World's Biggest and Baddest Bugs! | Free Documentary Nature

[Music] bugs they fascinate us they frighten us some are as big as dinner plates others as dangerous as the plague and i love them g'day i'm rude klein pastor the bug man and the opportunity to go looking for bugs as big as bugs can get and as bad as bugs can get was an opportunity too good to miss me i'll do whatever it takes to get down to bugs level so i can understand why some bugs become so big and others turn so bad on world's biggest and baddest bugs [Music] i begin with a journey in search of the world's biggest bugs i'm going to need all my experience as an entomologist if i'm to uncover their secret hiding places avoid danger and discover what some bugs can get to be as long as your arm and the very biggest can be the size of a small cat first up the biggest cockroach in the world oh this is what we always think of as giant bugs yeah you know those monsters that look under the floorboards and in your kitchen cupboards these ain't no giants these are giants but don't worry you're not going to find these anywhere near your kitchen cupboard this is where they occur my search for giants brings me to the australian outback you gotta be tough to live out here it's hot ah no ah ah come over here see this there's some dry soil here sort of like recently excavated what i'm looking for is the giant burrowing cockroach most cockroaches are too easy to find these giants aren't they live only in queensland and only in burrows see oh come on don't be oh legs all right that is what i call a cockroach look at it it might not even be full grown and by the looks of it it's a male it's a boy oh how long about three inches see this little lip here that means it's a male and it can dig it's like having your hat like this and dig out with your thorax your pro torx isn't that gorgeous these cockroaches don't come to town thank goodness they're strictly country cousins and they burrow they can burrow through tightly compacted soil like many excavators now underneath is the head it's always protected and you know what it feels nice and cool and it feels nice and moist and that is a dead giveaway why these cockroaches live underground compared to the 90 plus degrees heat outside their burrows are as cool as wine cellars and like a good wine giant cockroaches age well they live for up to 10 years the roach in your kitchen lives only for two even more remarkable is that mother giant roaches give birth to life young now this is very unusual for cockroaches others lay eggs and she looks after her young for up to nine months but why do these junior roaches grow up to be giants well it's a mystery but scientists think it could have something to do with moisture the biggest cockroaches i found where more rain falls when it rains they all come out of their burrows to meet to mate and to move on [Applause] this is the only time when they won't dry out under fierce australian heat so the moment it rains they come out they gather up all these leaves from around here eucalyptus leaves and anything they can find and take them down in the burrow and these leaves are dead old dried leaves dry they taste like dead old dried leaves not something that i could live on but these roaches can this guy has had a heck of a day today exciting mind you but in the process we've destroyed its burrow totally now luckily i found a barrow here that is deserted you can always tell a deserted burrow because it's open it's never closed off so i'm gonna let them go here successful relocation oh put the leaf in for good measures for some food there you go giant cockroaches are big but i've only just begun my search and the next bug helps answer the question why aren't bugs as big as buses dragonflies i love them because they're so ancient they were flying around 300 million years ago that's the time when coal was deposit can you imagine another thing i like about dragonflies is that they used to be much larger than this oh yeah once they were the largest flying insect in the world now of course this is a much smaller 21st century model it's the hawker dragonfly a robust little fella but i'd like you to meet a long and slender cousin of this one the helicopter damselfly the very first flying insects appeared about 350 million years ago they were giant dragonflies the size of eagles and damselflies the size of hawks so what happened why did they shrink my journey to find out begins in panama near water should be the perfect place to find the giant helicopter damselflies they gather around fallen logs because logs have holes that will fill up with water and females come to these tiny pools to lay eggs and where there are females there are big males males are superb flyers they hover over their ponds like mini helicopters and if they receive unwelcome visitors they become attack helicopters got em why did they get so big well very simple areas like this and habitats like these tree trunks don't come around very often and they are worth fighting for so if you're a big male you got a better chance of securing a female with such a piece of real estate believe it or not these helicopters are the biggest in the world body length around four inches wingspan three and a half in the past and we know that from fossil records damselflies got a lot lot bigger about the size like that and why was that well one simple reason oxygen we humans have evolved in an atmosphere with only 20 oxygen we're used to it that's enough for me to cycle hard for five minutes no problems feel okay enough oxygen here you know but damsel flies in their close relations the dragonflies evolved long ago when there was twice as much oxygen as there is today now with more oxygen flying insects became giants imagine dragonflies with a two-foot wingspan then imagine what happened when the world's oxygen levels halved scientists think that decomposing bacteria and fungi began using a lot more of it with less oxygen in the air the insect shrunk now if lowering oxygen can shrink a bug i'd like to know what could it do to me i've asked my tv crew to find me a hyperbaric chamber these help scuba divers recover from the bends by increasing oxygen now for me they will reduce it by half when i take off my mask it'll be like trying to breathe on top of mount everest here we go oh it's tough as soon as i start pedaling i want to stop i have no energy after a minute my heart is thumping and by two minutes i can't get enough air my muscles are screaming in pain two and a half minutes gone oh 57 oxygen in my blood it's a lot less so it's really getting tough how are you feeling really tired and a bit headachy i'm worried how less oxygen will affect my brain you see our brains only weigh two percent of our body weight but use nearly 20 percent of all the oxygen we breathe without enough oxygen we'd suffer memory loss blindness and blackout can i go back now i want to go back i gotta go back here i tell you what out here it feels like i'm in a in an enormous carbon dioxide or a nitrogen bubble and i can't get enough air i i i do need air you need air to perform you need air you need ant trying to work without enough oxygen is the worst feeling i want to cry i want to sleep i feel terrible but my problems are really small compared to bugs their respiration is inefficient they carry