The Amazon Rainforest's Incredibly Unique Environment | Equator

[Music] [Music] the sun Giver of Light and life shines most powerfully at the equator here it Powers an extraordinarily Rich zone of life brilliant and bizarre species from three continents three oceans more than a line on a map equator is a powerful force of [Music] [Applause] [Music] nature [Music] at the Equator the sun rises over the greatest rainforest on Earth Amazonia is Unified by over a thousand rivers of the sun they flow like blood through its body they are its life force Sun Light and Water create the energy to sustain life on a vast scale but all that life all that richness comes from the miracle of the [Music] leaf this one vast rainforest may contain half of all the world's species here predator and prey act out the ancient struggle to eat and avoid being eaten but the jaguas forest is only one part of [Music] Amazonia there is also a rich and remarkable water Forest much of Amazonia floods for half of each year creating a world that is strange and unique an animal looking like a cross between a fish and a cow drifts slowly through a River Meadow River wolves streak through the water Forest they hunt fish among the branches a fish that's like a monkey and a Survivor from the ancient past paraku is an armored dinosaur among fish this Lightning Fast Hunter has survived in this region for 100 million years [Music] paku has endured great upheavals during amazonia's past and must now accept the great changes that will soon take place in November storm clouds gather the equator offers its greatest gift to Amazonia [Music] rain the rain comes as the sun's energy focuses more strongly on Amazonian intense Heat brings a change in weather patterns across the entire region out in the Atlantic Ocean the sun warms surface waters that evaporate into clouds at the same time strengthening Trade Winds push the clouds Inland across the Amazon [Music] [Applause] basin as the heavy air moves over the vast Forest it gathers up even more moisture from the trees clouds fatten and it rain finally the super saturated air encounters the 6,000 M barrier of the Andes Mountains as the clouds rise they cool releasing their water as rain and as snow all this then flows down the mountains back to Amazonia the vast river system receives 20% of all available fresh water in the world and nearly all of it comes in the wet season Amazonia covers the northern third of Latin America and is almost perfectly flat all the water that enters the vast drainage basin at this time fills Rivers faster than they can drain away and so Amazonia slowly begins to [Music] flood the rainy season will last for half a year it will transform the lives of creatures here like nowhere else on [Music] Earth where a beautiful butterfly basked and glided among suned branches fish Dart through a flooded [Music] Woodland fish migrate from rivers and streams to feed among branches of trees that may be 15 M underwater and will be for months flood waters greatly expand the feeding prospects for fish but they have forced the land animals to [Music] flee just as the Jaguar has moved on so has its prey along with giant rodents and other mammals many lizards birds and insects have departed but now there is new prey and new [Music] Predators the flooded Forest has become the realm of river wolves giant otter now occupy much of the Jaguar's hunting ground and it is vast hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of rainforest are submerged just as plants and animals must find strategies for surviving in dry forest so they must have ways to survive the flood as the waters rise insects from the forest floor climb desperately to safety up here there are few places to hide and even fewer places to [Music] [Applause] overtake any struggles are quickly [Music] detected high above the water clinging to a tree this insect should be safe enough 1 M long arowana are as agile as monkeys in fact they are known as water monkeys they usually hunt small fish but during the flood water monkeys also Feast on insects they Patrol close to the surface scanning the branches for possible [Music] [Music] prey during the wet season water monkeys live in one world and hunt in another arowana have a brilliant strategy for reaping the rich insect rewards of the flooded [Music] River [Music] [Music] [Music] just as water monkeys benefit from this time of Plenty so do other fish when the forest floods strange sounds are heard it's the sound of trees in Fruit these exploding nuts are from rubber trees one of Amazonian is most famous as they ripen under the heat of the glaring Sun their surface skins shrivel releasing the nuts nuts are spread far and wide by floodwaters even when soaked and water for a long time the nuts waterproof shell prevents rot and protects from predators I think that's an interesting thing this one piece will make 52 layers watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required but the tambari has found a way to crack this problem [Music] the Tachi uses its funnel-shaped nostrils to help it find nuts that are its passion its powerful jaws and teeth are perfect nut crackers nuts are rich in protein fat and minerals they're excellent food if you can get them Tachi eat nuts from several kinds of trees they are so dedicated to nut cracking that small fish accompany them to dine on the crumbs most trees produce fruits and nuts during the wet season so Tachi do most of their feeding at this time later in the year they must use other strategies to [Music] survive another dedicated fruit and nut eater lives high up in swamp forest trees wakari is one of the few monkeys in the world with teeth and Jaws strong enough to crack nuts and seeds they form most of its diet in Amazonia a fish and a monkey have both become specialized to gain The Riches of the nut [Music] Harvest another mammal living in the flooded Forest is the toad sloth sloths Devour the leaves of copia trees the tree is protected by stinging ants but they're no deterrent to thick furred slots the leaves offer little nourishment so sloths must spend