BBC Lost Land of the Jaguar

If you think the whole world
has been explored...think again.
Travel north from the Amazon,
and you'll find another jungle -
a true wilderness.
Its interior uncharted,
its animals uncatalogued.
Guyana.
Now an international team of
expert naturalists
are coming to search for the species
hidden in this forgotten forest.
We've come somewhere no-one's
ever been before,
and it's one of the most
spectacular places on the planet.
There are probably hundreds, if
not thousands, of species here
that haven't been seen by anybody,
and we will find them first.
Guyana's forest - unspoilt,
unprotected and under threat.
Our job is to prove that these
forests have more value alive
than razed to the ground.
Guyana.
It's the size of Great Britain,
with the population of Liverpool.
Nearly everyone lives on the
narrow strip by the coast.
But travel south
and there's rainforest
for hundreds and hundreds of miles.
The only way to
base camp is by boat.
A ten-hour journey
from the nearest dirt road.
I was amazed, you know,
when we were flying in,
there was a few little houses.
Yeah, nothing. And that was it.
The good stuff's in there, not here.
George, you've got about six weeks
to get in there and find stuff,
don't be impatient! Calm down!
Faster, let's get there!
It's a land full of giants.
Giant otters,
the biggest spiders in the world,
enormous caiman,
eight-metre anaconda,
and the biggest cat in South
America - the mysterious jaguar.
This forest is untouched.
But in two years they could be
logging these trees.
The team's destination - a base camp
built by the advance party.
Each team member has
a different speciality.
Gordon Buchanan will be
searching for the large mammals.
My job on this expedition is
to try and find and film as many
different animals as I can.
If I could pick only two animals,
the first would be giant otters,
and the second, the most
difficult one, would be the jaguar.
Justine Evans
is a canopy specialist.
She documents life
at the top of giant trees.
The forests have barely been
explored on the ground,
let alone in the canopy.
I want to get up there and just see
what's going on.
Absolutely stunning.
Steve Backshall will
be exploring places
other naturalists cannot reach.
In his search for animals,
he'll attempt a first ascent
up a remote mountain
and a daring descent
down a giant waterfall.
It feels like I'm completely
underneath it,
completely surrounded by it.
And the last expedition member,
Dr George McGavin
from Oxford University.
He's leading the science team
from a jungle laboratory
right in the heart of camp.
If we're concerned about species
loss, which we all should be,
we should be concerned about
keeping the forests intact.
The expedition's aim -
to find what lives here,
and to draw the
world's attention to this -
the largest unspoilt rainforest
left on the planet.
SHOUTING
The team are still unpacking when
there's a shout from the riverbank.
A very rare monkey's been spotted.
There, there. See it? There, there.
We've got a bearded saki, a monkey
on the tree over there.
Can just see a bit of movement
in the foliage, but I can't
actually see the monkey yet.
It's not easy to see him. Not
at all. Here we go, I've got one.
They just wag their tail
back and forward, it's
quite typical behaviour in them.
But it's... Oops! Got a bit of
movement up there.
The bearded saki is on
the international list
of endangered species.
It's the best start
they could hope for.
And animals are even
coming into the camp itself.
Steve Backshall takes a look.
That's beautiful.
One of the common names for it
is the Amazon forest dragon. Yes.
What I love about these is,
to begin with they're skittish,
but once they sense that you
mean them no harm,
they'll quite happily sit in
your hand and barely move at all.
He is absolutely beautiful.
That's definitely one
to add to our tick list.
The expedition's working closely
with Guyanese trackers.
They know these jungles
hide dangerous creatures.
For the new arrivals,
there's a safety briefing.
The jungle is an alien environment
for most of us and there's a
few things we need to bear in mind.
We have had 9ft caiman down
on the landing just outside of camp
only a couple of days ago,
so be conscious that there are caiman
and they are very dangerous.
There are very big piranhas in the
water. Swimming far away from
the shore is probably not advised.
Snakes that we need to be concerned
about are the viper family -
rattlesnakes, pit vipers,
the infamous bushmaster,
and also the coral snakes.
Scorpions are here.
As a general rule, the ones
with the fat tails are the worst.
There's some very large tarantulas
but the small things
are the worst things.
Don't put your hands into holes
cos that's where you'll get stung.
First light next morning,
the team split up to start
their specialist surveys.
Gordon's on a recce of the river.
