BBC Wild South America_1of6_Lost Worlds
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00:30South America is a continent of extremes.
00:49It has the world's longest mountain range, the Andes.
00:58In Amazonia, it has the mightiest river and the greatest expanse of rainforest on the
01:03planet.
01:08And the driest desert on earth, the Atacama, lies beside one of the world's richest seas.
01:27South America also contains incredible variety.
01:36Almost no other continent can boast such a wealth of wildlife living in such a range
01:41of different landscapes.
02:11Almost everywhere you go, there's an extraordinary diversity of life, but how did all these unique
02:32worlds come about?
02:47To understand the natural history of South America, we must go back in time, back to
02:53the age of the dinosaurs.
02:57South America was then part of Gondwana, a massive continent that also included what
03:03are now Africa, Australia, India, and Antarctica.
03:15This was a world dominated by reptiles.
03:31Descendants of those ancient creatures still live in South America today, and the forests
03:37of southern Chile still have plants that the dinosaurs would have recognized.
03:42The ferns and the bizarre monkey puzzle tree.
03:52Then a new group of animals appeared, animals like this.
04:03The early mammals were small and many were marsupials, like this shrew opossum.
04:13It lives in the cold, damp forests of southern Chile, where it hunts for insects and earthworms.
04:23The shrew opossum shares these ancient forests with this other small marsupial.
04:29Some people call it the monito del monte, or monkey of the mountains.
04:34It's so tiny you could hold it in the palm of your hand.
04:41It too eats insects, but also has a taste for fruit.
04:49When we think of mammals with a pouch, it's perhaps Australia with its kangaroos that
04:54comes to mind.
04:55But South America also has over 80 species of marsupial, a legacy of the time when the
05:01two continents were joined together.
05:16Around a hundred million years ago, the giant continent of Gondwana slowly split apart.
05:24South America became an enormous island, cut off from the rest of the world.
05:31The next chapter in South America's history was violent and prolonged.
05:38It changed the face of the continent forever.
05:48Starting some 80 million years ago, the island was convulsed by a series of massive volcanic
05:53eruptions that continue today.
06:03Forced up by movements deep in the earth's crust, a huge chain of mountains arose, spanning
06:08the length of the continent, the Andes.
06:15Running over 5,000 miles, this is the longest mountain chain on earth.
06:23At its northern end, tropical cloud forest covers the slopes, yet its peaks are so high
06:32that even on the equator, they carry permanent snow and ice.
06:47In the central Andes, there's a high, dry desert, the Altiplano.
06:55As you travel further south, the mountains are lower, but they're that much closer to
07:05the Antarctic.
07:31In the far south, the Patagonian ice sheets are the largest expanse of ice outside the
07:36polar regions.
07:38They cover more than 7,000 square miles and their glaciers flow all the way to the sea.
07:56But even here, in the shadow of the ice, animals survive.
08:27Only the hardiest can withstand the ferocious winds and heavy snow of winter, like the grey
08:34fox looking for buried stores of food, the puma, lion of the Andes, and the thick-coated
08:45guanacos.
08:49Those are related to camels, and they're found only in South America.
09:05Patagonia may be severe, but it's not the most extreme part of the Andes.
09:10That's back in the heart of the range, an oxygen-starved plateau more than 4,000 metres
09:19Here in the Altiplano, meltwater from the surrounding peaks evaporates in huge salt
09:25lakes.
09:27Frozen by night and baked by day, these caustic salt flats must be one of the most inhospitable
09:33places on earth.
09:41This is Celar d'Uni, in the Bolivian Andes.
09:45Covering 4,500 square miles, it's the largest expanse of salt on the planet.
09:58Incredibly, islands in this sea of salt actually support life.
10:07Viscachas.
10:12These rabbit-sized rodents have to contend with thin air, bitter cold, and an almost
10:17total lack of water.
10:19They get just enough moisture to survive from their food.
10:23Thick fur keeps them warm, and extra red blood cells help to absorb sufficient oxygen.
10:32The thin air is a problem for this hummingbird, too.
10:36To conserve energy when it's feeding, it has to perch rather than hover.
10:45The high Altiplano may seem hostile, but some animals actually choose to come here.