little oxygen in their blood and they rely on air coming in through tiny portholes or sparkles along the sides of their bodies so a bug size is limited by the amount of oxygen it can absorb my search for the biggest bug takes me back to queensland australia if i were to describe to you an insect that can grow up to eight inches in length has perfect 360 degree vision lightning fast reflexes both in attack and in defense what do you think such an insect would look like you guessed it a praying mantis a predator that can blend into the foliage stay still as a statue but then strike fast enough to catch flies and wasps in mid-air praying mantis weapons of choice are their pairs of extraordinary front legs that are like spring-loaded jack jackknives they use them to lunge and then hold their victims it's amazing the spraying mentis has given two of her six legs and modified them to such an extent that they're only killing machines but as skilled and as lethal as these predators are they must be very careful not to end up as the prey of much bigger killers so how do praying mantises avoid ending up on other predators breakfast tables their first line of defense is camouflage all mantises blend into their environment but few go as far as the orchid mantis it even sways like an orchid in the breeze it can also hide in papaya and frenchy pony flowers even its legs are shaped like petals just beautiful but praying mantises have another trick up their sleeves when cornered by predators even much bigger ones they will stand and fight [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so size is not a big deal to a praying mantis it's attitude no matter how big or how small the mantis inside they all think they are giants so how can a small mantis beat a big enemy well my tv crew has sent me on a mystery mission to discover their secret i'm to receive my instructions via text message prepare for combat tiffany your host is the mantis oh i get it tiffany is an exponent of mantis kung fu and i've got a fighter are you sure i'm going to need all this yes your challenge is to pin our arms for just one second all i know about mantis kung fu is that it was developed hundreds of years ago by a chinese student who closely watched the moves of the praying mantis there's something like 12 arm moves copied from the praying mantis hmm her technique looks really good but my arms are longer [Music] ah [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] ah give up give up [Music] shows you though when you're small and you got technique you can battle just about anything i mean i'm no slouch but this was too quick this was technique this was small fast and furious inside every praying mantis beats the heart of a giant next bugs that are not only big but tough when the going gets cold a bug with tusks yeah that's right they're on the face of a tusked wetter wetters are related to crickets and grasshoppers and tuskweta males use their tusks for fighting just like male elephants or walrus they fight for territory and for females battles like this have been going on for nearly 300 million years they are truly truly ancient letters might be ancient but they're still being discovered in new zealand as we speak this creature is the taste weather it was only found a few years ago it's rare it is very very rare so rare that they're breeding it in captivity so that in a few years time this fella might have a few more females to fight over now wouldn't that be a good idea my friend tusked weathers are one of several different wetters in new zealand they include giants like this giant weathers are super heavyweights of the bug world and because they weigh more than 3 ounces they're right up there amongst the world's heaviest bugs but by far the coolest wetter of them all lives to the south of here in the mountains of new zealand and when i say cool i mean cool the mountain wetter survives under the ice all winter long and when spring comes and the sun thaws the ice it emerges from its frozen tomb just like magic but it is not magic you see the weather has special chemicals that prevent harmful ice crystals forming within its cells now that was a clever trick could i do that so i can appreciate the alpine conditions weta scope with i've come to a human performance center where dr john marsden will let me experience what it is like to be in the mountains in the middle of winter and like wettest i'll have no clothes except for a pair of shorts for modesty the freezer has been set to 16 degrees fahrenheit or minus 8 celsius and the cold hits me like a brick we are not built for the cold if our temperatures drop more than just a few degrees for too long we get hypothermia which can kill us but all it would do to the mountain wetter would be to slow it down a bit to the old mountain weather this must be like the first day of winter you know and they're just getting into their into their game i'm starting to conk out they thrive at this sort of temperatures it's unbelievable but i have to keep warm and i can do that by running and jumping because when my muscles are working they generate heat by 15 minutes running can't keep me warm anymore this is where the wetter and i differ you see the weather will continue cooling until it is as cold as ice not moving not eating as if it was dead i can't do that i must stay warm if i'm to survive i'm literally freezing from the outside in as i get colder my body sacrifices my outer layer to keep my center part warm particularly my heart and brain but my brain is already cooling john's meth tests are becoming impossible [Music] sixty something too 59 plus 21. oh 59 80 80. okay they took over a minute there to get those down to them if temperature goes much lower then we'll pull you out of there okay at the moment i don't think i've ever been this cold that's it really hurts my ears and my hands and my fingers it's actually quite awful okay come and get me my core temperature is now lowering and that's critical it's reached a point where to go any lower would be very dangerous ah the sun warm i had to get out of there i had to get out that mountain wet has got an ability that i cannot match i suppose that's one up for the bugs eh [Music] my search for the world's biggest bug now takes me to the venezuelan rainforest in the rain this is what rainforest is all about and these are conditions that the next creature really likes have a look at this we're going large now man look at this six and a half maybe seven inch of the giant millipede beautiful creature very thin skin this is why it cannot afford to lose much moisture this is why it likes to be hidden it comes out when it rains look at it move will you isn't it just spectacular so graceful the way all these legs are [Music] coordinated now as i said they are totally harmless to human beings but there is a similar sort of species that needs a little bit more care when you encounter it let's have a look be careful be careful oh no there it is giant centipede hang on hang on hang on here we go you don't want that to go away that is a mean predator that is one of those ones that you don't put your hands in front you treat them with respect once it's disturbed it raises its hind legs because it's in a defense mode and boy it's got fangs like this like knives and forks you don't want to be