This whole part of the world is
just riddled with waterways,
and this is one of the major ones,
but joining on to it,
these rivers are smaller rivers,
tiny little creeks,
so it's on the little country lanes,
the little cul-de-sacs,
that you find interesting stuff.
First on Gordon's list is to see if
he can find the rare giant otters.
They're top predators. Perfect
indicators of a river's health.
As you can imagine, something
the size of a giant otter is going
to leave one or two signs.
Hey, look at this here, look.
When you've got a bare bank,
like this, it's a very good place
to find otters.
They're the biggest otters
in the world - three times larger
than any otter in Europe.
Their favourite meal - piranhas.
Wow, look at this. This is a
very clear sign that there's otters
in this area, and very recent.
I wouldn't be surprised if this
wasn't this morning.
Their toes are not that much
smaller than my fingers.
If you think of an otter that has
hands almost the same size as mine,
actually the otter itself
is almost the same size as me.
They're big, big beasts.
Just put a little bit of tension
on it, makes it quicker and easier.
While Gordon's on the river,
Justine's high in the treetops
building an observation post,
with the help of Steve
and the climbing team.
Tree-climbing in the rainforest is
hot, sweaty, there's endless bugs,
ants, wasps, bees, all of which hate
you invading their world,
and...yeah, it's tough old work.
It's good that you can see a
little bit through the under storey.
If you look that way a bit,
that's not bad,
actually, that direction.
Steve hauls up her platform.
Justine will spend ten hours
every day on a square of aluminium
the size of a card table.
That's as far as it will go.
We're on the end of the pulley now.
Sound as a pound,
that's not going anywhere.
Yeah, it's a pretty good spot.
It's not got a brilliant view,
but it's a good start.
At 17, Gordon swapped his job
washing dishes on the Isle of Mull
for an apprenticeship
filming wildlife in Brazil.
Oh, look here, look.
His years in the Amazon taught him
the skills of jungle tracking.
Very easy to follow this.
It's just a detective story, when
you're looking for wild animals,
but with giant animals,
they leave giant traces.
Watch out for snakes.
The fact that there's
been a giant otter here,
the chances are,
they've never been hunted,
and I'll be interested to see
how they react when they see me.
Justine's survey
relies on a vital piece of kit -
a high-definition camera.
This lens can magnify
up to 80 times,
perfect for capturing
canopy creatures.
I can zoom in really, really
close with this,
so I can see a monkey 200 metres away
and still be able
to get in close enough
to actually see whether it's
a male or female,
anything that will identify it.
And we're here to assess this place,
or me, particularly,
to see what's up in the canopy,
so I've got to be up here
all daylight hours.
The expedition's based in
a patch of forest
that's been leased to
the organisation
Conservation International.
The surrounding jungle
stretches for hundreds of miles.
But now large swathes are soon to
be explored by logging companies.
Guyana's at a dangerous crossroads.
It can either exploit what it's got
and make a quick buck,
or, if we can show what is here,
and the rarity
and the diversity of this area,
and that's why I'm here, is just
to prevent the worst-case scenario.
The team believe this could be
pristine rainforest -
the animals never hunted,
the ancient trees still standing.
In the 21st century,
that's rare indeed.
In base camp,
the scientists are hard at work,
recording all their discoveries.
Their report will be presented
to the President of Guyana.
Finding any new or endangered
species will strengthen
the case for conservation.
Hind legs are way back almost...
It's like a cricket.
..twice the size of the body.
That is the weirdest thing
I've ever seen in my life.
It's a fly, hasn't got any wings...
George McGavin's great passion
is for insects.
At first I thought it was a cricket,
a tiny cricket, but it's a bat fly.
Insects make ecosystems work.
Without bees, for instance,
you'd have no flowering plants,
no vegetables, no fruit.
So without the insects, you simply
wouldn't have the big animals.
From the tiniest bugs to the largest
birds, there's over a million
known species living in rainforests.
George believes there could be
another 5 million
still waiting to be discovered.
Oh, I say! Look at that.
Fallen trees like this are
an amazing resource for
insects and bugs, and stuff.
They're not always hollow enough
to crawl inside. Oh, that's...
Yeah, it looks rather nice.
The worry is that there are snakes
up here, or scorpions, so I'll
take my ultraviolet scorpion torch.
Oh, look at that.
Oh! It is big, it is a biggie!
This is going to be epic.
Now, there's a bat.
Look, look, look over there. See it?
There's about three of them.
Is there anything else in there?
That's the worry.
Let's go, let's see what's in here.