11:07Flamingos come here to breed because these caustic waters are full of their favourite
11:13food.
11:16They display to each other with a massed courtship dance.
11:36The rise of the Andes created whole new environments within the mountains, but it also had more
12:01far-reaching effects.
12:07This great barrier changed the climate of South America.
12:24It also redrew the map of the entire continent, radically altering the course of its major
12:29rivers.
12:53The Iguaçu Falls are one of the wonders of the world.
13:04Four times as wide as Niagara, they carry 60,000 tonnes of water a second.
13:14Part of Amazonia was once a huge swamp, connected to the Pacific and the Caribbean.
13:21The rise of the Andes broke those links, forcing the major rivers to flow east.
13:28One massive river now drains 40% of South America, the Amazon.
13:39This is the mightiest river on earth.
13:43Running over 4,000 miles from the Andes to the ocean, it carries a fifth of all the river
13:48water on the planet.
13:55A thousand miles before it reaches the sea, its main channel is already 10 miles wide.
14:05Every year, the mighty Amazon bursts its banks, flooding an area of forest the size of England.
14:23At the height of the flood, the trees can stand in water 10 metres deep.
14:35The floodwaters bring with them the animals of the river, like Boto dolphins.
14:42Their origins are a mystery.
14:44Could they be a relic of Amazonia's ancient links with the oceans?
14:49These river dolphins are almost blind, no handicap in water that's often very muddy,
14:54because they navigate by echolocation.
14:58Unlike marine dolphins, they have a flexible neck, so by sweeping their head from side
15:03to side, they can scan their path ahead.
15:14Their sonar is so precise that they can weave their way through a maze of submerged branches
15:19in search of fish.
15:27Whisker-like bristles on their lips help them zero in on their target.
15:34The Boto's origins may be mysterious, but some of the Amazon's fish certainly have a
15:39marine ancestry, like stingrays.
15:44Their nearest living relatives are in the Caribbean.
15:50The Amazon has over 3,000 kinds of fish.
15:54This is the pirarucu, the world's largest freshwater fish.
16:04These are the most notorious, piranhas.
16:20The variety of life in these waters is extraordinary, and with so many fish, there are bound to
16:26be fish hunters.
16:34In this water world, caiman are the top of the food chain, the aquatic equivalent of
16:40the jaguar.
16:50Red-bellied piranhas are predators themselves, but to a caiman, they're just another mouthful.
17:04The Amazon River and its tributaries drain the largest expanse of tropical rainforest
17:09on Earth.
17:15Stretching almost unbroken from the Andes to the Atlantic, the Amazon jungle has a greater
17:20variety of life than any other forest on the planet.
17:42In just over two square miles of forest, scientists have counted 3,000 varieties of plants, 530
17:49kinds of birds, and 11 different species of monkeys.
18:07There are countless reptiles, amphibians, and insects.
18:13650 species of beetle and 80 kinds of ant have been found on a single tree.
18:23Scientists disagree about the reasons for this diversity, but in almost every group
18:28of animals, the number of different species is extraordinary.
18:38Because there are so many species, most of them have to specialize.
18:43Pygmy marmosets are the world's smallest monkey.
18:47They live on the sap of just a few kinds of tree, gouging the bark with special teeth
18:52to release its flow.
18:56There are just one of over 30 species of marmoset and tamarin in the Amazon basin, a group of
19:01monkeys unique to the lowland rainforests of South America.
19:16Like these tassel-eared marmosets, most live in family groups.
19:20A breeding female lives with one or more adult males and several youngsters.
19:26Females typically give birth to twins, and unusually among monkeys, it's the father who's
19:31left holding the babies.
19:41Tassel-eared marmosets are opportunists.
19:44As well as gum, they eat insects, fruit, birds' eggs, small snakes, and lizards.
19:50Almost anything they can get their hands on.
19:55The youngsters must develop fast if they're to survive in the dangerous and competitive
19:59world of the rainforest.
20:20Amazonia lies on the eastern side of the Andes, and here torrential tropical rains water the
20:26prolific jungle.
20:34But the mountains block the moisture-bearing winds, so some of the western side receives
20:40almost no rain.
