Beyond the limits of the human eye
life holds secrets we never imagined.
Attacks, too fast to see
mysteries of survival and death
Our crew will break extreme conditions
using the most advanced photographic technology.
to reveal these connections between living things.
Faster, slower, closer.
capturing the beauty and brutality of nature
at The Speed of Life.
CENTRAL AMERICAN KILLERS
In nature, time is marked by the rise and fall of the sun and moon.
At any given moment some creatures sleep
while others forage and kill.
To capture this 24-hour cycle
A team of wildlife photographers must sink up to natures clock.
Or their mission will fail.
They've invaded a realm where there is no such thing as a timeout.
Central America, one of the most biodiversed wildland on the planet.
Consisting of 7 contiguous countries
it's a bridge of land bordered by two oceans.
No wider than 300 miles across
and covered with steaming jungles and rainforests
Awaiting the team is a hidden realm
that contains over a half million plant and animal species.
for plant life, the moisture and temperatures make this region a paradise
But for the creatures here
this lush green world is one, big killzone.
By day and by night.
Thousands of species are nocturnal.
But using light sensitive cameras
the team hopes to capture their secrets
and sometimes, violent lives.
Struggling to survive two forces
One on constant attack, the other on the defense.
Snakes and frogs
This tree frog is perfectly camouflaged against the background of lush greens.
But the foliages are also filled with brilliant flowers.
And the animals here have grown accustomed to the contrast.
This brightly colored and toxic jungle dweller
has the face of a demon and a taste for frogs.
It's an agile predator, named after the curious scales above each eye.
The yellow eyelash viper.
Armed with fangs as sharp as hypodermic needles
this two-foot male has two speeds. Slow and incredibly fast.
It can strike at speeds approaching 100 miles an hour.
Eyelash vipers can lay and wait for hours or days on end withour moving a muscle.
Some naturalists speculate his colory and behaviour
mimics a stationary yellow orchid to fool on coming prey.
This green tree frog has hopped into the viper's killzone.
seemingly unaware.
It's now staring death, right in the face.
In real time the strike is lightning fast.
But slowed down to 2000 frames per second
the viper's awesome attack is revealed.
A jolt of venom injected through the snakes hallow fangs
immobilizes the frog as it's eaten alive.
It will take this male three days to digest his kill.
Then once again he'll lay and wait for more victims in the night.
Now, the rising light awakens a new shift of predators and prey.
To survive, they've evolved some eye-popping strategies.
seeing them in action is the hard part.
Breaking through these visual barriers
requires advanced cameras and optics.
Come through.
We're looking for an ideal spot to start a zip line
This is the zip line rig. It runs on two motorcycle batteries.
It's gonna be pulling about 1,000 pounds of force on it.
A zip line camera mounted on a remotely operated vehicle can traverse the canopy.
It's built to move silently at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour.
And gives the team access to the animals that are easily spooked by intruders.
Yeah, it looks good man.
The crew will stop the vehicle at different elevations.
and pan the camera with servo motors.
Midway through the trees, a ghostly blur.
One of the forest's most elusive creatures.
The largest primate of the New World.
The undisputed king of the canopy.
The howler monkey.
It can amble from tree to tree as easily as we cross the living room.
This young male has left his colony to forage alone for the first time.
His top speed through the trees, 18 mph.
He clings to the branches using his feet and five-fingered hand.
Howlers also have a fifth hand in the form of a strong prehensile tail.
Howlers are picky vegetarians.
And play a very important part in seed dispersal in the ecosystem.
But this young howler's picnic
has led him far away from his troop.
and now, he is lost.
A harpy eagle has the howler in its sights.
And down at the base of his tree
an 80-pound boa constrictor.
Its felixible jaws can swallow a monkey whole.
It's homed in on the scent of the howler and heads up from the jungle floor.
Then comes an unmistakable sound
It's the young male's colony, marking their position.
They're not called "howlers" for nothing.
The only creature louder on earth is the blue whale.