It's like crawling into
a large peaty tube.
It's an extreme habitat,
very rarely explored.
And straight away, he's coming
up against new creatures.
There are crickets everywhere, and
the interesting thing about them is,
I haven't seen these ones before,
and I'm going to have to
try and collect some of these.
Oh, there's a monster there!
Look at that!
They've got these enormous antennae.
These crickets are adapted to
very dark, wet places.
There's a brown cricket as well,
and I'm not quite sure
if this is the same species.
I'm just going to try and grab this,
and you really have to be
incredibly quick. Here goes...
Ooh!
Ah...
Fallen giants litter these jungles.
Every day, strong winds
and weak roots bring another
colossus crashing down.
These jungle trees look solid on
the outside, but can be eaten
hollow by termites on the inside.
30 metres up, fragile trees
are not something
Justine wants to worry about.
Now, after two days of waiting,
she sights something moving.
I finally got
a glimpse of a squirrel monkey.
It's so difficult.
They're so quick.
Ah, there's one.
It's gone.
They seem to be mostly adults and
some larger young, but there's no
babies being carried by mothers.
Big group, though.
Squirrel monkeys.
They're common
in South America's forests.
They move through the canopy
in large groups.
This one's searching for
caterpillars on new leaves.
It's obviously feeding on insects.
That's why they seem to be moving
so quickly. I think they're just
snatching at whatever they can find.
Ah, there's a good view.
Are they going up this branch?
Must be a main travel route,
probably the only travel route
through this section.
Jumping off into the other tree.
The fruiting season's gone, and so
there are probably very few fruiting
trees in the forest at this moment.
RUSTLING
What was that?
Probably just a tree falling down...
George is now 25 metres
inside this fallen giant.
This is amazing.
Look what we've got here.
This is a whip spider.
These long bits are
actually its front legs
and because it lives in darkness...
You can see how it's
feeling my finger there.
It uses these very long legs
to feel its prey,
and its prey
are these cave crickets here.
And, very sneakily,
sometimes the whip spiders
reach behind the cricket
and just go tickle, tickle
on the back end,
and the cricket jumps forward
into the jaws of the whip spider.
It's a really clever trick.
The further I go into this,
there's bigger and bigger
whip spiders.
Oh, there's an absolute monster
over here!
There are now,
on this part of the roof,
13 crickets and five whip spiders,
who are just queuing up
to eat them.
Little is known about the
biology of these weird predators.
Somehow, George has to catch one
to take it back to the lab.
One's just crawled across my face!
Because it's now getting really,
really tight,
I have a bit of a problem.
HE WHEEZES
It's as hot as a sauna,
and crawling with bugs.
George is in his element.
Ah!
Just one sec.
I can't...
I can't get out of this...
This hole's too tight. Argh!
I feel like a beetle grub
emerging from...
from its long period
of metamorphosis!
HE LAUGHS
Actually, I think I am stuck!
All I can say is,
I don't think I've had as much fun
in a log for a long time!
Usually, George only sees
these bizarre beasts
dead in a museum drawer.
It's a rare chance
to examine them alive.
Isn't that wonderful?
That is the ultimate animal
for hunting for prey in the dark.
It's flattened, it's fast, it's got
big, spiky palps at the front end,
incredibly long legs
for just feeling its prey.
If you designed an organism
for catching crickets in the dark,
this is it.
And once the poor animal is trapped
in those spines at the front,
that's it,
there is no escape from that.
Dinner tonight - piranha.
How is it? Looks good.
I'm absolutely famished.
I'm hungry, yeah. Piranha teeth.
Is it piranha teeth? Look at that!
They do have the most
extraordinary teeth. I'm a bit, er...
Put some falsies in! Careful,
George, put that through your upper
lip and you'll know about it!
They're swimming in the river?
Uh-huh.
Can someone pass the
evil fire sauce down, please?
That is far too much of that.
You're gonna die.
He's beginning to regret that now!
Yes! Yes!
Although the expedition
starts in base camp,
each team member will also explore
even more remote parts of Guyana.
Today, Steve and the climbing team
are heading out.
There are some areas that have
very different forest
to the stuff that we're in right now.
Over in the west of the country,
there are these exposed beds
of ancient, ancient rock,
and one of the world's
most spectacular waterfalls.
And that's where the next leg
of my journey's taking me.
His destination - Guyana's
only National Park, hidden deep
in the heart of the forest.
At its centre - Kaieteur Falls.
Five times higher than Niagara.