there don't want to be i'll show you what you don't do you don't touch centipedes but you can if you're careful stroke huffy puffy bit of a temper here thank you look see that and then there's these rear legs now if i would do this with the rear legs it would grab me turn around make a figure of eight and and bite me there's no doubt about it those fangs at the front are the first front legs which have been in evolution if you like made hollow and with a poison gland from its head made into poisonous fangs but they are really modified first legs god look at it it's sick of me it's sick of me it's sick of me no it's sick of me sick of me look out look at look out look at that camera camera camera when a giant centipede gets hold of you it doesn't let go and when it goes hunting everything from bugs to birds to lizards should watch out it's a great climber it's built for searching in holes nothing is safe for its size it's the ultimate predator and its big advantage is its shape and speed long thin and very fast how do you beat about like that this little demonstration is all about body shape it's a race between the beetles versus the centipede now i am the big round bumbling beetle and over there is um centipede man go beetles [Music] go [Music] uh um [Music] you have to get a lot of body through a very small space in a hurry it pays to be long flat and thin built like a centipede you want mate we were so lucky to find this i mean they lead such a sheltered and hidden life i'm going to put it back though because it really doesn't want to dry out oh no man here we go the king of the predators of the jungle isn't it gorgeous oh lucky us lucky yes come on mate this is where you live here we go so put it right down here come on bye-bye have a time a good time i'm getting out of your way down here come on thomas good whoa there you go bye-bye making your body long and thin is one way of getting among the world's biggest bugs but the next bug has done that to the max i've been sitting now for half an hour not 10 foot from a tree looking for one of the largest insects in the world and i can't see it i'm going to give it a bit longer this creature's been eluding me now for so long i've had enough i'm going to get in there and get it whoops this is the place where you find them on the leaves they sit on the outside of the tree and they gobble up leaves but they despite their size they're surprisingly difficult to find actually here it is this is it this is a leaf insect some people call them stick insects and they belong to the same group look now i'll come down and i'll show you oh wow there we are with the leaf insect now leaf insects and stick insects are closely related and they all got one thing in common they can grow huge sizes now you wonder why they get so big eh the trick apparently is that you think about little warblers a little insect eating birds they come across something like that and they say whoa whoa back there bus up that's too much of a mouthful i can't handle that so size is a protection from being eaten but there's something else there's this wonderful camouflage because if they can help it they don't even want to become discovered they just look like their environment but does camouflage really work can a stick insect really fool a predator i've told my tv crew to see if they can fool me with camouflage so here's the challenge i've been told there's food upstairs and i've got two minutes to eat as much as i can hey this is the sort of job i like [Music] now nothing to it very easy yucky great and now i get to do that all over again but this time the rules have changed this time there's still lots of food but it's all disguised camouflage it doesn't look like food just like a stick insect doesn't look like food nothing here [Music] that's empty this is ridiculous time's up i'm hungry i can't see anything honestly this is a list of all the things i've apparently missed in this room didn't know go have a look oh hello wow well you can eat that blow me dice you can eat that look at this did you see that no idea a very good one this is not cable no licorice i love licorice there's something else the list oh it was great camouflage how much would you have got okay the rose was icing the plate was marzipan so it was the cup and the tv cable was licorice and the list was written on rice paper and that is what it is all about stick and sex are absolutely wonderful at that they just look like a twig and think see if you can find me see if you want to eat me stick and leaf insects are peaceful vegetarians that's why they must be perfect at camouflage they have no other way to protect themselves this one is just like lycan growing on a tree trunk how about this leaf insect it's so perfect it has insect bites taken out of it and a leaf eating a leaf how about that but even their eggs are camouflaged they look like seeds on the forest floor and when the young hatch they're camouflaged to look like ants and instinctively climb straight up into the branches of the nearest tree many stick insects have one more amazing trick some females don't even mate to produce babies they do it all on their own unfertilized eggs hatch into females that grow up to produce more females instant family oh very clever the spiny leaf insect might be big but it certainly isn't the fastest creature on this planet no no no no but she knows where she's going she's going up there to blend in with the foliage and to eat a little bit more and grow a little bit bigger now while she's racing up into the tree i might go away to see if i can find something even bigger than this go left slightly left that's it that's it that up the trunk up the trunk up the trunk go yep oh just don't never mind i'll come down here we go oh no boy oh boy oh are you all right are you okay dear sticky oh i think she's in better shape than i am isn't that a beauty now this is the giant malaysian stick insect it is uh it's one of those creatures that lives way up in the canopy because it pretends to be a stick not a big fat trunk like that the malaysian giant stick insect is the longest insect in the world well not this particular one but somewhere out there somewhere is its biggest cousin the longest stick insect in the world was a malaysian forest walking stick it was found some years ago and was just under two foot long [Music] i'm rude klein pastor and my search for the biggest bug takes me back to the rainforests of latin america [Music] oh oh look at that that is the largest arachnid in the world the largest bug it takes the cake it is the champion these spiders can grow up to 12 inches across in every way you look they can be a quarter pound in terms of weight can you imagine that these are the things hollywood horror movies are made of [Music] foreign magnificent what a monster what a hunter no wonder they've made movies about these things oh man they can kill people at 12 paces that's all rubbish look at this dosa creature will you sure it's a hunter sure it's big but it's slow too these creatures have no ears they've got eight eyes they can't see very well but they have thousands of hairs on their legs on their bodies and those hairs all help to monitor airflow that means they can feel people coming closer they can feel predators coming closer they can feel prey coming closer as well