Using the calls as a beacon the young male heads for home
where there is safety in numbers.
Instead of swinging like chimps
howlers have evolved to leap from tree to tree
Within minutes, he is home again.
Howlers have a sweet tooth, and the clan has found some fruit.
In spite of their dexterity, these monkeys are sloppy.
But what falls from the canopy's upper story, is welcome by some residents in the basement.
The basilisk lizard.
They have a life span of ten years.
But only if they avoid predators.
Basilisks make their home directly below the howlers' favourite trees.
Here, this female dines on fallen scraps
as well as the insects that come to eat them.
Basilisk rely on skin pigments that match vegetation perfectly.
Like all lizards they get their body heat from the sun.
Her eyes move independently
and provide excellent color detection for both prey and the predators that hunt her.
One of the deadliest shares its coloring pattern with the tiger.
And its every bit is stealthy.
this predator is so elusive, no one knows how long they can live.
Males like this, can grow nearly 12 feet long.
The tiger rat snake.
It will eat virtually anything it can get its fangs on.
It kills its victims by constriction and swallows them.
Now this male is locked on to the scent of the basilisk.
The lizards weight is spread through its powerful legs and widely-spread toes.
And very soon, her life will depend on just how fast they can move.
The lizard finally senses the snake's presence.
Her camouflage has failed.
But her next move is nothing short of miraculous.
Just one way will see prey turn the tables on predators
at The Speed of Life.
The sun has nearly risen to its midday apex.
Each degree of its journey from east to west
marked by the struggle of countless creatures
trying to survive another 24 hours.
12:06 PM, in Siquirres, Costa Rica.
The life of this basilisk has reached a crossroad.
Its mortal enemy, a hungry rat snake has pursued her to the edge of the river.
The lizard has just one option left.
An escape strategy like none other in the natural world.
Slow motion cameras reveal her speed at 5 feet per second.
Her escape strategy is foolproof
because no predator is equipped to run on water.
Air pockets form beneath her hind feet
just enough buoyancy to keep her up on the surface.
These runs cover about 15 feet.
After that, gravity overtakes the lizards forward motion.
Time elapsed, 6 seconds.
Enough to leave the tiger rat snake safely behind.
And another benefit of running on water
is that the lizard leaves no scent trail for the snake to follow.
No predators inside.
At least at the surface.
But lurking below is a major threat
cloaked in its own extraordinary camouflage.
this prehistoric beast is armed with a pair of sharp-edged cutting mandibles
and tremendously powerful jaw muscles.
It's a 30-pound snapping turtle.
With the temperament of a hungry junkyard dog.
This female could easily snap off your finger.
And do it in under half a second.
Snapping turtles eat virtually anything dead or alive.
at virtually any time of the day.
and this day could spell doom for the lizard.
The turle is positioned directly in her path.
A lightning fast attack from below
caught in the turtle's vice-like jaws.
The lizard is pulled below and consumed.
The ambush spooks one of the Pan's most delicate residents
The wings are unique and nothing short of amazing.
A blue skimmer dragonfly.
By changing the way they move
this male can manouvre in all directions.
And hover as steady as a helicopter.
To navigate, his eyes have about 30,000 lenses
for wrap-around vision.
But today, it's headed for a deadly trap.
Managed by a gang of 8-legged killers.
They start life about the size of a pinhead
6 month later, they're grown into predators with 8 inch leg spans.
Seen for the first time in slow motion macro photography
this pulsating flaps or spiricles
regulate levels of CO2 and oxygen in the spider's respiratory system.
They only live about a year.
But only if they kill and eat their prey from sunrise to sunrise before they die.
This golden orb web spider oversees a treacherous network of silk.
Few creatures that fly into the complex web she's helping to build ever escape.
And the dragonfly is not one of them.
Slow motion photography reveals it hitting the web at 36 mph.
As it struggles to escape
the dragonfly is killed by female orb weaver with a jolt of nerotoxins
injected through her fangs.