most of their time eating and use as little energy as possible apart from holding on as this baby is [Music] doing sloths are not good Walkers and they rarely move from their home trees but when a sloth does need to move it much prefers to swim during the flood the waters are safe there are no enemies this is the best time to move from tree to tree to seek new food or maybe to strike out and search of a [Music] mate [Music] it has been two months since the waters began to rise and the forest trees became submerged they will remain submerged for months to come normally trees would die after just a few weeks of flooding because their roots cannot receive oxygen but the roots of these Amazonian trees can survive being submerged for much longer due to a special adaptation when their Roots become water locked a membrane forms on the outside of the root but inside there is partial cell death and that creates air spaces these spaces act as air holes to transfer oxygen and remove toxins this strategy allows the trees to succeed in two very different worlds amazingly there is greater diversity of trees where the forests are submerged than anywhere else in Amazonia the coming of the floods and submerging of the forests is the trigger for another important event it's the time when many fish begin breeding this discus fish uses its narrow body to penetrate deep within the foliage to lay eggs where enemies won't find them it constantly watches over the precious brood for 2 days until hatching [Music] of all tropical fish discus are among the most beautiful and highly prized because of their Rich colors and patterns but during spawning their bodies lose the rich pattern and become darker as they prepare to give their offspring a precious gift a day after they hatch the fries start swimming they keep very close to mother and father so close some appear to be mouthing the bodies of their parents in fact the first meal for young discus is a mucous secretion from the skin of their parents called discus [Music] milk this special meal gives the young a great start in [Music] life at breeding time some fish go to extraordinary efforts to find a safe place to lay their eggs close by overhanging leaves pairs of capella anal dye gather these tiny fish have a huge challenge ahead of them the male has the long tail the female is ready to spawn the eggs visible through her [Music] skin the pair move together near the surface surface sometimes pausing sometimes darting back and forth with urgency what is about to happen is a most remarkable spawning [Music] achievement prompted by the mail the two fish leap Together High out of the water where they cling to a hanging leaf they hold on for about 3 seconds before first the female then the male drop back leaving behind a small cluster of eggs they're called jumping kous and each leap adds more eggs to the [Music] cluster the M's fully expanded pectral and abdominal fins act as suckers allowing the peir to hold on to the leaf they continue until they're about 50 eggs all covered with gel to keep in the moisture but the performance isn't yet over the male chases the female away then Begins the job of preventing the eggs from drying out in the hot sun he does this by splashing them as he smacks the water surface with his back fin water splashes onto the leaf above he's amazingly accurate and continues until the eggs [Music] hatch by the next day they have already developed eyes and the following day prompted by the water splashes the eggs begin to hatch the fries enter the river with the falling water drops of their father's splashes as they hit the water the young fish seek out a hiding place among the leaves young capella arnoldi have inherited a bizarre but successful strategy for spawning above the Waters of the flooded Woodland that now becomes their [Music] protector Amazonia is not one continuous Forest close to the rivers there are broad grassy plains that are rich in sediment in the wet season these Plains are transformed into fields of floating aquatic plants of many kinds once the waters are risen plants grow quickly in the intense heat of the equatorial Sun but without doubt the most spectacular is the Queen Victoria water lily with leaves of 2 m or more in diameter the leaves expand over the water surface pushing others aside as if each Mighty Leaf is striving to take as much of the sun's energy as [Music] possible the fringes are raised to prevent flooding and armed with toxic spines probably as defense against animals that that would eat them it takes 1 month for plants to grow out of the submerged Plaine and for new leaves to completely open as Amazonian flood waters expand dramatically and spectacularly so do the leaves of Queen Victoria water lies with help from the equatorial Sun Water Lettuce has a different growth strategy to the water lily during the wet season it expands by producing new Young heads at a spectacular rate but Water Lettuce has no protective spines and no toxins and that makes it most appealing to amazonia's largest herbivore the Amazonian manate or fish cow is related to the elephant one thing the 300 kg manate shares with its land-bound relative is a voracious appetite each animal consumes 30 kg of water plant a day fortunately there's plenty of water letters as flood waters rise a few small PL heads appear soon those heads double and redouble again and again and within weeks cover vast areas Water Lettuce and the other floating plants of Amazonia grow mainly in the wet season so manatees must eat huge amounts of food now in order to build up enough reserves to survive the coming dry season [Music] another reason for the mani's enormous appetite is that the water plants contain so few nutrients that close to half of all they eat remains [Music] undigested the manatees give the undigested material back to the river as feces but in Amazonia manate waste is not wasted far from it their feces rain down like riches from above many fish feed on the waste directly and it also helps support the lives of thousands of other species most nutrients and manate waste dissolve to