if i make a quick move like this you see immediately how she reacts she can feel this easily just with all those hairs on these wonderful legs come on turn it down oh it's all right girl i wasn't going to hurt you see if i were a predator i would always go from the back knowing that the fangs are at the front and when i come from the back what it does is it dislodges all these hairs straight into my face the hairs are venomous and cause irritation to skin eyes and nose but the hairs also tell us that goliath spiders are in fact giant tarantulas and like all tarantulas they are predators they ambush prey and kill with venom from their fangs but they must take care when they meet other goliath spiders when a male and female come together to mate the male protects himself from her bite by holding her fangs on special hooks on his legs while they copulate there are no records of goliath spiders actually killing humans but that bite is very very painful and can cause paralysis like most spiders they don't bite unless threatened this is as large as spiders or for that matter any bugs can get any larger and they wouldn't be able to get oxygen right to their bodies oh where you going where are you going that's not that's not where you should be going hey isn't that gorgeous look at this come on off you go where's she gone right that's what i call a good spider straight back you see the only time these fierce predators are really vulnerable is when they molt when a spider is about to molt it stops feeding and hides away it also loses hair on its abdomen and its skin has a slightly blue color under its old skin there is a new soft skin already forming and between the two the spider injects a fluid when the pressure of the fluid builds up the old skin splits along its back and the spider steps out of its old suit goliath spiders keep on molting throughout their lives as youngsters they change skin once a month as adults they mold once a year each skin they shed brings them closer and closer to becoming giants and one of the world's biggest bugs the next bug might not beat the giant spider for outright size but it is a true champion for weight and strength so there's something weird and wonderful happening here and it's all to do with growing getting to become a true giant of the bug world means eating you rotten wood and plenty of it rotten logs build champions now have a look at this look what i found this is merely a baby it is the immature or alive of the hercules beetle if you want to see something really nice have a look at this creature's father the very best fat larvae get to become the biggest beetles after spending over a year hidden in the ground munching away as a grub the adult hercules beetle finally emerges as big as a truck papa hercules isn't it a wonderful specimen look at it this is as large as they're going to get those beetles it's a contender for the heaviest insect in the world and they're built listen like a nut strong and hard they can lift 80 times their own weight on top look they're really really really really tough now the horn yes well that horn is not for aggression anna it's not even for defense against predators that beautiful horn is for jousting and jousting is where size of body and horns really counts when a stranger comes along it becomes a battle to defend your home patch and defend your food [Music] the upper and lower horns move like a claw to grasp an opponent and throw him out of the ring among herculosphere males big is definitely best and if a male can keep his good feeding ground it just might become a breeding ground if he wins there's a good chance he will also get the girl to prove that size makes a big beetle unbeatable my tv crew has set up another challenge oh no oh sumo wrestling he's the big beetle oh there's the girl oh and i guess i'm supposed to push him out of the ring yeah [Music] right [Music] [Music] no [Music] one more i nearly got them [Music] [Applause] when two beatles fight it's all about territory and the winner gets the territory and as a bonus he gets the female as well now how cool is that sir you go claim your [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] prize [Music] [Applause] oh i feel for mel hercules beetles especially the losers you know it's not easy it's not fun and it hurts my journey now continues in search of the world's baddest bugs i'm root klein pasta and i'm going to need all my experience as an entomologist if i am to avoid danger and discover why some bugs can seriously hurt us and how others can cause the deaths of millions of people but first up the stinkiest bugs in the world this is not a good idea this cute bug is called the man-faced bug and i'm sure you can see why well if i turned it around you would see that's better oh great hair but wait is that ronald reagan but what's the man face doing amongst the baddest bugs in the world well it belongs to the stinkbug family and where do they hang out to find the worst smelling bug in the world all you really need to do is go to a generic vegetable garden anywhere on this planet now i found some of these coriates right here on this sunflower now i'm gonna pick one up to show you exactly what it is oopsie here's one i got one it's a beautiful beautiful creature actually because it's got these lovely legs with these with these with these leaf-like flaps on the side it's called a leaf-footed bug sometimes now this is the point if i were a bird a young inexperienced bird and i think hmm a leaf-footed bug let's have a go i would pick it in my mouth it was this awful date and as a bird i would i would oh this is oh as a bird i had learned my lesson i would never ever do that again stink bugs get stinky and horribly tasty by feeding on blood juices and using the toxins in the juice to manufacture bad smells and tastes they do it to keep predators away oh this is a big one that is a good one i'm gonna try that one too oh pretty good pong i wonder what it tastes like look at it beautiful though this is not a good idea it is stupid go away get back [Laughter] if you don't believe me when i say that sting bugs really smell that these cute little bugs can make you gag well here's an independent panel of sniffers that you might believe oh my god [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] smells are bad but they're not dangerous now the next bug has a hot solution to help escape predators [Music] in nature predators usually win so how can a defenseless creature beat a hungry predator answer with a nasty surprise sometimes the best form of defense is attack or rather confusion and when you're a small bug in a big big forest the more time you can buy yourself by scaring your opponent or your predator the more time you have to get away meet the bombardier beetle bombardier beetles are the nutty professors of the bug world they create explosive reactions by combining chemicals inside their bodies and if you're on the wrong end of that chemical explosion then these guys are bad but how bad world bombardier expert tom eisner should know no i haven't actually i've never seen one blast no let's do it now what i'm going to make believe is that i'm an ant oh you are and i'm going to just bite him gently in the leg where which shot the left front front side look at that and it's quitted in your direction he's