Original subtitles

The beauty of a Costa Rican rain forest.

A place full of life...

and death.

In a single night,

nightmarish hunters stalk the darkness.

Armed with everything from dagger-like claws

to poisonous secretions,

they're ready to strike,

ready to feed.

[growling]

Ready to make a colorful and dense wilderness

run red with blood.

[distant whooping, screeching]

The rainforests of Costa Rica...

are alive.

♪

Like a bustling human city,

every square inch of this wilderness

is crowded with a wide variety of animal life.

And for the creatures that live here,

maintaining one's personal space can be a challenge.

And you never know who you'll bump into.

♪

With all these neighbors living together

in such close proximity,

confrontations break out in a blink of an eye,

especially in the dark.

♪

♪

With the sun setting on the horizon,

another countdown until dawn begins.

Once darkness falls, some of the most dangerous characters

in this jungle metropolis emerge to do their business.

[chirping]

One of the strangest neighborhoods

is the high-rises of the forest canopy.

♪

A woolly possum navigates this maze of branches,

sneaking through the shadows

while keeping an eye out for predators.

[squeak]

The mean streets of the forest floor are so dangerous

that many creatures have evolved

to spend the majority of their lives in the trees.

♪

[hiss]

From aggressive jaguarundi...

[hiss]

...to over 20 species of venomous snakes...

leaving the branches can be a death sentence.

♪

♪

And while no neighborhood in the rain forest is safe,

these arboreal animals prefer

taking their chances in the trees.

♪

♪

And one of them spends the night

looking for something very specific.

♪

♪

The kinkajou, a tree-bound mammal

who only grows to be two feet long.

But even though he's small, he's not afraid of the dark,

especially when it holds the promise of a delicious treat.

♪

[sniffing]

He sniffs the air, looking for a fix

on the sweet nectar of flowering plants.

♪

♪

These jewels of the forest are irresistible

to a kinkajou with a sweet tooth.

It's a win-win for both plant and animal,

because as he feeds on the sugar-dealing flowers,

they transfer pollen onto his fur,

which he'll spread throughout the forest.

♪

But his sugar addiction could get him in trouble.

[chirping]

Snakes utilize the plant life of the canopy

for entirely different reasons.

And they perch in strategic positions

that they know prey will pass by.

♪

♪

♪

Every night the kinkajou plays

the deadly game of Russian roulette,

going from one potentially lethal flower

to another for his fix.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[screech]

The kinkajou narrowly escaped a strike

from an eyelash pit viper.

♪

These venomous arboreal snakes are known

for the eyelash-like scales above their eyes

and their wide range of bright colors,

which are thought to help them blend in

with the alleyways of the trees.

♪

♪

While a kinkajou isn't on their menu,

a defensive strike from an eyelash pit viper

could kill him nonetheless.

♪

He got lucky, but the night is still young.

♪

And for the eyelash vipers, the hunt is just beginning.

♪

[distant whooping]

[screeching]

[low growling]

Against the noisy backdrop of another jungle night,

these flowers remain quiet hubs of insect activity,

which attract others from far and wide.

Including this hungry gecko.

♪

♪

All the eyelash pit viper has to do is sit and wait.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Death hides in the beauty of a Costa Rican rain forest.

♪

♪

♪

♪

The eyelash pit viper strikes with lethal precision,

winning herself fresh gecko for dinner.

Her venom floods through the gecko's veins,

destroying the gecko's red blood cells

and damaging its muscles.

[distant whooping]

♪

The eyelash pit viper lives her entire life in the trees,

so she maintains a tight grip on her prey

to avoid losing it to the forest floor.

♪

♪

Using her long fangs,

she maneuvers her meal into position

so she can swallow it headfirst.

♪

The gecko's fate serves as a reminder

to other tree dwellers:

even high off the forest floor, no one's safe.

♪

♪

[squeak]

♪

♪

While the vipers of the trees

wait for their meals to come to them,

down on the forest floor,

another predator searches for his.

[grunting]

This sturdy ground-dweller only grows to be two feet long.

But he's fearless.

And he'll eat just about anything.

This is a greater grison.

He covers the terrain in a zigzag pattern,

sniffing as he goes,

leaving no leaf or stone unturned

in his endless search for food.

♪

♪

And in this crowded animal metropolis,

it's only a matter of time

before he finds someone to hunt.

But this is no normal frog.

[grunting]

[grunting]

[grunting]

The grison catches up with his target,

one of the strangest frog species on the planet:

the smoky jungle frog.

This large amphibian possesses many tricks

to ward off attackers.

[meow]

First, she emits a croak that sounds like a cat,

to confuse the grison.