20:44Here lies the world's driest desert, the Atacama.
21:03The Atacama can go for years with literally no rain at all.
21:08It's hard to imagine how anything could survive here.
21:25And yet it does.
21:28Guanacos.
21:30These South American camels can tolerate extremes of heat and cold.
21:35A desert might seem a better place for a camel than the snows of Patagonia, but the
21:40Atacama is a challenge even for them.
21:49Daytime temperatures can rise to 40 degrees.
21:58The only relief is a dry dust bath.
22:06But what can they live on?
22:08With hardly any water here, how could plants possibly grow?
22:16This is the key to survival in the Atacama, the Pacific Ocean.
22:25The desert is a narrow strip between the mountains and the sea.
22:30Moist air over the water is chilled by a cold ocean current just offshore.
22:35So every day, a blanket of fog rolls in from the Pacific.
23:05The fog is almost the only source of water in the desert.
23:33Moisture condenses on the cactus spines, enough for lichen to grow.
23:39And every morning, the lichen is covered with precious droplets of water.
23:48This water provides a life-giving drink for the few hardy inhabitants of the Atacama,
23:54the Duca finches.
24:12The guanacos obtain moisture by eating the lichen, delicately extracting it from between
24:17cactus spines with their soft, sensitive lips.
24:25They also eat the flowers of a parasitic plant that grows on the cactus.
24:29Called quintral, it's sweet and full of nectar.
24:38Guanacos, and everything else in this desert, are living on the edge.
24:43Without the moisture from the early morning fog, life in the Atacama would be almost impossible.
25:04As you travel south, the prevailing weather comes from the opposite direction,
25:08so the eastern side of the continent is dry.
25:18But here, lack of water is not the most extreme problem.
25:22It's the wind.
25:27This is the land of the roaring forties, ferocious winds that batter the dry, grassy steppes of Patagonia.
25:38Anything that lives here has to contend with almost incessant gales.
25:42These are maras, large rodents unique to South America.
25:50Adult maras live and give birth to their young in the open,
25:53but they rear them in an underground burrow,
25:56sheltered from the cold winds and predators like foxes.
26:04Mara territories overlap, so often several pairs share a burrow.
26:09These warrens act as a community creche.
26:13The parents can leave their young to go and feed, but there's always someone to keep an eye on them.
26:21The nursery can have 20 or 30 young.
26:25Sometimes hungry infants try to suckle from the babysitter.
26:30She tries to drive them off, but they can steal a tenth of their milk this way.
26:43In windswept Patagonia, a hole in the ground counts as prime real estate,
26:48and it's a magnet for squatters.
26:52Here, even the birds nest underground.
27:01As soon as the maras' backs are turned, burrowing owls try to take over their home.
27:14Could this be the moment to move in?
27:32But they're soon spotted.
27:45The burrow is a perfect place for a nest.
27:50The burrow is a perfect place for a nest.
27:55The burrow is a perfect place for a nest.
28:00The burrow is a perfect place for a nest.
28:05The burrow is a perfect place for a nest.
28:11The burrow is a perfect place for a nest.
28:21This time, the squatters are evicted.
28:24The maras keep their burrow.
28:32In Patagonia, burrowing owls aren't the only birds that nest underground.
28:39With no trees to nest in, burrowing parrots excavate holes in a sandstone cliff.
28:58There can be over 50,000 birds in these colonies.
29:03This is one of the few places on Earth where parrots nest by the seaside.
29:17The diversity of South American wildlife doesn't end at the coastline.
29:23The seas that surround the continent are some of the richest in the world.
29:34Upwellings of cold, nutrient-rich water feed huge shoals of fish,
29:40food in turn for seabirds and marine mammals.
29:46This is one of the richest in the world.
29:51Upwellings of cold, nutrient-rich water feed huge shoals of fish,
29:57food in turn for seabirds and marine mammals.
30:16The sheer numbers of fish here are astounding.
30:20A single shoal of anchovies can be hundreds of thousands strong.
30:26These huge concentrations inevitably attract predators.
30:31Dusky dolphins.
30:35The dolphins' migrations are synchronized with the anchovies' movements.
30:42For the defenseless anchovies, there seems to be safety in numbers.
