,

Millions of similar battles rage

In an arms race over nutrients.

With each generation,

The caterpillar armies improve their strategies,

While plants constantly refine their chemical weaponry.

♪ ♪

The result is a poison army of oddities.

And a toxic forest with leaves indigestible to most creatures.

Especially mammals.

But there is one peculiar resident

With extraordinary powers of digestion.

Proboscis monkeys.

They're named after their strange, swollen noses.

But proboscis have also been called "cows of the canopy."

They're the only primate with a digestive system

Equipped to chew their cud.

To minimize the level of any poison in their bodies,

No one plant can dominate their diet.

So they are constantly on the move

And then pick only the youngest, least-toxic leaves.

Their immense bellies are packed

With a long, extended gut,

And a complex stomach with four separate chambers

That take 50 hours to digest dinner.

And despite all this, most of the forest's foliage

Is too difficult to digest.

In this nutrient war, driven by the monsoon,

The trees are runaway winners.

They not only dictate the bodies and lifestyles

Of these monkeys,

But ensure that the density of mammals is kept low.

(distant shrieking)

But even these fortress trees have one inevitable weakness.

Eventually every leaf must die,

Leaking away precious nutrients,

Drip-feeding them to the forest floor...

...Where a voracious horde waits to pounce.

With each monsoon shower,

Microbes and fungi burst into action,

Bloating on the decay...

...Softening the dead vegetation

For legions of competing creatures.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The race for nutrients makes this

One of the most competitive environments on earth.

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But there's one creature that's faster and more efficient

At consuming the leaves than anyone else.

♪ ♪

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Processionary termites.

Termites recycle a staggering one quarter

Of all the leaf litter on borneo.

They tear into the leaves that create tiny food parcels

That are hauled back to the colony in a tireless relay.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

They're amassing a priceless bounty.

♪ ♪

Soldier termites flank the column on high alert...

...Armed with helmet-like heads that squirt noxious chemicals.

In less than two hours, the leaf is gone...

♪ ♪

...Marched portion-by-portion into their underground nests.

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A vital supply of nutrients returned to the soil...

...Only to be rapidly sucked back up and locked away again

In the giant fortress bodies of the ancient trees.

(thunder)

The competition for nutrients in this barren land,

Washed by the heavy monsoons,

Has over millions of years created a unique array of life.

(wind blowing)

But there is one place on borneo

Where the monsoon is more extreme than anywhere else;

Where it rains every single day.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Mount kinabalu.

The highest peak in borneo.

♪ ♪

It towers two and a half miles high,

Causing immense clouds to form almost continually.

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Over millions of years,

The rain has altered the rocks of kinabalu,

Creating an alien landscape

And washing away any trace of nutrients.

But the bigger a challenge the monsoon presents,

The more ingenious is life's response.

Just below the peaks of borneo's mount kinabalu,

Unique orchids flourish.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Their roots reach out into the winds to catch trace nutrients

Dissolved in mountain mists.

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Over three feet wide, rafflesia is the world's largest flower.

Yet it has no roots, stems, or leaves of its own.

It's a parasite, stealing its nutrients from other plants.

And most bizarre of all,

The pitcher plants.

♪ ♪

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Their leaves evolved to become deep cups

Filled with digestive juices.

The stomach-like vessels hang across the forest,

Waiting for food.

Some have become leaf catchers.

The decomposing soup inside feeds the plant.

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Others have become carnivores.

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Their colors and scents lure insects to a sugary nectar

That's too tempting to pass by.

But it's a trap.

♪ ♪

Insects quickly slip on the wet rim

And tumble into the deadly liquid.

Their drowned bodies decay

In the enzyme-rich juice of the killer plants.

But some pitchers need more than just insects.

A giant among carnivorous plants,

The kinabalu giant pitcher.

It's over 12 inches tall and holds about 8 cups of liquid.

It patiently waits for something warm-blooded.

♪ ♪

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A hungry tree shrew.

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The mosses provide moisture for a quick drink,

But she needs a meal.

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There's something sweet.

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The scent of the giant pitcher plant lures her closer.

It's irresistible.

To get a good lick of sugar

She'll need to climb onto the rim.

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One slip and she'll fall.

♪ ♪

(splash)

But the shrew knows what she's doing.

The plant offers its tasty treat

In exchange for an important deposit.

A dose of perfect fertilizer

That the giant pitcher so desperately needs for growth.

Tree shrews are territorial.

By leaving her droppings,

She's signaling to other shrews that this plant is taken.

(splash)

It's one of the most extraordinary relationships

Between plants and mammals anywhere.

(squeaking)

Come about only because of the intense evolutionary pressure

From the monsoon here on mount kinabalu.

The life found on borneo counts among

Some of the most unusual on the planet.

And it's just one in the massive group of islands

In southeast asia.

♪ ♪

Each a world of its own,

Filled with strange inhabitants

And wonderful adaptations to life,

Trapped in the very heart of the monsoon.

♪ ♪

Captioned by side door media services

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