fertilize the water and helps the growth of more plant life but in addition manate grazing creates gaps in the layer of floating plants this allows the intense heat and light of the equatorial sun to penetrate sunlight and nutrients can now trigger the growth of vast amounts of Plankton which is the basis of another aquatic food chain so fish cows simply by eating and digesting help maintain more than 3,000 species or nearly a third of all freshwater fish in the world those fish include the beautiful like Cardinal t ra and angelish there are the bizar like the surface hugging hatched fish and there are the Bountiful like catfish catfish are the largest fish family in Amazonia nearly 1500 species or half of all fish here are catfish and their shape is as varied as the size and their lifestyle a streamline shape reduces water resistance a Sleek body can flee quickly from enemies armored scales offer protection from enemies sail fin pleco hide among submerged trees leaf catfish drift undetected and Imperial zebras feed hidden among rocks catfish more than any other fish exploit the great variety of environments in Amazonia which means that catfish more than any other fish end up on the menu of the [Music] riverwolf giant otters are dangerous and aggressive and often hunt in family [Music] [Applause] groups a giant otter brings its catch to a favorite eating place to fuel its active and energetic lifestyle an otter eats 10% of its own body weight or 3 Kg of fish each day it eats everything even crushes bones but even the Otter's powerful jaws can't crush a big catfish's skull this will feed other others what an utter discards a school of piranha quickly [Music] devour [Music] like catfish piranha are a large family of fish there are over 30 species here the red piranha is the most common and most feared but even they are on the river Wolf's [Applause] [Music] menu and what's left of the piranha other pirata will dispose of as predatory king of Amazonia the giant aut can choose from a huge variety of fish but below there are other predators is also eager to take advantage of this Variety in [Music] abundance the 1 M long peacock bass is a top hunter in the flooded [Music] Woodland to hide from predators some fish use camouflage one of the most effective is the leaf fish but there's a double advantage to its disguise by drifting like a Fallen Leaf it not only hides from its enemies it may also hide from its [Music] prey [Music] there are many predators among the fish of Amazonia but there is none so expert as this ancient Hunter a fully mature Padu is 3 me long and weighs 200 kg it's one of the largest freshwater fish in the world and a masterful [Music] predator it quietly stalks the uny and then snatches its prey with blinding speed nothing is safe from its enormous mouth victims on the surface are suckon with a rush of water and air that's then expelled from its [Music] gills [Music] this ancient Predator has survived for about 100 million years during this time it has endured and survived great upheavals of the land and enormous disruption to the flow of the rivers of Amazonia the flooded Forest is also home to another relic of those heals the Amazonian Stingray has venomous stinging spines on its tail its ancestors once swam in the Pacific Ocean the 20 species of stingray still found here provide a clue as to how Amazonia was created it's thought that the rivers of Amazonia once flowed west into the Pacific Ocean ocean but tens of millions of years ago enormous geological forces buckled and pushed up the land cutting off the sea and creating the Andes Mountains the young mountains damned the rivers of Amazonia which formed a vast low-lying network of lakes and wetlands to the east where Stingrays and other marine species became trapped [Music] around 5 million years ago further upheavals sloped the land Eastward until the waters finally burst through into the Atlantic creating the new Amazon River but even to this day the flat lands of Amazonia drain slowly until finally after months of flood the region enters its dry [Music] season it's been 4 months since the first rains fell water levels have now begun lowering as flood waters slowly find their way back into rivers that haven't been seen for half a year the creatures of Amazonia must now confront a new and even more difficult challenge you if you are adapted to wet how do you survive the [Music] dry by September the long dry season is now entering a critical phase as the hot sun dries up the pools many River dwellers suffer the small pools are now stagnant and have little oxygen in the water this causes great stress to the many fish F can find here as the water evaporates many fish [Music] [Applause] [Music] die during the floods a water monkey or arijana lived in Two Worlds hunting insects among the branches now it dies just another fish out of [Music] water at the end of the dry season scenes of death are attended by black vultures although there is water it has little or no oxygen left in pools and ponds across Amazonia fish die in huge numbers to survive species must somehow survive seasons of wet and dry and finding a deep Pond Will C ly help the giant paku uses an ancient strategy to endure the harsh dry season it is one of the very few fish that can take air directly from the atmosphere paku can breathe in fact without air it will soon drown long ago the ancestor of the picu evolved a lung likee organ it gulps air from the atmosphere that is absorbed into its bloodstream as if through a [Music] lung this remarkable ability helps paku to withstand the long dry season an ability that was developed during the drastic changes of amazonia's long [Music] history during the ancient past other Amazonian fish developed strategies to help survive difficult times and during the dry season these become very useful during the flood the tambari gorged on nuts using powerful jaws to crack them open now there is nothing to eat it rests on the bottom of the pond the tambak can survive these months of starvation because it has converted the nutritious nuts into fat beneath its skin