------Program code: NS-080901-01685 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
09-01-2008 10:13
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The wasp is angry and bites into an ant. The individual ant is vulnerable. More and more ants die. But before they do, they release a mass of toxins to alert their companions.
The soldier ants hurry to the scene. The outcome of the battle is still not resolved. The wasp still has the advantage, but the ant colony shows no sign of surrender.
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The order for a ceasefire comes from the sky. A cloud passes and the rain begins to fall.
The ant colony retreats. They must find shelter from the rain.
By comparison with the tiny ants, the Hainan giant squirrel can still enjoy a delicacy in the rain. Even the rain does not destroy its appetite. Without the ants to interfere the sweet juice occupies all its attention.
The dead red tree ants are taken back home. Their bodies will be laid to rest in a place of honour in the ant nest.
The rain gets harder. Even the giant squirrel is forced to stop eating. The wasp also disappears. The forest has resumed its air of tranquility.
The rain stops, and the red tree ants taking shelter emerge one by one.
But the warning signal comes again. The trespasser has returned.
The red tree ants make more careful arrangements this time. They turn out in full strength. This battle will be decisive.
The heavy rain hasn’t dispersed the poison given off by their dead companions. The red tree ants, working in unison, launch another attack. The wasp has been soaked by the rain, so it is not as agile as it was before. It moves its wings in order to get rid of the water as quickly as possible. Its greed has brought it into dire peril.
Several red tree ants seize the wasp’s feet. They are the most vulnerable part of its body. Several other red tree ants grasp the enemy’s wet wings. The ants keep spraying formic acid into its wounds. Under the effects of the poison, the wasp gradually loses its power to resist.
By working as a team the tiny ants finally defeat their giant enemy.
In contrast with the noisy insect world, is the plants’ silent growth. The young green plum tree is rooted in soil, and simply waits for the sun to cast light on it each day.
The dense forest is like a cage. At the top, the big trees arrange their leaves carefully, to ensure as little sunlight as possible will fall on the ground.
The young trees must survive in the shade of the forest by accumulating energy and waiting patiently for the opportunity to grow.
The red tree ants living on the Hainan madhuca tree are growing and expanding their colony. They have established their status as the masters of an area of a dozen square meters.
In the morning, monkeys start to come down the hill in search of food. During the wet season, the food is abundant.
In the rainforest, most of the arbor trees have thick, strong buttress roots. In order to occupy a wider area, the root systems of these trees expand both horizontally and vertically. The thick buttress roots are a reliable counterweight to the tree’s heavy crown. But when the tree grows old, the strong wind, attacks by disease and insects, and the burden of epiphytic and strangling plants can make it collapse.
The new day brings a new beginning. But at the same time a tree comes to the end of its life.
A gap appears in the thick forest cover. The sunlight pours down through it, allowing the new and still weak plants on the ground to grow freely.
In a single hectare of the rainforest, 150,000 new plants strike root and sprout every year. But fewer than one in a hundred of them will grow into a tall tree. The young green plum tree is lucky. But it still has a long way to go, if it is to become a big, tall tree one day.
Editor:Yang