Each day, 60 million tonnes of water
flow over these falls.
40 kilometres from the nearest road,
just a handful of tourists fly in
to view this wonder of the world
from the top.
But no-one has fully explored
the unique habitat
around the plunge pool.
That's the task for Steve
and climbing supervisor, Tim Fogg.
That is a very long way down.
We're going to try a recce,
have a look for
the best place to descend,
and I really want to get a feel
of the world behind the waterfall.
At base camp, an eerie sound
echoes deep in the forest.
DISTANT CRIES
The ghostly call
of the howler monkey.
Justine's on her way
to her treetop perch.
It's the sound she's
been hoping to hear.
I can hear distant howler calls,
but it's quite a way.
The thing is that there was a
group calling out in this direction
but they could just be
sitting quietly in the treetops,
and we wouldn't know they were there.
CACOPHONY OF CRIES
It's the most unearthly sound,
the sound of howler monkeys.
It sounds like
a huge dragon in the distance.
A healthy population
of howler monkeys would be a
great sign of an untouched forest.
They're easy to hear,
but much harder to find and count.
There's a chance that, in a while,
they might start moving around,
and hopefully come this way.
Just a waiting a game,
we have to see.
Down on the ground,
they're surveying species
on the forest floor.
Guyanese scientist,
Doctor Raquel Thomas,
is an expert on rainforest trees.
Some of these were growing before
Columbus came to the Americas.
This tree here, I reckon would be
about 500 to 600 years.
In the five days since they've
arrived, they've catalogued over a
hundred different types of animal.
Every little hair has got
hairs on it,
and on the end of the small hairs,
you've got tiny hairs.
Gordon's had no luck
in his search for large mammals.
They're particularly hard
to track down,
especially the elusive big cats.
I spent two years in total
in another part of the Amazon,
and I saw a wild jaguar
for 30 seconds,
and that's two years straight,
so that's how difficult it is.
Gordon's returned to the creek
with the otter tracks.
He's setting a trap, a camera trap.
It looks very complicated,
but the concept's very simple.
It's an infrared beam.
When that gets broken,
the camera starts running.
It's a huge amount of effort to put
this in. That's why I think we have
to leave it for at least a week.
We don't even have to come every
day. We just leave it and come every
three days or so, keep an eye on it.
Then it's back to the canoe
and on with the search for otters.
At Kaieteur Falls, Steve
and the team have set the ropes.
I wouldn't go straight over,
I'd step down now onto the ladder.
Tomorrow, he will lead a team to
the bottom to search for animals,
but today he must first
test the gear and take a look
at the route down.
..So that rope goes into that.
There's always that horrible fear
of stepping off
a perfectly good, solid surface,
and just back into space,
isn't there?
You can't go much further because
I've got to get this bag to you now.
His helmet-camera
will record all he sees.
This would have to be one of the most
dramatic places in the world.
Totally unspoilt.
There's nobody here but us.
But it's very hard to enjoy it
when your heart is thumping.
It's just this
boiling steam below us.
Just push out.
Oh, wow.
Oh, my ropes
are rubbing over this rock,
and it's sharp.
The cliff has a severe overhang.
It's only when Steve's on the ropes
that he can get a close look
at the rock face.
Tim, I've dropped under the overhang
and it's absolutely
extraordinary down here.
Directly beneath me, it's dropping
straight into the plunge pool
at its most turbulent.
It'd be like dropping into
the world's worst whirlpool -
total suicide. Over.
OVER RADIO: That's confirmed
everything that we suspected,
but it was worth going down and
getting a better view of it. Over.
Yeah. From this angle, I can see a
good line where we could come down.
If we were to actually head
around to the base,
there's a line that looks like it
drops down onto reasonable territory.
Steve has dropped
as far as he safely can.
Tomorrow, he'll descend to the very
bottom to start his survey.
I'm actually swinging right
underneath the curtain of water.
George is on his daily quest
for new insects.
Oh, wow!
This is one of the wonders
of the animal world.
This is a trail of army ants,
and there are literally
tens of thousands of them.
Army ants are swarm raiders.
Their marauding column pushes
through the jungle, killing
anything too slow to escape.
You'll see spiders and cockroaches
jumping out the way.
He's trying to get away
but it's no good. They'll have him.
Their prey are pulled to pieces and
carried back to feed their young,
living deep
in the heart of this tree.
What would be really great
is to come back really early,
about 4.30am, 5.00am,
and have a look inside and actually
see what's happening in there.
