Life: Insects

Before saying, “ew, gross,” consider that this is BBC Life, one of the most astounding nature documentaries you have ever seen. But, yes, this time the subject is about insects. We are privileged to view – up-close and in magnificent detail – ants, flies, bugs, beetles, bees, butterflies, stick insects, praying mantis, and vast clouds of mayflies, all in their natural surroundings. Some of the highlights include a stag beetle climbing 80 feet up a tree trunk in Chilean Patagonia, hurling male rivals with his enormous jaw horns to find a mate; millions of alkali flies in California’s hyper-saline Mono Lake eating algae under water, living unchallenged until phalarope birds stop over on their winter migration; a swarm of bees defending their colony’s honey combs to the death from a sweet-toothed black bear cub; a South African oogpister (Afrikaans for “eye-pisser”) beetle hunting for ants, until they all bite his ankles and drive him off, then firing off formic acid (digested from the ants) to ward off an inquisitive mongoose; a female Japanese red bug feeding her nest until her death, including demanding new arrivals from another mother who failed to provide for her nymphs; huge Dawson’s bees killing each other in rolling brawls over females emerging from their burrows in the desert ground of Australia’s outback; a colony of several million grass-cutter ants in Argentina, carrying blades of grass to their subterranean metropolis where they farm fungus gardens from which they feed themselves; a female damselfly mating within one day of her adult life, while black winged males battle for her favor in southern France, after which she needs to lay her eggs under water, while evading hopping hungry frogs; an astonishing billion monarch butterflies migrating from as far north as Canada’s Lake Erie to hibernate in a small patch of forest high up in Mexico’s Sierra Madre. You have to see it all to believe it! It’s miraculous!