Life of Insects | Attenborough: Life in the Undergrowth | BBC Earth

and so among the most numerous widespread and frequently exploited members of the undergrowth these Australia collect seeds and snore them underground plants encourage them to do so by adding a tasty capsule to their seeds that may seem odd but these ants don't eat all the seeds they store in fact seeds are more likely to germinate below ground than above but not everything on this forest floor is what it seems when it comes to putting your eggs in a suitable place some insects persuade other insects to do the job for them this little object looks like a seed and certainly it's fallen from above and that ant seems to think it's worth eating but actually it hasn't come from a plant it's come from another insect and this is it it's rather difficult to see because it looks exactly like a dry leaf but it's a stick insect as its head and Tennie and that's the tip of its abdomen as an adult like this it spends all its time up in the trees eating leaves and when the time comes to lay and this one is doing so all she does is simply to flick away the egg and let it fall to the ground but that's not quite as risky as you might think whenever you are you can be pretty sure that some ants will turn up looking for food and that is exactly what the stick insect eggs look like a nutritious seed complete with that fatty capsule of the tip so the ants start to haul them away although the ants certainly eat a great number of the seeds they store stick insect eggs don't seem to be quite as tempting at any rate the ants after all their labor usually leave the stick insect eggs untouched while the seasons pass the eggs lie underground hidden from birds and any other predators that might eat them they may remain there safe for up to three years but eventually they hatch if only at this early stage of its life that a stick insect actually runs the youngsters positively scamper up into the tree branches there they will take up their adult life of leisure well camouflaged stolid the chirring leaves giving your offspring a good start in life can take a lot of effort so some insects have evolved highly complex strategies to induce other species to become nursemaids on their behalf this Californian desert hardly seems to be the best paste of our nursemaids but blister beetles have an amazing way of discovering them it starts simply enough with the female beetle she has dug the hole and is now laying her eggs in it that done she abandons a few centimeters below the surface of the sand conditions are good for eggs not too cold neither too hot even in the heat of the day six weeks later they hatch but these sands are very barren and scorching hot somehow the tiny larvae have got to find food and they won't find it here their survival depends on teamwork together as a closely coordinated group they climb up a stem of withered grass when they get to the top there's nowhere else to go they look dangerously exposed to the Sun and to other predators but there they stay in a tight squirming mass for those that can get there the top of this stem has become a stage for a remarkable piece of deception what these larvae want is a lift a ride and they want it so badly that sometimes they'll even try and get it from a human finger what they're really searching for is not a human finger they're searching for another insect here it comes a female digger be leaving a tunnel that she's just dug for her own young she's off to get the pollen she packs it into baskets on her back legs and takes it back to her burrow it'll provide valuable food for her young when they eventually hatch and here comes a male he's on the lookout for a female to him the cluster not only looks like a female it smells like a female for the beetle larvae are producing a perfume a pheromone that is exactly like that emitted by a female bee he alights in order to mate and in seconds is covered by the larvae that swarm all over him at first he seems stunned by the shock of his sudden increase in weight but then he's off again now his luck improves this really is a female and while he mates his passengers JumpShip now they're all on board a female be she having mated goes back to her nest to lay taking the larvae with her at last the young beetle larvae have reached safety and food the sword of pollen that the female digger be worked so hard to collect for our own young so they hop off and tuck in not only do they consume the pollen when that runs out they will eat the young bee larvae too

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 1,711,826

Rating: 4.9024792 out of 5

Keywords: bbc insects, insects bbc, david attenborough life in the undergrowth, life of insects, life in the undergrowth, bbc life insects, life insects, david attenborough insects, insects david attenborough, attenborough insects, david attenborough ants, beetle larvae, insect documentary, bbc, insects documentary, insects, David Attenborough, stick insect, stick insect hatching, stick insect eggs, beetle larva, bbc earth

Id: uppwVyUd5S0

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Fri May 28 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/itchybut]

I can always find the time to watch David Attenborough and his special way of narrating nature in its' infinite wonder.