South America
Spanning two hemispheres and myriad habitats, this is the most species-rich continent on Earth.
Covering about 12 per cent of the world’s land surface, South America is the fourth largest continent, and it is packed with geographical superlatives. The Amazon is arguably the world’s greatest river, with an average discharge five times greater than the Congo, which takes second place. The highest uninterrupted waterfall is Angel Falls, which drops from the ancient Auyán-tepuí in Venezuela, and the spectacular falls at Iguaçu on the Brazil–Argentina border make up the largest waterfall system in the world. The Andes form the longest mountain chain on land, in which Lake Titicaca is the world’s highest navigable lake and Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat. The Atacama Desert is the driest non-polar place on the planet.
Ice field big cats
In the south, the continent pushes farther south than any other, apart from Antarctica, so upland areas have their own ice fields – the Northern and Southern Patagonian ice fields, shared by Chile and Argentina.
It was in southern Chilean Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park that the South America filming team was able to capture remarkable pictures of an animal so elusive that it has rarely been filmed hunting in the wild. It is the puma or mountain lion. The species is relatively common, with sightings from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but it has the unfortunate habit, at least for filmmakers, of disappearing into the landscape. Executive producer Jonny Keeling knows this only too well.
“I’ve been to Patagonia three or four times hoping to film pumas hunting guanaco – not in a macabre way, but just to see how they went about it. We had many near misses, but that was all, so the crew went
back again for one last try, this time using drones, so we could see what was going on from the air.”
“We also had the best local guides,” says wildlife cameraman John Shier, “and we could spend many hours with our main character Sarmiento, a female puma with three fairly well-grown cubs. We also benefited from the conservation movement that has started. Ranchers have stopped killing cats, as they’ve discovered there’s more money to be had from ecotourism and pumas than from rearing sheep.”
Pumas, however, don’t have everything their own way. Guanacos are big animals, and they can fight back, as John saw for himself.
“For me, one of
Sarmiento’s failed hunts was simply shocking. I’d always assumed that pumas make a quick assault and either give up or make a quick kill, but this hunt was a bloody all-out battle for survival. The guanaco outweighed Sarmiento, and it really stomped and kicked the heck out of her. Even more surprising was how relentless she was: she just kept coming. It drove it home to me how difficult it is not only to be a puma, but also a puma mother with three nearly grown-up cubs. If she doesn’t lay all on the line, her family starves.”
Shared past
The presence of the puma shows that, although much of South America’s fauna and flora is unique, there are distinct echoes of other continents because of the way the seven continents have been moving. South America’s marsupials are descendants of animals that were on the continent when Antarctica and Australia broke away about 120 million years ago. Ancestors of New World monkeys, such as the Critically Endangered cotton-top tamarin from Colombia,
probably island-hopped or rafted from the Old World about 35 million years ago when the Atlantic was narrower than it is today, and the predecessors of today’s pumas, bears, guanacos, alpacas and vicuñas moved south from North America at times when the Isthmus of Panama bridged the two continents.
High-rise bears
The only bear in South America is the Andean bear, formerly known as the spectacled bear on account of the white face markings on some individuals. It’s the only living relative of North America’s extinct short-faced bear, the largest terrestrial mammalian predator that ever lived. Most bear species can climb trees when they are young and tend to give up when they grow larger, but the Andean bear is an inveterate treeclimber throughout its life. When certain fruits are ripe, you can even find several individuals in a single tree. Wildlife cameraman Bertie Gregory noticed what skilled climbers they were, even in the tops of trees.
“What I loved most about watching them was how they looked like a familiar black bear, but in an unfamiliar setting – 30m up a tree in the middle of a hot and sweaty cloud forest. It was also interesting to see how they appeared to understand the physics of weights and pivots,” says Bertie.
“Once they’d finished the easyto-reach fruits, they’d climb out onto the thinner branches. If they realised the branch might break under their weight, they chewed it, but not right through. They left a bit still attached, so they could swing the end of the branch towards them and munch on the hard-to-get-at fruit. All very clever!”
South America’s marsupials are descendants of animals that were here when Antarctica and Australia broke away 120m years ago.