the lower third of its body has a thick fat layer and as it waits out the long dry season it slowly consumes its fat [Music] reserves in the tambakis Deep Pond a similar strategy is used by a much larger animal the Amazonian manate is the only manity in the world that lives in fresh water throughout its life but in the dry season very few water plants grow there's very little to eat like the tambari manatees gained weight during the wet season but now during the dry they must live off their fat reserves While most manatees are losing weight this one's belly is [Music] swollen it's a Fe male and she's pregnant and will give birth when the rains [Music] return as the water in the rivers of Amazonia recede numerous Lakes become isolated from the main flow in one of these cut off for Oxbow legs a family of giant otter enjoys easy hunting because the fish are confined and have nowhere to escape this giant otter family group has been hunting together in the deeper parts of the lake during the hunt some family members Drive fish towards others that lie and wait some months ago the giant otter family set up their burrow or halt on the edge of the lake and now three new members are to be seen after 2 months in the burrow they're old enough to come outside and splash about in the shallows the pups will grow up with not only their parents to look after them but their extended family of older brothers and sisters will also continually look out for their safety the otter share the lake with some unfriendly neighbors the Cayman the South American alligator grows 2 m long and is dangerous if this one gets too close without the auter noticing it could take one of the [Music] pumps it's been spotted most of the family takes to the water to chase it away and the mother quickly moves the pups back to the the safety of the burrow having chased off the one that came too close the otter now evict all Cayman anywhere near their part of the lake they make snorting sounds as a warning to the pman their whining sounds are a contact call between members of the group they have little fear of the Cayman and harass it until it leaves [Applause] the otter claim priority over the lake they move about freely and Hunt wherever they like as the day ends the family gather Cayman are no longer a threat and at safe for the three pups to come out and join their older brothers and sisters otter like many other species time their breeding to the seasons of wet and dry during the dry these pups are dependent on their mother but in a short time they will be big enough to hunt for themselves and that time will coincide with the return of the wet finally in November the cycle of Equatorial sun and wind draws the long dry season to an end at first the rainwater from the Andes Mountains fills the Amazon River and its many tributaries [Music] the flow into the low-lying flat Amazon basin continues then slowly the waters overflow the river banks and once more huge areas of forests become [Music] flooded again for half a year the greatest wetland in the world will sustain the lives of those adapted to the cycles of change as Waters rise in the forests a great array of fish enter they're eagerly pursued by their predators [Music] [Music] the hunting pack of the riverwolf family has increased in Number the three youngsters that grew up beside the lake are now active Hunters [Music] at The Offspring of other predators are still far too young to leave their parents' [Music] care if these young 10 cm long Padu survive the Perils of growing up they will grow into 3 m giants like their red scaled parents [Music] both parents care for their large family that numbers around a [Music] thousand though the paraku is the largest fish in the Amazon their small offspring are vulnerable they rise to the surface as one already they can breathe air just like their parents when moving off to feed young fish gather like an obedient class of school children they come together as an orderly group no one falling behind they feed as a wall of wide open [Music] mouths and they move out of formation only to Breathe by swimming in a line they don't disturb the water current and so can feed more efficiently on Plankton Young paku are inheritors of a way of life that their ancestors have known for more than 100 million years feeding on Plankton and protected by their parents young picu grow very quickly before long the young reach a size where they need more substantial food the parents now lead the young picu into the fields of floating plants here vast numbers of shrimp are to be [Music] found as young fries swim among water plant roots shrimp rise to the surface some leap for their lives but to no avail a loud cracking sound is heard as young paku consume a hearty shrimp meal at about 6 months of age surviving paku will begin independent lives as hunters in these rivers of the Sun during the flood the sun promotes the most rapid growth of water plants and manatees time their breeding to take advantage of the increase this female must eat well she has a two-month-old Cal to [Music] feed the calve is a meter long and weighs around 30 kg it feeds on very rich milk from nipples located just behind the mother's front [Music] flippers it suckles liquid Sunshine from the equator like all creatures manatees have found ways to adapt their lives to the seasons of change that rule the rivers of Amazonia the sun dominates the change of seasons and forges powerful connections between animals plants and the greatest river system on [Music] Earth and here life has found many different ways to survive and thrive in amazonia's seasons of contrast flood and dry fortune and famine two amazingly different worlds created by the power of the equatorial [Music] Sun [Music]

Channel: TRACKS - Travel Documentaries

Views: 218,258

Keywords: travel documentaries, tracks travel, tracks, beautiful travel, full travel documentary, full documentary 2021, tv shows - topic, culture, travel, tourism, Documentary movies - topic

Id: PQ0LQxsHUWE

Length: 52min 44sec (3164 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2023