Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00And we'll see you next time.
00:24In the great tree of life, one branch of the mammals has a particular fascination for us,
00:39for we belong to it.
00:44Primates.
00:53Primate hands provide a firm grip, and forward-facing eyes accurately assess distance.
01:07Both are crucial for a lifestyle that began in the trees.
01:19Intelligence among primates can excel that of all other animals.
01:31Primates can solve difficult problems, develop thoughts and ideas, and build long-lasting
01:42relationships.
01:46But most importantly, primates remember what they learn during their lives.
01:54This film reveals how intelligence helps our closest relatives to tackle the many challenges
02:31There are more than 350 primate species on Earth.
02:43Since they first appeared over 65 million years ago, these clever animals have become
02:48adapted to an extraordinary range of habitats.
02:58The Awash region of southern Ethiopia, a harsh, remote scrubland.
03:16And primates have learned how to make it their home.
03:32Hamadryas baboons are waking up from a night spent high on the cliffs.
03:42These monkeys live in groups up to 400 strong, with no single leader.
03:49Theirs is a very complex society, made up of dozens of small hareems, each governed
03:55by a male.
03:59Every morning, they leave the safety of the cliffs to find food.
04:14Top-ranking males lead the way.
04:19They can be very severe with their females if there is the slightest misdemeanor.
04:41Despite their individual strength, Hamadryas baboons prefer to travel as a troop.
04:48It's safer that way.
05:02On this particular morning, something stops them in their tracks.
05:16Another troop is using these cliffs as a barracks.
05:30More than a thousand baboons can overnight here, and a rival faction is heading directly
06:06In the chaos of warfare, males settle old scores.
06:18This is also their best chance of stealing females.
06:48When the fighting is over, the hareems reform.
07:02These males punish any of their females who had dared to stray.
07:21But discipline is essential if order is to be maintained.
07:37It's a harsh social system, but it works for Hamadryas baboons here on these arid plains.
07:53In other parts of the world, primates have had to organize their societies in a different
07:59way to cope with different challenges.
08:08Midwinter in the Japanese Alps.
08:15The Kamikochi Valley is the haunt of the most northerly-dwelling monkeys.
08:28To live here, you must be able to survive temperatures which plunge to minus 20 centigrade.
08:45The Japanese macaque.
08:59Dense thick layers of fur help to insulate these snow monkeys in this testing environment.
09:10But they still feel the cold.
09:21At this time of the year, food is scarce.
09:28But macaques are adaptable and clever.
09:38The troop has learnt that this river stays ice-free the year round.
09:48This female knows it's a good place to gather insect larvae from under the rocks, using
09:53her versatile hands and nimble fingers.
10:05In winter, this troop spends most of its time searching for food.
10:16The same underground forces that prevent this river from freezing bring great comfort to
10:22others.
10:29The Japanese Alps were built by volcanoes.
10:33Many of them are still active.
10:37And in a region called Hell's Valley, some snow monkeys have found the perfect winter
10:43resort.
10:46A thermal spa, where the water temperature is a blissful 41 degrees centigrade.
11:09Everyone wants in, but primates being primates, there are two-side politics.
11:37This is an exclusive members-only club.
11:43Only the highest-ranking females and infants are allowed in.
11:52Everyone obeys this male, who guards the pool and vets the entrance.
12:08These youngsters, born of the right bloodline, don't know how privileged they are.
12:21Lower-ranking individuals are literally left out in the cold.
12:32Japanese macaque society is very divided.
12:38There are those that have, and those that have not.
12:48And that is a harsh division, because the 60 degrees that separate the steaming water
13:00from the freezing surroundings can make the difference between life and death.
13:16But by far the majority of primate species live in warm, tropical forests.
13:30Among them are the largest of all.
13:40Gorillas live in stable family groups, with just a single leader, a silverback male.
13:59This one, here in the Congo basin, is the guardian of his family, which includes five
14:05females and their infants.
14:16He has the responsibility of protecting them from the dangers that abound on the forest
14:21floor where they feed.
14:32To sustain his huge size, he must consume up to 30 kilos a day.
14:41Gorillas mostly plant food, but Western gorillas also enjoy a sprinkling of termites.
14:52The youngsters need to eat far less than their father, so they've got time on their hands.
15:05They like to play for the same reasons we do, for fun.
15:09And it helps build long-lasting relationships.