30:48When they come under attack, they bunch more tightly together
30:53to form a dizzying ball of swirling fins and scales.
30:58The dolphins find it harder to target any single fish in this dense mass,
31:04so they try to break the balance.
31:09Once the shoal has been split, the dolphins confuse the fish
31:14and scatter them even more by blowing bubbles
31:18and by emitting high-frequency sounds that stun them.
31:28The dolphins are not afraid of water.
31:34This drives them to the surface, where they become easy prey for seabirds, too.
31:49Attracted by the disturbance, yet more hunters join the attack.
31:54Southern sea lions.
31:59Under assault from all sides, the fish are now totally disoriented.
32:04Trapped at the center of this feeding frenzy, they don't stand a chance.
32:10The dolphins are not afraid of water.
32:14This drives them to the surface, where they become easy prey for seabirds, too.
32:20Attracted by the disturbance, yet more hunters join the attack.
32:25They don't stand a chance.
32:29Magellanic penguins mop up the last survivors.
33:00At the end, all that's left are tiny fish scales,
33:05drifting down into the deep.
33:13For almost a hundred million years, South America was an island.
33:18Its animals evolved in isolation,
33:21cut off from the rest of the world by the surrounding sea.
33:26But around three million years ago,
33:29the same kind of movements of the Earth's crust that built the Andes
33:33raised a land bridge joining North and South America.
33:37Animals could now pass easily between the continents.
33:41The impact on South America was profound.
33:56Among the first mammals to arrive were these, coatis.
34:01Relatives of the North American raccoons,
34:04they're active, agile, intelligent and adaptable.
34:13They quickly colonized this land of new opportunities.
34:17Today they're found as far south as Argentina.
34:22These early invaders soon made South America's forests their own.
34:31For the continent's original inhabitants, like the sloth,
34:35life would never be the same again.
34:38These brash newcomers were just so fast.
34:43Sloths are lethargic by nature, as well as by name.
34:47They have a low body temperature and very slow metabolism.
35:01Sloths have hung on by the sea for thousands of years.
35:05They've been around for thousands of years.
35:10Sloths have hung on by doing one thing supremely well,
35:14eating and digesting leaves.
35:22Coatis succeed because they're opportunists,
35:25quick to seek out any new snack.
35:28They leave sloths behind at the starting line.
35:34They're social animals,
35:36living in bands of up to 20 females and their youngsters.
35:40And they're omnivorous, eating fruit, insects, spiders,
35:44slugs, fish, snakes, birds and mammals,
35:47almost anything they can find.
35:57A flexible nose and a good sense of smell
36:00help them sniff out the slightest chance of a meal.
36:07These early colonists were soon followed by others,
36:11larger and more deadly, like the jaguar.
36:19South America had large carnivores before,
36:22cat- and dog-like marsupials,
36:25but many had already died.
36:28The jaguar was the first of its kind.
36:33Coatis may have had it easy when they first arrived,
36:37but once large hunters followed, life became tougher.
36:46The jaguar was the first of its kind,
36:49but many had already died before the newcomers got here.
36:57Coatis may have had it easy when they first arrived,
37:01but once large hunters followed, life became tougher.
37:27On the whole, the invaders were very successful.
37:30Some may have out-competed the original inhabitants,
37:33others may have eaten them,
37:35but many of the new animals simply moved into spaces
37:38that were already empty.
37:40Today, almost half of South America's mammal families
37:43are North American in origin.
37:48Eventually, the immigrants in this newfound land
37:51spread to all corners of the continent.
38:01As the invaders adapted to their new surroundings,
38:04some evolved into new forms.
38:10A simple dog-like ancestor gave rise to this,
38:14the maned wolf.
38:18Like a fox on stilts, this long-legged predator
38:21hunts the grassy plains of southern Brazil.
38:24It eats small animals and must travel long distances
38:27to find enough to eat.
38:36The Great Plains are one of South America's most ancient landscapes.
38:40Throughout the continent's history,
38:42they've remained relatively unchanged.
38:45Today, they have a strange mixture of animals,
38:48the old and the new.
38:51Deer are relatively recent arrivals from North America.