the best marksman in the world wow look at it it didn't miss a degree okay watch the other leg look at the other leg okay you take the middle leg from the other side okay here we go yep oh yeah put on your goggles here okay just pinch them very gently it doesn't take very much yeah here we go try the left hand leg yes i'll try the left hand [Laughter] sensation imagine he can do this for about 30 times oh that's a pretty good national leverage it's a good national average and he's not forced to expand the supply because after he fires he's coated with this stuff the bombardier beetle is a walking zap gun it's quick on the drawer can fire in any direction and it's guaranteed to put off the biggest predator thanks tom there was a random one you got you straight in the nostrils this is what it's all about this is the master blast these are visitors behave yourself it's uh it's quite remarkable you know the mechanism is not unlike the one that the germans put in the v1 rocket in world war ii it's also a system where chemicals are mixed from two chambers so to avoid getting zapped themselves bombardier beetles keep two chemicals apart in two chambers and only mix them to blast an enemy with that boiling hot smelly gunk this is concentrated hydrogen peroxide it is exactly the same material that is fabricated inside the abdomen of the bombardier beetle can you imagine it's rocket fuel that's what they set these rockets up in the sky with and i'm going to mimic exactly what happens inside the bombardier beetle this is it look at it first a bit of peroxide here we go to this we're going to add something that reacts with it here it is it's a catalyst to set off the explosion now i'd like you to meet myself here standing just like that and if this is the bombardier beetle we're scaling everything up to my size that's what we're trying to do here watch what happens holy moly yay the search for the baddest bugs in the world brings me back to latin america and the busy shipping highway the panama canal i'm rude kleinfast and i'm searching for a bug that is the terror of the rainforest a fierce predator that devours over two pounds of bugs and other small creatures every day here we are missed hang on hang on get one got one this is what i'm looking for this is what we call an army and small insignificant yes i had bites you know it stinks yeah it does both small and insignificant perhaps but it's part of a much larger community we're talking about hundreds of thousands of creatures this is only a tiny weeny column here but if i'm going on i'm sure i'll find a bigger trail than that isn't it amazing ah god they found me all right look straight through my pants they're stinging and it hurts they all sting and the interesting thing is they're all blind but somehow they find me all right here we go bye-bye army and colonies are so perfectly organized that they are sometimes called vast superbugs and i'm heading towards this one's heart oh the trail is over there i have the feeling i'm close to the nest because they're getting really wide the trails and it's like a highway so they're split up a bit further up the food is going that way so i must be close to the bivouac really exciting stuff come on oh yeah yeah yeah yeah that's where they are oh look at it this is the beverage it is not a structure as such it's not a nest it is it is basically a hell of a lot of ants all holding hands together forming their own nest it's a bit like having a whole family of human beings all holding hands together and forming a house or all the other human beings walk inside on the staircase going upstairs going to the fridge you know find mom find the kids and there they are this is i would say a medium-sized nest 700 000 individuals something like that this bivouac is part of a nomadic phase what i'm trying to say is that these ants are actually on the moon the workers move their camp or bivouac every day as they take the queen and thousands of helpless larvae and pupae to a new feeding location big well-armed soldiers guard them during the nomadic phase the colony is a bit like a ravenous beast its appetite is insatiable lizards birds even snakes fall prey to this rampaging superbug you know what i reckon is going to be fun going to the front of the column that is the swarm that's where the action is that's that battlefield the swarm will move out in a new direction every day there are no scouts and because they are all blind they follow a pheromone or scent trail laid down by the workers army and sometimes enter our world and when they do you can clearly see how totally organized they are it's like traffic on a freeway except there's no accidents and no traffic jams now this is something you don't see every day army ends invading homes which are close to the jungle now the locals don't mind that too much because the army ants perform a greatest service of pest control they're taking away all the vermin all the insects that they don't want in their pantries in their kitchens in their bedrooms workers are veracious when they detect prey they become like a pack of tiny wolves but the colony concentrates most of its killing power at the front of the swarm this is like the mouth of a fierce predator i'm literally at the front of the column this is where the swarm is and look at them they're everywhere they're big columns over there huge numbers and the funny thing is they really don't make tracks as such they they literally swarm all over the place at the leading edge ants push forward they lay pheromone for others and then retreat any prey is heavily marked with pheromone and swarmed by those that follow if the kill is too big to move they cut it up and hundreds of ants each carry a piece back along the feeder column to the bivouac now if the front of the swarm is like the mouth of a fierce predator i could easily become its next meal don't do that stop i'm in the wrong place i'm in the wrong place i'm in the wrong place oh no oh army ends hurt but next an end that can really hurt it has the most painful sting in the animal kingdom the good news is this bug lives in central american forest tree tops so i get a ride in a crane the bad news is that it has a really painful sting and i've agreed to experience it to forget that i'm about to get a bad sting i'm really trying hard to enjoy the view up here you can imagine that the canopy of forests like this have not been studied much in the past because there's no way really of getting there but once you get there boy there's stuff everywhere entomologist dream every tree you see here is different i mean there's a home for everybody here literally and there's ants there's hands even at this elevation where's my bullet end i'm going to be stung by a bullet end they live in colonies at the base of trees but mainly feed and flowers and nectar high up in the treetops bullet ants are blind they use their antennae as walking sticks as they move about up here and that's why they have a sting that causes such incredible pain the only disadvantage of living up here is you're in the public eye the stakes are really high here all insects want to feed here and the predators know that because they go and hunt for their favorite prey and if you are a big insect like a bullet ant you really want to arm yourself so that those predators don't