Skip to main content

Planet Earth DVD Episode Guide - Episode 8 - Jungles

Episode 8 of the Planet Earth DVD series takes the viewer deep into the jungles and rainforests. Jungles and rainforests occupy only 3% of the Earth’s land but are home to over half of the world’s species. In New Guinea, almost 40 different birds of paradise avoid conflict by living on different parts of the island. The elaborate courtship displays of the birds of paradise are shown.

At the top of the dense forest canopy, sunlight is in high demand. With each death of a tree a race by sapplings is triggered to fill the vacant space. For jungle creatures, figs are a popular food. As many as 44 different types of birds and monkeys have been observed feeding in a single fig tree.

Planet Earth explores the sounds of the jungle that are heard throughout the day, from the early morning calls of orangutans to the nocturnal cacophony of courting tree frogs. The Planet Earth DVD series illustrates the importance of fungi to the rainforest by showing them fruiting. Footage of a parasite called cordyceps is included.

The symbiotic relationship between carnivorous pitcher plants and red crab spiders is discussed. In the Congo, roaming forest elephants are show reaching a clearing to feed on essential clay minerals within the mud. Chipanzees are one of the few jungle animals that are able to move through both the forest floor and the canopy in search of food. In Uganda, members of a 150-string community of primates mount an attack into a neighboring territory in order to gain control of it.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Planet Earth DVD Episode Guide - Episode 10 - Seasonal Forests

The 10th episode of the Planet Earth DVD series surveys the coniferous and deciduous seasonal woodland habitats, the most extensive forests on Earth. Coniferous trees begin sparsely in the Arctic but soon dominate the land, and the taiga circles the globe, containing a third of all the Earth’s trees. The Arctic is an unforgiving climate, and few creatures can survive the cold, but the moose and wolverine are exceptions. 1600 kilometers to the south, on the Pacific coast of North America, conifers have reached their full potential. Some of the world’s tallest trees reside here; the redwoods. Planet Earth shows a pine marten stalking a squirrel and great grey owl chicks take their first flight. Further south still, in the Valdivian forests of Chile, a population of smaller animals exists, including the pudu and the kodkod. During the spring in the European broad-leaved forests, a mandarin duck leads its day-old family to leap from its tree trunk nest to the leaf litter below. Meanwh...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Planet Earth TV Series

Planet Earth is a BBC nature documentary series co-produced with the Discovery Channel. Filmed in high-definition format, it has been described as “the definitive look at the diversity of our planet”. Planet Earth is a huge achievement in documentary filming, and through its imagery, promotes care for and respect of our planet Earth. Narrator David Attenborough has called the series “a celebration of our planet”. The series was made over the course of four years by Produce Alastair Fothergill and his team, who are also responsible for the 2001 documentary titled “The Blue Planet”. With the exception of the first, each of the eleven episodes focuses on one of Earth’s natural habitats and showcases the animal and plant life found there. Several animals and locations featured in the Planet Earth series have never been filmed before. Never before filmed animal behavior includes: wolves chasing caribou observed from above, snow leopards pursuing markhor in the Himalayas; grizzly bear c...
Post a Comment
Read more