15:14Their protector keeps a watchful eye on them.
15:28And then it's time for his siesta.
15:50Something shatters the peace.
15:59This silverback's territory is one of the best, but it has borders with at least eight
16:04other gorilla groups.
16:21The sound of chest beating travels more than a mile through the tangled understory.
16:37It's a territorial drumbeat.
16:43One must know who is boss around here.
17:01Other smaller primates are rather more secretive.
17:07One of the most unusual is found in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
17:17It lives among the aerial roots of this strangler fig.
17:30Its ancestors were daytime hunters, but they found that there was less competition if they
17:35looked for food in the twilight.
17:48Now they only stir after dark.
17:55Nonetheless, there's a lot of insect food around.
18:20The spectral tarsier.
18:30Tarsiers are the only totally carnivorous primates on Earth.
18:38They've hardly changed in 45 million years.
18:44Their huge eyes can see in even the faintest light.
18:54These eyeballs are so wide, they can't swivel in their sockets.
19:00Tarsiers have to rotate their heads.
19:05Their mobile ears can detect the faintest sounds.
19:11Their powerful legs enable them to jump 40 times their own length.
19:23The family group fans out to hunt.
19:31The prey is not hard to find.
20:00The tarsiers must be watchful.
20:04For a primate just five inches tall, life in the forest is full of danger.
20:14The male sounds the alarm.
20:27And everyone retreats.
20:55Back in their family tree, the senior male and female send out piercing calls.
21:08These calls guide in a straggler's home, and there they renew the family bonds.
21:19Primate communication is one of the hallmarks of primate society.
21:32They do communicate more musically than Lar Gibbons in the forests of Thailand.
21:56Their songs carry for many miles across the canopy, proclaiming that this piece of forest
22:33Most primates have excellent colour vision, and colour, too, can be used in communication.
22:46Fair's leaf monkeys might seem rather drab.
22:55But not so their newborn.
23:04Bright orange fur makes the babies very conspicuous, so the adults can easily keep an eye on them.
23:17Close friends and relatives are eager to help the mother with babysitting.
23:22It's a good chance for the younger ones to practice parenting.
23:33As a result, the baby is never left on its own for long.
23:45When it's a few months old and more independent, it will turn the colour of its mother and blend in with the group.
23:59Until then, it can't be ignored.
24:17Smell is of particular importance to the primates that live in Madagascar.
24:24The lemurs.
24:27They have pointed snouts and wet noses.
24:34These are ring-tailed lemurs.
24:49The males have sharp pads on their wrists with which they scratch the trunks of young trees.
25:00Glands on their wrists impregnate the cut bark with a pungent smell that acts as a territorial marker.
25:10Females make smelly marks in their own way.
25:15This one's scent carries another signal as well as the territorial one.
25:21It tells males that she's coming into heat.
25:29But she will only be sexually receptive for 24 hours or less.
25:41So tensions run high among the males.
26:06Amid the commotion, some males sneak off.
26:11They have anointed their tails with scent and wafted towards her in an attempt to persuade her to mate.
26:20She's ready, but fussy.
26:34This male adds more of his wrist-gland perfume to his tail.
26:50It seems to work, for they leave the party together.
26:59And he wafts his way to victory.
27:28A willingness to mate is a relatively straightforward message.
27:35But primates are capable of much more complex communication.
27:46It starts between a mother and her baby.
27:55The rainforests of Sumatra.
28:06This female orangutan is 42 years old.
28:11Her third child, a six-year-old daughter, is still with her.
28:21Orangs look after their children for longer than any other primate except ourselves.
28:28It will take her nine years to teach her youngster everything she needs to know about this complex treetop world.
28:40She must learn how to collect ants and termites.
28:53How to identify at least 200 kinds of edible plants and how to avoid the poisonous ones.
29:04And how to judge when fruit, like this durian, has ripened to perfection.
29:26A child must be able to judge which branches can carry her weight.
29:38And which insect nests are safe to raid.
30:03Building up a complete guide to the foods of the forest is a long process.
30:29Her lessons, of course, aren't limited to food.
30:32There are other crucial skills she must learn if she is to survive in the treetops.
30:39Building a secure nest in which to spend the night, for example, takes years of practice.
30:49And this is, of course, a rain forest.
30:57So all orangs must learn how to make a shelter early in their lives.
31:26It rains almost every day, so this six-year-old has already had plenty of practice.
