BBC - Life Disc 1: Challenges of Life (2010)

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Challenges of Life provides an overview of the extraordinary strategies our planet’s animals and plants have developed to stay alive as individuals and as species. In Kenya, three cheetah brothers have invented a new way of hunting: Rather than tackling small prey on their own, they have learned that by joining forces they can bring down big game such as ostriches. A pod of bottlenose dolphins in Florida has also made a breakthrough. To catch their fast-swimming prey, one dolphin creates a “mud-ring” by beating its tail in the soft silt as it swims in a circle. As the mud mushrooms in the water, the ring gets smaller and fish become trapped. Panicking, they jump out of the water – right into the waiting dolphins’ mouths. In Brazil, brown-tufted capuchin monkeys demonstrate an extraordinary level of skill when cracking open the palm nuts they love to eat. They pick the nuts, strip them of their husks and leave them to dry. After a few weeks they transport them to a huge anvil-like rock and smash them with a harder hammer stone. It can take eight years for a capuchin to perfect the complex art of nut-smashing. In every animal’s life there comes a time when its mind turns to breeding. The stalk-eyed fly has a mind-boggling technique: It sucks in air bubbles and blows them through its head to push its eyes out … on stalks! These are vital for winning females, because males with the widest eye span gets the most attention.
Peter's DVD rating: 4.5 stars
577 LIF
QH501.L544 2010
1:00 Common Bottlenose Dolphin forms mud net to trap fish (Florida) 4:503 Cheetah brothers hunt Ostrich together (Kenya) 8:30 Chameleon catches praying mantis with tongue (Madagascar)
11:30 Crabeater Seal uses ice to escape Killer Whales (Antarctica) 15:45Sailfish hunt sardines. 16:00Flying Fish
17:50 Tufted Capuchin learns to crack nut palm with rock (Boa Vista, central Brazil) 21:55 Venus Flytrap has 2 fine triggers 24:00 Stalk-eyed Fly males fight (Malaysia)
27:40Hippo males fight for deep channel (Luangwa River, Zambia) 31:00Clark's Grebe mating dance (Oregon) 33:00North Pacific Giant Octopus lays 100,000 eggs and protects them and dies (norther Pacific Ocean)
36:00 Strawberry Poison Arrow Frog carries tadpoles to pools in bromeliads, with eggs as food (Costa Rica) 40:40 Chinstrap Penguin chicks learn to swim through broken ice, hunted by Leopard Seal (Antarctic Peninsula)   
Tursiops truncatus
1:00 Common Bottlenose Dolphin
Acinonyx jubatus
4:50 Cheetah brothers hunt Ostrich
Chamaeleonidae
8:30 Chameleon
Lobodon carcinophagus
11:30 Crabeater Seal
Cebus apella
17:50 Tufted Capuchin
Dionaea muscipula
21:55 Venus Flytrap
Diopsidae
24:00 Stalk-eyed Fly males fight
Oophaga pumilio
36:00 Strawberry Poison Arrow Frog
Pygoscelis antarctica
40:40 Chinstrap Penguin chicks

Index Feb 18, 2011 CC BY 4.0 Peter Chen 2.0