[meow]

For her second trick, she rises on her legs

to create the illusion that she's bigger than she is.

But these bluffs aren't enough

to keep the relentless grison at bay.

♪

So she resorts to her final trick.

Her skin emits a noxious toxin that hurts to breathe.

♪

The grison retreats into the forest

in search of an easier meal.

♪

♪

With dawn more than six hours away,

the grison will have other chances to feed.

But for one of the smallest and strangest predators

in the forest, six hours is an eternity.

♪

♪

This is the wolfsnail, and she's a cannibal.

♪

♪

Every night she hungers for the flesh of her own kind.

♪

♪

And she hunts them

by tracking the slime trails they leave behind.

♪

♪

♪

She zeros in on a juicy target.

But hunting at a snail's pace has its disadvantages.

And unbeknown to her, another predator is closing in.

One who also has a taste for escargot.

♪

♪

♪

In this rain forest,

even cannibalistic killers can become the hunted.

With six hours till sunrise,

a wolfsnail stalks others of her kind,

unaware that another predator is tracking her.

♪

♪

This is the cloudy snail-eater.

And he specializes in hunting slugs and snails.

♪

♪

He tracks the wolfsnail onto a mossy mound

and maneuvers into position to intercept his prey.

♪

The snail-eater remains completely still,

waiting for his target to come just a little closer.

♪

His patience pays off,

and the snail climbs right onto his back.

♪

♪

But even at this range,

the snake has to wait for the perfect moment to strike.

♪

Wolfsnails are some of the fastest gastropods

on the planet,

and they can quickly retract their heads to avoid strikes.

♪

To prevent the snake from getting another shot,

she climbs onto his head.

♪

♪

Her daring defense works,

and while he works to regain his composure,

she makes her escape.

♪

♪

But it's not long before he's distracted by another target:

a fat, juicy slug.

♪

♪

♪

And he finally wins a meal.

♪

♪

The wolfsnail has dodged death,

but her escape leads her into strange new terrain.

She's not the only creature in the forest

moving at a snail's pace.

[groan]

♪

♪

This is the two-toed sloth.

With a top speed of eight feet per minute,

he's one of the slowest animals in the forest.

♪

♪

His slimy hitchhiker hangs on

for the slowest ride of her life,

as he travels to the vegetation

he devours for dinner.

This low-calorie diet demands

that he conserve energy however possible.

♪

For the snail, it's an unexpected trip

to a new part of the forest.

[groan]

And as her ride makes a pit-stop,

she disembarks to continue her hunt.

[groan]

Sloths rarely descend to the forest floor

because of all the danger it holds.

[groan]

Leaving the safety of the trees is only risked

when absolutely necessary.

For the two-toed sloth,

this happens once a week...

[groan]

...when nature calls.

Unfortunately for the sloth,

the restrooms here are very public.

♪

And he has to do his business out in the open,

where all his neighbors can see,

even the more dangerous ones.

[groan]

Out here, getting caught with your pants down

can cost you your life.

And the[squish] is about to hit the fan.

[growl]

[groan]

A two-toed sloth is risking his life to take a bathroom break.

This is one of the only reasons

he ever descends from the trees,

because the forest floor of a Costa Rican rain forest

is where some of the deadliest predators in the world hunt.

And one of them approaches in the shadows.

[groan]

This cat is a master of stealth.

And while she isn't as big as a jaguar,

she's just as ferocious.

The ocelot.

A jungle cat with advanced binocular night vision.

In the moonlight, the sloth sticks out like a sore thumb.

A big target for a small ocelot.

But one she can't resist.

Her best hope for success

is to maintain the element of surprise.

♪

[howling]

[howling]

♪

[howling]

[whooping]

[howling]

The ocelot's misstep alerts a troop of howler monkeys.

[howling]

And these defensive primates have learned to use weapons,

throwing branches at any threat in their area.

[howling, whooping]

[howling, whooping]

The ocelot retreats to safer hunting grounds.

♪

♪

♪

With a neighborhood watch like this,

the sloth can safely return to the trees, fully relieved.

[whooping]

But the flying branches aren't welcomed by everyone.

♪

♪

This gladiator tree frog can leap distances

more than 30 times its body length.

This male uses his springiness to escape the chaos.

But there are far worse things in this jungle.

Like the deadliest snake in Costa Rica, the fer-de-lance.

♪

The gladiator frog freezes to avoid detection.

♪

But with death closing in,

he has to make a choice between fight or flight.

♪

♪

♪

The fer-de-lance can only watch

as the frog escapes back into the trees.

Only two hours of night remain,

and day-walkers try to get a little more rest

before sunrise.