31:44She might live to be 50 years old, and if she too becomes a mother, she'll pass on all this expertise to her own children.
32:04Remembering your lessons is a vital part of primate life.
32:18It's not just learning how to exploit your environment.
32:23Just as important is knowing when to do so.
32:34This is Africa's Cape Peninsula.
32:37It's the furthest south that monkeys have managed to settle.
32:52There's a wide range of plant food here, but because the soil is so poor in nutrients,
32:58chacma baboons find it difficult to get the range of sustenance they need, however much they eat.
33:17So they have had to become quite adventurous in what they will tackle.
33:31The waters around the Cape are among the richest in the world.
33:47And the wily baboons have become tidal experts.
34:06If you rely on the tides to expose your food, you have to work to fairly tight schedules.
34:29Every two weeks, on the lowest spring tide, there's a chance to collect something really special.
35:00What they've been waiting for is hidden among the fronds of seaweed.
35:17Shark eggs.
35:43Each one is only a tiny mouthful, but there are lots of them, and they're so nutritious, it's worth the trouble.
35:55But the baboons can't stay long. The tide is turning.
36:05So now they switch their attention to the main course of the day, mussels.
36:13This delicacy is exposed every day by every tide.
36:25Baboons have powerful jaws and huge canines, ideal for cracking shells.
36:38Timing is an essential skill if you're to harvest all the food that becomes available at one time or another around a coast.
36:56Some foods, however, are only available to those who have skillful hands and sharp intelligence.
37:06On the coast of Costa Rica, among the mangroves, live some of the most intelligent monkeys in the whole of the Americas.
37:18White-faced capuchins.
37:22They too have learnt to work the tides.
37:30They are after clams.
37:36But capuchins are quite small and don't have the brawn to open such shellfish.
37:46But they do have the brain, and they've devised an ingenious way to solve the problem.
37:55They hammer the clams.
38:05They're not trying to crack the shells. All this pounding and rolling has another purpose.
38:11To tire the muscle with which the clam is holding itself shut.
38:35Eventually, the clam can hold out no longer, and the capuchin gets its reward.
39:05Trial and error may have been sufficient to solve this particular problem.
39:31But one of their cousins in Brazil has taken things a step further.
39:59Brown-tufted capuchins combine manual dexterity with considerable intelligence.
40:09And they have learned to use tools. Hammer stones with which to open palm nuts.
40:19Some of the stones are nearly half the weight of the monkey.
40:32Without a tool, opening these nuts would be an impossible task.
40:40Tool using was a major breakthrough in primate evolution.
40:55And nowhere is it more convincingly displayed than here in the forest of Bossou in Guinea, West Africa.
41:25Chimpanzees in this small community of 13 individuals use tools in a variety of ways.
41:54The most delicate is the way they use a twig or leaf stem to dip for ants.
42:54Some of their skills are unique to this particular group.
43:05One of these involves stripping a palm leaf frond and using it like a pestle to mash up the nutritious palm heart.
43:33This four-year-old is learning fast. She needs to.
43:38If chimpanzees haven't learned particular skills by the age of eight, they never seem able to acquire them.
43:53The most impressive skill of all, which involves nimble fingers, hand-eye coordination and intelligence, is nut cracking.
44:18Chimpanzees have gone a stage further than capuchins.
44:23They have learned how to carefully position the nut on an anvil and to judge how much force to use in order to crack the shell but not smash the kernel to pieces.
44:35Their use of tools is both efficient and precise.
44:48This 11-year-old female has an anvil but can't find a hammer.
45:07She approaches a male to see if he will lend her his.
45:28He obliges.
45:34Chimpanzees can show great kindness and compassion.
45:50Sharing.
45:56Experimenting.
46:01Empathy.
46:06Planning.
46:12Intelligence.
46:18Teaching.
46:21And learning.
46:34Behaviour so characteristic of us higher primates.
46:46We are the most inventive and innovative of all primates.
46:53Just one branch of a large and extended family.
46:59A family which has refined the ability to develop and pass on individual learning to the next generation.
47:23A family which has built on strong bonds between mother and baby.
47:44A family with which we share so much.
48:14To film the very best primate behaviour, the life team had to use all their primate ingenuity and adaptability.
48:43And in doing so, they discovered an extraordinary affinity with our extended family.
48:57Especially with a great ape with whom we share almost 99% of our genes.