stand a chance worker ants travel alone nothing will mess with you when you've got a major sting in the tip of your abdomen they say that being stung by a bullet end feels like being shot and i'm about to find out gracias gracias gracias oh there's heaps of ends here but this the wrong size look at them whoa they describe this ant the pain of this end is if your hand is being slammed in a car door for a couple of hours yeah so why am i doing it well the world's stinging insects bees wasps and ants are all bluffers it's a painful bluff mind you but a sting is simply their trick to make us think that we are suffering major injury they really just want us to go away now even a bulletin sting is nothing more than a painful sting nearly nearly got it come on i think i got one now i'm going to take that end and see what it's really made of here we go this is the bullet and i i got up in the canopy and i'm going to bite the bullets i'm going to see if it's really all it's um cracked up to be come on mate down you go i don't want you out there yet put it on my arm here ah he got me got me got me got me get out get out get this thing out come on come on off you go please get off me he keeps going keeps going hang on ah come here i'll catch you anyway oh yeah i think i'm going to take you can see how my watch is getting really see how it's swelling up here on the other side of my watch i'm going to take it off because it's not doing anything for me you can see that they call it the 24 hour end and that means that they reckon at 24 hours the pain will subside it's like slowly creeping through my arm now it's starting to move it's now moving towards my hand the pain is moving further up my arm and it took what 20 minutes boy this is something i will never ever forget never ever where an hour after the sting occurred the pain is absolutely not subsided it's like a hot needle in and down on the other side it started to really rain heavily it's got really dark it's almost like midnight and i think it's time to retire to the comfort of my hotel where there might be some ice which would be good boy this is sore still it doesn't go away it keeps going it's about six hours after the sting and it just doesn't let up it's really painful it's not getting much better really it's just like swollen sore from here to there my arm is when i don't move it it's totally numb it's thick and you cannot move much it's very thick and fat inside it doesn't really hurt much until you start moving it then it starts to hurt again morning just had a few hours sleep which is nice actually and we're 16 hours on after the sting and good news is i can wear my watch the swelling has gone down the pain is basically back to the aftermath numbness of a big beasting and that means that i'm on the on the road to recovery i think i shall live i learned the lesson i really i really did don't mess with bullet ants they peck a punch bye my search for the baddest bugs takes me deep into the arizona desert this is scorpion hq here are two toughies two scorpions and both are from the desert now one of these is a killer it can floor and kill human beings and the other one is almost harmless can you guess which one no i'll show you this one but this one is the harmless one oh yes it just got me absolutely got me and it draws blood but the venom is not half as bad as that of a bee she's so strong that she would rarely use her sting for catching prey she would use it only really in the last possible defense if somebody is hustling her or if she feels really threatened a little bit like this look see there it goes ah she's pushing she's nudging look at that and the funny thing is it doesn't even hurt now the other one that's the nasty one and there's a very good reason for it the park scorpion hunts out on tree trunks and rocks where it can be seen and is vulnerable to attack just like the bullet ant so it uses venom not only to catch prey but also for defense against predators tv crew has rigged another surprise for me i'm not sure what a walk on the beach will teach me about black scorpion stings but i'm sure i'll find out for this simple demonstration about the black scorpion i was asked to walk past that girl on the beach there how easy can that be oh that's nasty ah yeah that is dead you're so small and i'm oh there's a kettle prod look that's what 10 thousand volts or something like get you go good grief oh not fair shows you though if you're small in statue and you've got something that is really worthwhile as a tool you can floor anybody the little bark scorpion's powerful punch is a neurotoxin venom that has killed hundreds of people in mexico and the us but some scorpions can decide how bad they want to be some of two kinds of venom one just causes pain but if the threat continues they will turn on their deadly venom as our towns move into deserts we meet more scorpions and another bug that likes to join us in the bathroom [Music] as american settlers moved west build homes on the prairie and in deserts the deadly black widow moved in with them it had a fatal attraction to the smallest room around the house the outhouse the relationship between men and bugs has never been shall we say a comfortable one and especially the black widow spiders left a trail of victims and destruction what a top spot for a spider to hang out it's got everything a decent black widow would want now for these spiders outdoor toilets were merely the beginning of their long association with humans i reckon they went a couple of steps further and are now saying modern cities and urban habitats bring it on many towns and cities have now spread across a lot of black widow territory and that spells danger for us in the last 25 years there have been numerous black widow spider bites reported but thankfully only four confirmed deaths it's the female of the species who's the bad bug and i'm keen to meet the lady up close this is what i call a prime piece of real estate there she is in an old clay pot nice and sheltered big web and of course in an area with a lot of rubbish a lot of other insects a lot of flight a lot of food she sits in the back of the pot waiting the web is right out here and in the web there's some other little bits and pieces there's some food hanging in suspended animation right here little fly covered with silk now we all know that they're venomous but the reason they use their venom is very very simple you see spiders haven't invented fridges yet so when they catch prey they want to keep it as fresh as possible if they don't want to feed on it yet so what do you do is you wrap it up into silk you give it a little bite of venom a little bit of poison so that you just don't kill your prey and it stays okay in the web for four or five days perhaps black widows are super venomous because they are small and vulnerable just like bullet ants and bark scorpions but the good news is that like all spiders they really don't want to bite us [Music] now black widows are normally not very aggressive at all but you've got to be very careful they are venomous and don't try this at home but when you get a spider like this that falls onto your hand or bungees onto your hand don't pick it up put it back just like that and put it back where she belongs and she will leave you alone mother black widow lays several