If we hit it at the right time,
when they're on the move,
wow, that'd be fantastic.
30 metres above, Justine is
still patiently scanning the canopy
for howler monkeys.
This afternoon,
the wind is picking up.
I've come up a really great tree,
it's got a fantastic view,
but it's more like a stalk
sticking about 45 metres
straight out from the under storey.
It's also really windy today.
There's a big gust coming in now,
and the whole tree
is just swaying around.
I'm actually getting motion sickness,
coupled with the vertigo
I was experiencing earlier!
It's quite an experience
being up here today.
Gordon's been searching for otters
since first light,
but it seems
everything is against him.
Hang on.
This is getting a bit unpleasant.
It's getting really hot
and kind of uncomfortable,
I've got ants crawling all over me
and I just snared up the prop
in some weeds again.
It's like wire, this stuff.
Oh, and I've just broke my knife!
Man, that's annoying!
To make it all worse,
I've got this
very painful blistering
all over my chest.
This is very uncomfortable.
George is suffering too.
He's covered in bites from his crawl
through the log.
There's a definite reaction. Mm.
I just want to keep an eye
on that one, George, whether
that one's getting infected.
It's been a long day
for the whole team.
Yeah.
But one member of the team
is having rather more luck.
While Steve hangs on the rope,
a flock of swifts starts
heading straight towards him.
Look at that!
They nest behind the waterfall.
They're coming in very
close to the overhang here to
keep away from the spray.
As they come in, they're banking
and rolling just like fighter jets.
Right past my ears.
Whoa! Look at all those swifts!
Wow!
Oh, that is unbelievable!
Next morning, well before dawn,
Justine is woken by a distant roar.
It's the howler monkeys again,
and they're getting nearer.
I don't know what time
it is, but it's very early.
HOWLING IN DISTANCE
Seems a bit weird putting
ski socks on in the tropics,
but it's best to do this
to keep all the chiggers
and nasty biting things off.
The precious cameras
are the only objects in the camp
kept warm and dry.
With all the gear on her back,
Justine starts the long trek
through the last of the night.
George is also up early.
He's heading to the
army ant bivouac.
He needs to arrive before
the column is on the march.
Here it is.
Here's the tree.
We've got up at five o'clock
and they're not even up yet.
Ah...
What you've got is a camera
on the end of this little tip here,
and a little light and I can push
that right up into the colony.
Perfect. Perfect.
His aim is to
probe deep inside the colony
and perhaps even spy the queen.
Ooh, there they are. There is the
outside of the main ball of ants.
Ooh, yes.
They're not happy about that.
There's a soldier, look at
the head of that thing.
He's not happy about that.
That squawking noise
was a macaw flying over.
There he goes, in fact two of them.
Oh, my God.
Macaws, macaws, macaws.
I've been hearing
lots of macaws calling.
This is the first time I've
got a good shot.
I'm just managing to film them
through this foreground tree,
which is causing all sorts of blur.
That's it, one of them's just
moved into a clearer position.
Ridiculous red colour,
almost unbelievable, really.
But macaws are the
first thing to disappear
when humans come into an area.
They're taken by hunters for the
pet trade, also for meat.
A single macaw can sell for more
than a year's wages in Guyana.
The colony's out on the move and
they're now swarming all down here.
That was very quick, actually.
One of the great tricks about
army ants
is that they've got
hooks on their feet,
and they can join up their feet
and they can make a bridge.
George still hasn't seen the queen,
but first he has to get
past the soldiers.
They're vicious and it's not only
their giant pincers -
they also
inject a dose of formic acid.
I'm just going to push this right
into the middle of the colony.
Oh, it's big.
Oh, my goodness, look at that.
It's a huge colony.
It's massive! It's not often you
get to see
right into the heart
of a colony of army ants.
That is a very privileged view. Ooh!
Ow, ah!
Not going to see their queen,
not today. Agh!
HE GROANS AND LAUGHS
This is all very bizarre...
Ow! Ow!
..sitting quietly up here,
waiting for my monkeys and...
George has found an army ant colony.
I guess that's what it is
cos you can hear him howling
with pain in the background,
down in the under storey.
Entomologists 0, army ants 1.
I think I'd rather be up here
actually, even if it is
with mosquitoes and midges
than being mullered by army ants.
They're a crazy lot, entomologists -
especially George.
The rest of the scientists
are back in the jungle lab,
where the checklist of animals is
increasing every day,
including this horned frog,
perfectly camouflaged
to ambush prey in the leaf litter.
