Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
THE DEEPEST MYSTERY OF THE AMAZON BASIN
The last place you’d expect to see a dolphin is the Amazon basin, but astonishingly it’s home to three species, the Bolivian, Amazon and Araguaia river dolphins. The 8ft Araguaia was only discovered in 2014, meaning there’s precious little scientific data about its habits, and Planet Earth II’s footage of these freshwater mammals was the first time they’d been filmed for television. What is known is that living in murky brown water has made them virtually blind and they use sonar to hunt fish on the river bed.
River dolphins are very different creatures to their sea-going cousins. Their skin is softer and their bodies are highly flexible, enabling them to writhe and wriggle through the roots and reeds criss-crossing the riverbed. But at more than 440lb, they are far from the lithe, acrobatic animals seen in the ocean. Their long snouts bristle with razor-sharp teeth. At the front, longer incisors are used for grasping prey, while at the back the molars grind and crush it, even breaking up catfish bones and crab shells.
To film them the crew had to take to canoes to navigate the labyrinthine
backwaters. This was perhaps the most difficult shoot for Emma Napper, who produced the Jungles episode. Because they couldn’t get too close by canoe, the team used drones mounted with cameras to capture exclusive footage of the dolphins and found that they come together in pods and hunt in groups. The crew camped on the only patch of mud for miles that did not get flooded, an area no bigger than a large sitting-room, and had to share it with every other animal trying to dry out – including a bad-tempered rat.
If the dolphin’s beak looks ungainly, it is nothing compared to the sword-billed hummingbird of Ecuador, whose beak is longer than its entire body. In order to preen, the little bird has to stand on one leg and scratch itself with its other foot, like a dog with f leas. But the four-inch bill does have one huge advantage. No other hummingbird can reach so deep into jungle blossoms to reach the nectar.
When the team flew to Guatemala to film spider monkeys, they captured a situation every parent will be familiar with. You take your eyes off your youngster for a minute, and when you look round the precious bundle is a split-second from disaster. It’s no different for these intrepid animals when they’re using their powerful, snake-like tails to learn to climb – the potential for catastrophe is never more than a single slip away. Inhabiting the top of the rainforest canopy in Central and South America, from Mexico to Brazil, spider monkeys live in groups of around 30 and forage through the highest branches for leaves and fruit. By keeping a tight grip with at least two limbs (including their prehensile tails) at all times, they avoid
falling. But it’s a tricky technique to master, and the babies stay at lower levels until they’re strong and confident. Not so the little one filmed by the Planet Earth team. When her dad turned his back she was heading to the topmost branches in search of adventure. And the higher she went, the flimsier the branches became... until one bough bent and left her dangling perilously over a 200ft drop by her tail. No matter how she stretched, she couldn’t reach the branch with her hands or feet. Luckily, Dad spotted her and came bounding to the rescue, making a bridge with his body enabling her to scramble to safety. ‘When we spotted this young one we guessed she would have some adventures. It wasn’t that she was clumsy, just that she was fearless and always looking for trouble!’ says Emma.
That’s life in the jungle, the richest source of biodiversity on ear th. Though they cover just 6 per cent of the planet’s land surface, jungles contain half of all plant and animal species. The Amazon basin alone is home to 400 kinds of mammal, 1,300 species of bird, 40,000 different plants and more than two million types of insect.
Many of these creatures have mastered the art of camouflage in order to survive in the rainforest, none more so than the leaf- ta i led geckos – found only on the island of Madagascar – named because of their broad, flat tails which really do look like leaves. This helps them to hide, as does their skin which resembles tree bark. They spend much of the day hiding in plain sight, perched on a tree while basking in the sun – waiting for night when they will stalk their food, insects and other invertebrates. Red- eyed tree frogs, which live around jungle ponds in the forests of Costa Rica, are incredibly good at hiding, that is until they move and reveal dazzling bright red eyes and a beautiful blue pattern on their sides. It’s so wet in the jungle that they live most of their lives in trees and even lay their eggs on leaves above water. When they hatch, the tadpoles plop off the leaves straight into the ponds.
Sir David Attenborough has long been known for his fascination with Madagascar’s lemurs, of which there are more than 40 different species. The biggest of all is the indri – ‘like a koala crossed with a teddy bear,’ says Emma Napper – and one newborn was named David in his honour a few years ago. Unfortunately it’s hard to guess the gender of baby lemurs... and David the indri turned out to be a girl. The crew filmed her leading her clan in territorial calls, emitting howls that can be heard echoing across the island. ‘When you’re standing next to an indri it’s deafening,’ says Emma. ‘We couldn’t broadcast it at full volume – it would break everybody’s TV speakers!’