egg clusters in a season but newly hatched black widow spiderlings have a clever way of going new places and meeting new people they climb up to a windy site make a long piece of silk and use it like a parachute to take to the skies it's called ballooning they can blow for miles and miles and wherever they land be it a forest an office building or your backyard that will be the widow's new home a black widow spider isn't really as bad as its reputation but next the most deadly spider in the world look at this a bustling metropolis with lots of activity and heaps of people four million in fact because this is sydney australia now let's take a step back in time 300 years ah that's better clean pristine undisturbed bush now it was in this particular area perhaps only a couple of dozen square miles in size that there once lived a very unique species of spider a funnel web spider on warm summer evenings male funnel webs would come out of their silk lined nests and go wandering through the bush looking for a mate their journeys could take them miles from home and that's the way life was for perhaps millions of years and then 200 years ago the city of sydney was built right on top of funnel web spiders home territory so what did these spiders do well nothing the males keep on wondering just like they always did now known as the sydney funnel web the suburbs are their new bush and if their romantic journey should take them near a house they are likely to come in trouble is they're probably the most venomous spiders on the planet when cornered they can be really aggressive and 13 people have been killed in the sydney area but none since antivenin was discovered in 1981 even though 30 to 40 people are bitten each year they normally eat beetles and cockroaches so it's actually quite a mystery why the venom of male funnel webs is so poisonous to humans and other primates i've caught one in the act here in the old garage walking around can't stay here mate some of them are more aggressive than others if they rear up you know they mean business you have to be very careful with puffs of wind this is rearing behavior universal language for danger stay out of my way i'm gonna try something here i've got a theory that a spider just doesn't bite the ground that it's walking on it's gotta have a good reason to be aggressive and to attack if it's under attack itself i'm gonna try and let it walk over my hand i think this believe it or not is not an act of foolishness [Music] i've handled bugs good and bad for over 20 years i know when it is safe and i know that venom is precious to a spider they don't want to waste a drop and they will only attack when threatened oh that was close god i can't believe i did that but please if you live in sydney or anywhere there are venomous spiders don't you try this my journey to find the baddest bugs enters a spot this could be anywhere in the tropics i'm rude klein foster and i'm on the trail of a bug that's so unbelievably bad it can be linked to the deaths of millions of humans in the last thousand years i think i can hear something hasn't found me yet these bad bugs love to feed on us and they can find us from a long way off by smell of course i'm talking about mosquitoes and these ones are in a laboratory where researchers use a special machine to study what kind of smells mosquitoes are most attracted to this is how it works lots of mosquitoes in these containers and some pipes and tubes in which you can put an attractant and then you can measure the response number one i know breath attracts them carbon dioxide i've got a sachet of artificial carbon dioxide here which i'm going to put in this chamber see these here you are see what happens and there they go straight for the carbon dioxide it really turns them on if i would go and breathe a bit more they would even like that better so breath this is another one i'll put my hand in here open that one up this shows you that the chemicals on my hand the sweat and the body odors are also a very good stimulant for those female female mosquitoes to grab me to get hold of me but i've got something else i've got the odor of all odors i haven't washed those for a couple of days so hope it's not going to kill them no it doesn't they're actually they really like this stuff isn't that amazing it's like swiss cheese to a mosquito big foot odor big sweat only female mosquitoes come after us they want a protein in our blood to help develop their eggs [Music] they find us first by locking on the carbon dioxide in our breath they can detect us from over 100 feet away [Music] when they get closer they smell our skin mosquitoes react to over 300 different skin chemicals and look there they are they're going straight from my fingers these mosquitoes can take four times their own body weight of my blood that means that they become four times heavier than they are when they started and that means that their abdomens really have to stretch and let in more and more blood and if you look really carefully you can see that they eject water with little droplets from their abdomen just to make room for a bit more blood they really want as much protein as they can get different mosquitoes have favorite animal hosts these striped edc egypti love human blood they live in the tropics and like to live in our houses problem is each one is a potentially loaded gun full of nasty disease so am i in danger thankfully not from these little ladies they are laboratory bred and disease free but you can imagine that if these would have things like yellow fever or dengue inside them i would be a sitting duck edis mosquito spread yellow fever and dengue fever by sucking up disease from the blood of an infected person and passing it on to others the disease multiplies in a new host rupturing red blood cells and causing severe fever fever that affects millions and kills thousands of people each year next a bug that wants to hurt us in a big way the baddest bugs in this show were bred in brazil in the 1950s they escaped and reached the us in 1990 and they're spreading fast they're africanized honeybees or killer bees they look just like normal honeybees but they are super aggressive in defense of their queen if an intruder comes near thousands of bees will attack and give chase for over a mile hundreds of people have been killed by this modern bad bug you generally don't mess around with killer bees i was told and it means full suit and great care i'm in arizona and killer bee expert justin schmidt is taking me to a killer bee nest we must be careful even a noise or vibration could cause an attack and when killer bees attack most of the hive will swarm and i don't want that and justin doesn't either there it is up there the killer bee colony the less people the better so i'm going to wish you good luck to bon voyage oh thank you i need it i'll be very careful see ya just be careful [Music] there's a huge nest of killer bees there and you you can hear them buzz from right here now i don't want to disturb them because when they're disturbed they attack when they attack they sting and when they sting they die and i don't want that to happen but i've got to be very very quiet and very careful but what would be nice is to have a look inside the nest and to see how they react don't forget i'm downwind from them and i'm