Only now will this male spider, 1/10 her size, dare to join her.
While the female is busy with the kill
it considers grabbing a scrap but decides to back off.
There is no love here
After mating, the female will eat him.
Elsewhere on the web, another female has already killed her mate.
As she begins to devour him
Her sister deals with web maintenance and repair.
Because this process is complex and time-consuming
at least a half dozen females must work as one.
A cooperative strategy, unique to their species.
Silk production begins with proteins, produced by a special gland.
When she is ready to weave
the female uses her legs to draw thread out through a hallow nozzle in her belly.
The web is made of two different fibres.
One is sticky to catch animals.
The other type, called "drag line" is smooth.
Spiders use drag line strands to walk the web
without getting stuck like their victims.
A thread, the diameter of a pencil
could restrain a fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier.
No man-made fibre even come close at strength.
It will take the team of 6 females roughly 300 hours
to complete one of the deadliest wonders of the natural world.
It's suspended between two trees
and it's blocking one of the busiest fly zones of the rainforest.
Total area, a staggering 200 square feet.
The spiders need to rid the web of all debris and constantly repair it
to make room for new victims that hurdle into the web every minute.
A cicada ploughs into the web's center
But escapes through a tear left by a previous kill.
The damage must be spot repaired.
Or other potential meals will be lost.
A well maintained web can last as long as 2 years, outliving some of its builders.
But before the females can finish the day's repairs
their giant silk trap suffers a massive blow.
And this fruit bat will find himself in a terrifying predicament.
Coming up, a green phantom makes a death defying leap.
And later, caviar for cat for a cat-eyed predator.
In Central America, the midday sun begins its slow decline
giving the team some relief from the oppressive heat
as they capture a life or death struggle
that's just beginning deep in the rainforest.
This male fruit bat never saw it coming.
The more it struggles, the more sticky thread adheres to its body
tearing the web.
To kill the bat, all the females would have to attack at once, using all their venom.
But getting close enough to plunge in their fangs
will expose them to death from sharp teeth that lie in the male's jaws.
The best strategy, let time and the web do their dirty work.
The more the young bat struggles
the more mashed and exhousted he'll become.
As the bat frees one part of his body, another part gets caught.
The orb weaver strategy seems to be working.
Until the bat comes up with one of his own.
It begins to chew through the supertough strands
keeping his movement to a minimum.
As the male bat hangs by a silk noose
his execution has decided to close in before he can escape.
With his last ounce of strength, the bat breaks free.
His flight path takes him upward
through levels of the canopy seldom explored until now.
This is a world, where different creatures live at different heights.
Getting to all of them
means rigging the camera to move vertically from one canopy habitat to the next.
To accomplish their mission
they anchor a line at the top of a high tree.
Attached to the line, a high-strength lightweight sled
to carry a remote controlled camera skyward.
This vertical world is inhabited by nature's most elusive species.
One of the most striking residents grows a crown of spines from its cranium.
This creature makes its home in the hallows of the trees.
The coronated tree frog.
Its sensitive eyes scan the leaves and branches for predators
that haunt every story of the rainforest.
This one, slither silently.
Camouflaged by a scale pattern that mimics the specled sunlight of the canopy.
The cat eyed snake.
Named after its cat-like eliptical pupils.
They're designed to adjust to the canopy's changing light conditions.
This one is a hungry female.
Her favourite prey, the jewels of the rainforest.
Tree frogs.
Adhesive disks on the tips of their toes and fingers
allow them to climb up any surface.
Some species, like this 4 inch male adult
have legs and hands large with strange, flipper-like webbing.
The team is about to discover what these strange hands and feet are designed for
when the cat eye closes in on a frog.
The male has only seconds to live.
Unable to evade the snake
His next move explains why he is called the flying tree frog.
The frog jumps into space, some three storys above the forest floor.
The flying tree frogs arch their backs
and extend their arms and legs like skydivers.