49:05The chimpanzee.
49:08He was completely asleep just then.
49:10He was just rocking to the side as if he might just fall off the branch.
49:15You could see his lips were twitching like he was in a deep dream.
49:19It was really beautiful.
49:31Chimpanzees are our closest relatives.
49:37Justine Evans spent almost a month with them in the forests of Guinea to film their use of tools.
49:45The chimps have disappeared off down there.
49:47They're going to cross over into another area of forest and hopefully start using some tools.
49:51Go and use tools, that's what we're here for.
49:57Chimpanzees have to accept you.
50:01If they don't want to be filmed, they'll simply disappear.
50:08Justine needed the expert guidance of Tatiana Humle, a primatologist who spent more than 10 years studying these individuals.
50:17So when we see them, always keep calm and don't stare at them straight into the eyes.
50:24Have you ever had problems with coming right up and being aggressive?
50:27No, never.
50:29It's pretty rare, so I don't know what to expect.
50:33I've never seen them in the wild before, so it's a first for me.
50:36Just always stay calm.
50:38If one of them walks by really close, just ignore them.
50:42One particular young male might throw sticks.
50:45Ignore him as well.
50:47He's like a kid and he just wants attention, so he'll just keep doing it.
50:53We put these face masks on in case we pass on any infectious diseases.
50:58Quite a few chimps have died in the past from respiratory diseases in other study sites, so it's very important.
51:16Justine was finding her way with the chimps.
51:20But it would take time.
51:27It's never easy anticipating their behaviour.
51:33I'm trying to get ready really quickly because we're expecting some chimps to come down and pile up straight ahead of me.
51:39It'd be lovely if they'd merge out into this clearing.
51:42It's really difficult to see through all this foliage.
51:46Tatiana and her team were invaluable.
51:50They introduced Justine to the chimps' different habits and characters.
51:55Soon, the natural inquisitiveness of the chimps overcame any worries they might have had of Justine.
52:07In fact, they seemed fascinated by her.
52:10She was the one who was always on the lookout for the chimps.
52:14She was always on the lookout for the chimps.
52:17She was always on the lookout for them.
52:21In fact, they seemed fascinated by her and the tools of her trade.
52:32But it was their use of tools that Justine was here to film.
52:40And this was her first good opportunity.
52:44As I filmed them fishing for ants, I was amazed by their dexterity.
52:50But holding focus in such low light really tested my own coordination to the limit.
53:13Oh, she's just moving away. She's moving.
53:17It's been all go today.
53:19It's not over yet.
53:21If we can get out of here into more open air, we'll actually have enough light to film by.
53:25Because the sun's still up.
53:28But I don't know.
53:34Although Justine's main goal was to film tool use,
53:37there was another piece of behaviour she really wanted to capture.
53:44Buttress
53:48Buttress root drumming had never been filmed here before,
53:51but she was always just a bit too late.
53:56Back at yet another buttress in hope that we might get some sort of buttress drumming.
54:00But it started raining, which is an absolute pain.
54:07It's a waiting game.
54:13Just staking out a couple of really big trees that have got very large buttress roots
54:18in the hope that a male will come down and drum on them.
54:21The drumming always happens somewhere else.
54:24And apparently it's usually the males that sort of sneak off to go and do it.
54:29Feels like a bit of a long shot at the moment.
54:32You have to have some patience.
54:37The thing about chimps is that, like most primates,
54:41you can't always predict what they're going to do, when they're going to do it, or where.
54:50You've just got to keep with them.
54:56A different type of sound brought Justine back to her main mission.
55:00Nut cracking.
55:14This was the key sequence Justine was here to film.
55:31Filming the chimps using tools made me realise just how close to them we are.
55:45I felt so similar to them.
55:48By the end of our filming trip, I was able to recognise most of the individuals in the group
55:53and had begun to understand their different personalities.
56:18Nut cracking.
56:35For me, the most poignant moment of all was when the male, the scientist called Clay, lent a female his tools.
56:49I know that primates are very social animals, but seeing this act of generosity was something I'll never forget.
56:57Nut cracking.
57:14Just before we left, the chimpanzees finally put on the display that I'd been hoping for.
57:26Screaming.
57:41Screaming.
57:57In the great tree of life, we and chimpanzees went our separate ways about six million years ago.
58:05But they remain our closest living relatives.
58:26To be continued.