38:54On the plains, they rub shoulders with animals
38:57that have been here for tens of millions of years.
39:04Like the rhea,
39:06South America's equivalent of the ostrich.
39:14The deer have been here for thousands of years.
39:18If the maned wolf is one of the most recent animals on the plains,
39:22this is one of the oldest.
39:26The giant anteater.
39:30It's one of the most specialised insect eaters on Earth,
39:33and that bizarre snout is one of its secret weapons.
39:39The anteater is a giant ant.
39:42It's one of the most specialised insect eaters on Earth,
39:45and that bizarre snout is one of its secret weapons.
39:52The snout houses a long, sticky tongue,
39:55ideal for delving into termite mounds.
39:58But first you've got to break in.
40:03Termite mounds can be almost as hard as concrete,
40:06so you also need a set of very powerful claws.
40:13The giant anteater is one of the few surviving members of a group of animals
40:18that has lived in South America for over 50 million years.
40:27This is another one, the armadillo.
40:31Armadillos and anteaters survived the invasion
40:34because they specialise in food the invaders can't tackle.
40:38They eat mostly ants and termites.
40:42The maned wolf doesn't compete with them because it prefers mice.
40:53But catching them isn't easy.
41:09All that effort for just one tiny mouthful.
41:17The animals of today's South America are a pale shadow of what was once here.
41:22Teuton armadillo, the giant anteater,
41:25the giant anteater,
41:28the giant anteater,
41:31the giant anteater,
41:34the giant anteater,
41:37teuton armadillos,
41:39flesh-eating birds three metres tall,
41:42a giant ground-living sloth the size of an elephant.
41:48The ground sloth disappeared less than 10,000 years ago.
41:52What drove these giants to extinction?
41:58Long after the land bridge linked North and South America,
42:02there was one last great invasion,
42:05the most far-reaching of all.
42:23No-one knows exactly when the first people arrived,
42:26or even how they came,
42:28by boat along the coast or overland from North America.
42:36We do know they've been here for at least 12,000 years,
42:40and they soon penetrated every part of the continent,
42:44from the sea coast to the high peaks of the Andes.
42:55The first hunter-gatherers may have hastened the extinction of creatures like the giant sloth,
43:00but they made little direct impact on the landscape.
43:14But the development of settled agriculture
43:17eventually changed the face of South America.
43:30Elaborate civilizations flourished in the most remote corners of the mountains.
43:36Their last monuments can still be seen high in the Andes,
43:40in the ruins of the legendary Inca city of Machu Picchu.
44:01People even changed the animals.
44:04Around 7,000 years ago,
44:06they domesticated wild relatives of the guanaco
44:09to produce llamas and alpacas.
44:13As sources of meat and wool, and beasts of burden,
44:17these were the key to survival in the high Andes.
44:25These domesticated animals,
44:28these domestic animals are still important to the people of the Altiplano
44:32and are an integral part of their culture.
44:41By selectively breeding from their wild ancestors,
44:44the mountain people have developed different aspects of the animals
44:48to suit different needs.
44:51Llamas are better pack animals and have good meat,
44:54whereas alpacas are more valued for their dense wool.
45:06Llama fairs and even races are a high point on the local calendar,
45:10and they're more than just an excuse for a party.
45:14The animals carry weights, so the race is a test of stamina,
45:18especially at this high altitude.
45:44Traditional cultures have survived in places like this
45:47because they're so isolated from the outside world.
46:14Wildlife, too, survives
46:16because much of the continent remains isolated and remote.
46:24People may have irretrievably changed parts of South America,
46:28but it's a vast continent,
46:30and much of it is still inhabited.
46:35The Altiplano is the largest and most populous continent in the world,
46:40but it's a vast continent,
46:42and much of it is too extreme for people to settle.
46:49So it still retains huge areas of stunning wild landscapes.
46:54For sheer variety, it's without rival anywhere on Earth.
47:09SOUTH AMERICA
47:35South America's natural landscapes and their wildlife
47:38owe their existence to the continent's unique history.
47:42They're the latest spectacular chapter
47:45in a story that's been unfolding for over a hundred million years.
48:08SOUTH AMERICA
48:38SOUTH AMERICA