They use their webbed hands and feet to make a control of descend.
Another battle in the epic war between rainforest snakes and frogs
ends with a safe landing for the flying amphibian.
But the cat eyed snake's insatiable thirst for frogs
is only intensified by the defeat.
There are plenty more targets to choose from, and this one can't fly.
The red-eyed tree frog.
It's the middle of the breeding season
and this female has already laid her clutch of eggs.
She's left them on a wide leaf where the heat of the sun will keep them warm.
Each egg contains a tadpole, full of fat.
The perfect feast for the hungry snake.
To perpetuate her species
the female frog must lead the snake away from her tadpoles.
To do this, she'll use a survival strategy based on color.
Cat-eyed snakes rely on their sense of smell to track their prey.
But they also use their vision.
And that's what the frog is counting on.
The female bulges her bright red eyes the second she senses the snake.
She also shows the vivid colors on her flanks.
The snake's eyes lock tightly on these brilliant reds and greens.
When the frog jumps away,
the predators eyes remain focused on her colorful ghost.
This female can't skydive.
But she can jump 10 times her body length.
The frog is safe, but not her eggs.
Following their scent, the snake slides up to a massive feast, there for the taking
This juicy globe of frog caviar could sustain the cat-eyed for up to 72 hours.
But in this amazing world, even the unborn have strategies for survival.
Coming up, a venomous killing machine stalks the forest floor.
And later, a night hunter armed with toxic goo
4:20 PM, Osage Peninsula, Costa Rica.
The sun is the giver of all life in the rainforests of Costa Rica.
It's also the clock that measures the speed of life for all living things here.
Most vulnerable are the young. Among them, this clutch of red-eyed tadpoles.
To the team, the eggs look completely exposed.
And vulnerable to any predator.
But as the cat-eyed snake moves in, the outcome is less certain.
Even in their egg sacks,
tadpoles can sense the difference between a brush of a predator
from a wisp of wind.
As the snake decides which baby to eat first
the vibrations from its tongue and body sets off an alarm in the young frogs.
Suddenly, the development of their brains and nervous systems speeds up
providing each tadpole just enough coordination
to burst free from their eggsacks
Shot in super slow motion the tadpoles' great escape begins.
The mass break out is so complete
the snake winds up with just a few young and a mouthful of jelly.
The rest of the tadpoles wiggle away.
Dropping like tears from leaf to leaf
their ultimate destination, a forest pool.
It's no accident that tree frogs are wired to lay their eggs overstanding water.
Helpless prey have turned the tables on the predator.
Living proof that here in the Costa Rican rainforest
the team should expect the unexpected.
Down on the forest floor,
a pink toed predator sets off to hunt.
Just like the canopy above
the cratures that live on the rainforest floor
have evolved to adapt some startling features.
This one is armed with agile legs and powerful fangs.
The pinktoe tarantula.
Every nook and cranny at the forest floor is crawling with 8-legged hunters
One of them isn't much bigger than a tarantula's toe.
But its deadly features and hunting prowess are unsurpassed
An ambush predator, it lurks in the bushes just over the forest floor.
The closer you look at it, the more awesome it gets.
It scans for prey through 8 eyes.
The jumping spider.
This tiny hunter weighs just 0,015 grams.
By altering the pressure of his body fluid
the legs on this male could out incredible energy
without the need for large muscles.
Just below him, this fly is unaware it's being stalked.
This gives the spider just enough time for a daring attack.
The male tedders himself with a strand of silk.
Then, like a suicidal bungee jumper
he leaps into space at his target.
Seen in superslow motion
the spider freefalls 100 times his body length
The odds of success, unknown.
Coming up, skin that kills.
Magic mushrooms that bend reality.
And later, the rainforest legendary slow motion hermit
comes into the light.
As the angle of the sun declines
the rainforest thermostat dials down
just a five degree temperature drop
is enough to activate a new shift of predators and prey.
For this extraordinary hunter
48 hours without a kill means starvation and death.