[distant growling]

But this rain forest never sleeps,

and some of the busiest creatures here

work around the clock.

And they make the very trees ripple with energy.

Billions of termites live here,

and they labor insistently to devour wood.

But this massive colony has no idea

their world is about to be torn apart.

Thousands of lives are about to end,

as one of the strangest predators in Costa Rica

approaches a massive termite colony.

[growling]

♪

♪

♪

This is the tamandua.

A creature with the singular devotion

to hunting termites and their kind.

He rips into their nest with ravenous enthusiasm.

And while he doesn't have teeth,

he doesn't need them,

because his foot-long tongue is perfectly designed

for slurping up bugs.

The insectivore has his fill,

and the termites finally get a reprieve from his invasion.

The tamandua has poor eyesight.

So he relies on his sense of smell

to navigate through the thick jungle.

And while he's well adapted for hunting termites,

with no teeth and poor vision,

he's especially vulnerable to others.

Including a predator who is still on the hunt.

[grunting]

The grison.

[grunting]

[grunting]

But the tamandua has a nasty surprise

for anyone he perceives as a threat.

The odd-looking furball is armed and dangerous.

♪

Massive four-inch-long claws grow from the third digit

on each of his paws.

And they're sharp enough to disembowel

anything that comes too close.

The grison gets the message

and will have to go a little longer without a meal.

♪

♪

The tamandua's claws have another advantage,

and he uses them to climb

back into the relative safety of the trees.

With only an hour left till sunrise,

many rain forest creatures

hang on to whatever they can for safety.

But some do so in a stranger fashion than others.

♪

These gelatinous blobs...

are alive.

These are frog eggs.

This gelatinous coating offers limited protection

to the frog spawn inside,

while allowing gases like oxygen to enter,

and carbon dioxide to exit.

These globular clusters can sense vibrations

on the leaves they are mounted on,

and might hatch early if they detect a predator approaching.

Amphibians like these hourglass frogs

lay their eggs on these plants,

and it can take less than a week for the young to hatch

before falling to the pond below.

But a week is a long time in the wild,

especially as these gooey sacs of frog spawn

are an irresistible treat to many prowling hunters.

♪

And one of them is slithering nearby.

♪

♪

The cat-eyed snake.

♪

♪

♪

The frog parents are ill-equipped

to deal with the threat.

And in their defenseless state,

the only choice they have is to watch.

But another dangerous hunter close by

has other plans for the cat-eyed snake:

the grison whose stomach is still empty

after several failed attempts to catch food.

A tender snake would hit the spot.

[grunting]

[hiss]

[grunting]

[screeching]

[hissing]

[grunting]

The hungry grison eats at last.

And the hourglass frogs are safe,

but only for the moment.

Because there are things far scarier

than snakes in their corner of the rain forest.

Death on eight legs stalk a group of hourglass frogs.

And with less than an hour left of night,

they may not live to see another sunrise.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

This nightmarish hunter is a wandering spider.

And on this bromeliad, she has many places to hide.

And she satisfies her hunger with insects and amphibians.

♪

♪

The frogs sense the presence of something close by.

But this eight-legged hunter knows how to approach unseen.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

The hourglass frog leaps away just in time.

But there are other options close by.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

The spider's venom contains a cocktail of toxins

that work by immobilizing her catch;

stopping its breathing; and liquefying its insides

by breaking down cellular structures.

[slurping]

This creates a nutritious stew that she sucks out of her prey.

[slurping]

[slurping]

♪

Having had her fill, she wraps up the leftovers.

♪

♪

♪

She heads back into the rain forest

to scout for new hunting grounds.

♪

♪

Wandering spiders rarely stay in one place for long.

♪

But her wanderlust brings her into close proximity

with a ravenous stranger.

♪

♪

[crunch]

♪

The cane toad, one of the largest and toughest

toad species on the planet.

[croak]

This amphibian is adapted

for life on the mean streets of a forest floor.

He rarely returns to water, except to breed.

♪

♪

He'll eat just about anything he can fit into his mouth.

♪

But he's hopped right into the strike zone

of the fer-de-lance.

And she isn't letting another meal escape.

♪

♪

She hits the cane toad with a powerful strike.

♪

But bony ridges on his forehead protect him from her fangs.

And he leaves her with a nasty surprise.

[hissing]

The cane toad secretes a nasty toxin

which stuns the snake and allows him to escape.

♪

Just as dawn arrives.

A violent night in the rain forest reaches its end.

[bird singing]

And exotic bird songs celebrate the return of the sun.

But its warm glow is no guarantee of safety.

♪

And thousands of daytime hunters prepare to feed.

[hissing]

Captioned by Side Door Media Services

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0