going to put this little camera inside and see what i can find oh oh boy god beast oh my amazing they haven't seen me yet sensational this has never been done before i look to investigating the camera now wonderful oh god the noise the noise whoa well here they come i've got to get out folks i've got to get out no this is not safe i've got to get out i'm on i'm moving better get out it's a bit safer here but i think i'll come back tonight i reckon it's a lot safer in the dark when i approach the nest at night i expect the bees to be at rest but they are not they are still aggressive after my earlier visit as i approach they approach me on foot they climb my boots and my legs it's amazing even though this is night they are still alert still super aggressive they start stinging it's time to get out of here but there will be no escape from the killer bees tomorrow morning my journey to find the world's baddest bugs ends here today in the arizona desert i didn't sleep last night i kept thinking about the crazy thing i've agreed to do not too sure about this it's hot already i hope the bees like the warmth in there i think i really am nervous hmm you'd be too if you were about to have thousands of killer bees put on you without any protective clothing this must be my torture entomologist norm geary you're will hi norm uh yeah we're gonna have some excitement here i have no idea what's gonna happen so tell me what do i do the first thing you do is not panic no matter what happens don't panic because that's bad okay so i i really i i relax you relax totally as much as i can as much yeah how can anyone relax with 50 000 bees on their face eh how many well at least 50 000 bees are here today and we hope they're all in a good mood i sting a lot so he puts repellent around my eyes my sleeves and cuffs are taped to prevent bees getting into my clothing and stinging me norm geary is a bee expert and has worked a lot with killer bees but what we are planning is very risky this is a hey listen i mean hang on is this it that's it rude it's not beautiful but it's functional this is a small vial of liquid it's a pheromone complex actually many pheromones b pheromones combined together so you can already see the bees are showing interest in it even before i open the vial yes so in order to attract the bees to you and get them cluster on you we're going to place little droplets of this wherever we want the peas to come wow they're really responding uh just little droplets here and there the pheromone is the key to what we are going to do it's the same chemical that a queen produces when she flies from an overcrowded hive to encourage workers to follow her that's why they will come to me and that's why i'm doing this to prove the power of the pheromone i trust that it will communicate to these killer bees that they should not attack me just to be on the safe side i have a fist full of medications here okay so anything for any purpose and uh we'll take good care of you if you get stung okay so that's that's if i go absolutely out all right are we ready i'm ready mate yeah very good ready ready am i doing here once a few bees are in position then they're quite attracted to the other bees so this is going to build up now and it's going to uh it's going to alarm you there's no question about it what's even more alarming is what norm says next this is the first time i've ever used africanized so-called killer bees on a person as the bees go on i start to panic 500 stings will kill me and there must be close to 500 on me already but i must have confidence in normal and confidence in the bees i have to believe they only attack if they have a queen or a hive to defend and today i'm their queen if uh if you get stung i want you to let me know right away if you can't if you can't say anything in your mouth because you're covered just go like that when i first did this sting is what i'm most afraid of if one killer bee stings it will release a sting pheromone that's the signal for a mass attack it is bizarre it is a weird sensation it is frightening as hell it is really frightening because you feel that they're all going for you which is what they do which is what they do isn't it norm they go yeah they're going for you because you smell like the queen bee that's why yeah the biggest queen in town all right gosh it's hard to scoop the residual bees i'm going to fling them in the air downwind from you and they will smell their way up and come and join the other bees so on the count of three one two three how many more do you have well maybe you have 30 of these i can go ahead and release the others quickly and can i put my arms down oh yes i just keep keep them down okay as long as they're sorry i'm getting tense just relax as norm releases the bees they come flying onto me at great speed it's like riding a motorbike through a swarm i'm getting really tired at this point you should start feeling a lot of weight yes i can feel weights the bees are heavy about 3 000 4000 bees per pound yes and you have at least a half pound on your hat alone yeah i can hear them so close up that they feel as if they're living in my ears and it's it's like deafening i can honestly i cannot hear anything that you're saying you have to shout i have to learn to relax and look up straight i can't see a thing the bees are shading my eyes can you see that i can hardly see a thing now it's awful under the weight of 50 000 bees i'm feeling totally isolated i'm starting to panic again i want us to end now please rude i thought you might like to see how you appear in the mirror so oh no take a look oh you're joking oh no look at this oh this is amazing [Music] this is what you call ultimate trust in insects they're not out to kill us that's not what they're about they're about to defend their honey because we always steal it and i reckon this is the most powerful way of finding that out okay rude it's time to get these bees off a little bit on your cheek here huh to start with whoops i'm sorry it's my fault i'm stunned i'm stung will they attack thank god they stay calm you have to be an expert to face up to the world's baddest bugs an expert and a little bit crazy you are essentially free of bees my good man wow and you got two stings yeah well i'm sorry about that but you know it could have been 50 000 yeah i know under other circumstances i've never done anything like this in my life and um i feel that i put my trust in the bees and what i know about them and about and in and enter their world and i tell you what you are constantly aware if you make one such thing as the wrong wrong move your history oops that's it you gotta play their game what a stunt to finish on but we've done it yeah we've got it [Music] okay [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary - Nature

Views: 143,596

Rating: 4.6323118 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), nature documentary, Free Documentary Nature, Animals, Animal Documentary, Animal Documentary 2021, Wildlife, Wildlife Documentary, Wildlife Documentary 2021, Bugs, Bug Documentary, Creepy Crawlers, Spiders, arachnid, Insects, Insect Documentary, ruud kleinpaste, Buggin with Ruud, buggin with ruud, Praying Mantis, cockroach

Id: AqRQe3TaUG4

Length: 89min 33sec (5373 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 01 2021