The male jumping spider.
His target,
a forest fly resting on a leaf far below him.
Now, an all or nothing leap
to survive for another day.
A pinpoint landing puts the spider within striking distance of this prey.
Next, he pumps up the hydrolic pressure that powers his legs for a final launch.
He delivers a shot of venom from his hidden fangs.
As the fly struggles in the spider's deadly grasp
both lose their footing.
But this assassin is anchored to a safety line
from where he initiated his attack.
After feeding, it's time to hunt for more games on the lower forest floor.
Here, what looks like endless expanse of dead leaf litter
actually has a life of its own.
Fast carpets of fungi grow to maturity in just a single day.
The rank smell attracts insects that eat fungus, spores and all.
When insects excrete fungus spores, new colonies grow
covering areas as large as 2200 acres.
Bright colors on mushrooms and plants are often warnings they contain lethal poisons.
And that can hold true with animals as well.
The glowing pigments on the skin of this creature are the ultimate example.
Poison dart frogs.
These forest floor amphibians are fiercely territorial
and among the most toxic animals on earth.
About the length of a paper clip
the poisons oozing from the skin of this tiny female
are potent enough to kill 10 grown men in a matter of minutes.
The frog can shoot his tongue out a quarter of his body length.
The action is so fast
his insect prey has literally no chance to escape.
Scientists speculate that frogs
accumulate their venoms from the poisons of the insects they eat.
Darkness now creeps into the canopy
As the last rays of light linger on the leaves,
delicate phantoms emerge to start the night shift.
One of the most breath-taking creatures
looks more like a priceless crystal figurine.
This elusive predator will soon make its first kill of the night.
Coming up, a night hunter filled with toxic goo.
And the hairiest creeper of the rainforest.
The rainforest sun is the main spring of natural time
for all life in Central America's rainforests.
But as day cycles to night, each passing minute reveals
creatures with survival strategies that seem more like science-fiction in fact.
This one is so elusive
little is known of its extraordinary natural history.
What we do know is its camouflage as a wonder of the natural world.
The glass frog.
This female is about the size of a human fingernail.
It makes its home under the leaf litter at the forest floor.
Seen through a macro lens, her belly skin is so translucent
her red heart about the size of a rice grain is clearly visible
beating 40 times a minute.
Some biologists speculate that the lack of belly pigmentation
allows light reflected off the leaves to shine through the glass frogs body
cloaking it in a green glow.
But even this gorgeous creatures have to eat.
They'll feed on small insects and sometimes, their own young.
As the glass frog prowls the understory
another fantastic creature haunts the forest floor.
The most bizarre example of deadly coloration is also a marvel of evolution.
The velvet worm is a missing evolutionary link
between hard-shelled insects and the worm family.
It creeps around the forest floor on dozens of false legs called "lobal pods"
which are unjointed fleshy extremities connected to the abdomen.
Its thin, colorful skin looks velvety
because it's covered with thousands of sensory hairs
that may help it locate prey.
The Day-glo colors are a warning that their bodies are highly poisonous.
Velvet worms can actually spit a toxic adhesive goo from nozzles below its antennae
to immobilize and kill attackers or prey.
The team began this journey at dawn.
And in a few hours the sun will rise once more.
Now, the last hours of night
provides a measure of safety for one of the oddest creatures in all the rainforest.
The size of a small dog
these slowpokes are covered with damp fur.
Absolute top speed, 15 feet an hour.
The only thing slower than a sloth is a sloth that's slower.
They live almost entirely in the canopy
descending on long-nailed feet for the occasional drink of water or to change trees.
Tonight, this one seems intrigued by team's remote camera.
The tranquil hypnotic gaze of this female
signals that a day in the life of Central America's wildlands has come to a close.
A day that has revealed extraordinary adaptations
from creatures that can run on water
to those who skydive for survival.
This is the realm where even the unborn are wired to survive.
And the distant howls of family show the way home.
All at The Speed of Life.