But this jungle
isn't just home for amazing animals.
Keeping rainforests intact is vital
in the fight against climate change.
This region's forests alone
locks away
forty thousand million
tonnes of carbon.
Forests are important for the
global welfare.
Climate change depends on it.
Biodiversity depends on it.
People depend on it.
Guyana's a very poor country.
Logging these forests
would be a simple way to
raise much needed revenue.
But Guyana's president
recently approached Britain
with a green alternative,
keeping the forests standing
in exchange for carbon credits.
Guyana's forest is not only important
for Guyana but is also
important for the whole globe.
The Stern Report has concluded
that keeping forests intact
is a highly cost-effective
way to combat climate change.
In Guyana, they're still
waiting for a decision.
At Kaieteur Falls, there's
an air of quiet concentration.
This time Steve aims to go all the
way to the bottom
and spend 48
hours surveying this habitat.
We've got no real information about
what kind of terrain is down there.
We know for sure that it's gonna
be very slippery and very dangerous.
You're gonna have to lean forward,
Steve. It's very, very tight.
Go on, go on, go on. Yes, good
job - and move sideways now, Steve.
That's great. Well done, mate. Woah.
As Steve starts his descent,
the mist rolls in.
Almost as soon as I
stepped over the edge,
this thick fog just started to rise
up from the base of the waterfall,
and I can't see where I'm going,
where I'm heading to, and
no-one above can see me either.
Justine's spotted
something moving in the trees.
Saw a flash of red then,
looks really like a howler monkey.
Where is it?
There, there, there.
Yes, yes, that's it. There's a male.
God, they look grumpy, don't they?
Don't think they are grumpy,
it's just they have
that permanent expression
of being very miserable with life.
Fantastic. There he goes.
You can really see the
use of the prehensile tail,
just like a fifth limb.
It's like a safety rope.
It's the last thing that's released.
They spend nine hours every day
chewing their way through
the tough rainforest leaves.
The other 15 hours,
they sleep.
There's two others in the tree,
there's a big male at the top there.
He's coming down.
Ooh, taking a good look at me.
Amazing, he's probably nearly 200
metres away but he's really,
really staring at me.
Well, things are looking up.
It's the trickiest
part of Steve's descent.
Overhanging rocks covered in slime.
Oh, uh-ha-ha...!
He's constantly
drenched in spray from the falls.
This rock is the slippiest ground
I've ever been on in my life!
I've never seen anything like it.
If this is what it's like hundreds of
metres from the waterfall,
I dread to think what it would've
been like at the bottom of it.
I am down on solid ground
and off the main rope, over.
'That's very good news.'
Tim, this place is every bit as steep
and slippery
and dangerous as we
thought it would be, but it's much,
much wetter and it's very windy
down here and it's pretty miserable.
I want to get out of
this as soon as I can, over.
Let's get you somewhere a bit
more protected and warmer.
Understood. Out.
With Steve safely down, he's joined
by the cameraman
and a dripping wet Tim Fogg.
You all right, mate?
Bad weather down here,
it's a bit damp.
THEY LAUGH
They must find shelter,
but also keep their eyes skinned
for any animals they can see.
There's loads of little...
freshwater crabs
just running around here.
Because it's wet the whole time,
they're completely comfortable.
They're just feeding on the algae
which they're picking
off these rocks,
and because this place is
drenched in water the whole time,
they're absolutely everywhere.
This is just the
perfect place for crabs.
It really is like
being on the bottom of the sea.
There's been a sighting -
a family of giant otters
glimpsed heading down-river.
We really have to keep our
eyes open because they're big,
but still tricky to see.
Right bank, right bank.
A head's popped up. I don't know
whether they've gone into the shrub.
After a week of searching,
at last this is Gordon's chance to
start observing these shy animals.
Dan, do you think they're still in
front of us? I can't see them.
They're in the undergrowth.
Everyone just keep
their eyes wide open.
The otters let out warning snorts.
Oh, beautiful, just
coming straight towards us.
They're interested, not in
fishing, they're interested in us.
Oh, man, that's so nice.
OTTER SNORTS
Sun just glistening off their heads.
Oh, there's four of them! Man alive!
Sorry, guys. Oh, jeepers.
What?
Oh, man.
That was unreal.
That was something else.
What I love is when an animal, and a
wild animal interacts with you,
they're not scared,
they just want to check us out,
find out what we are and they've
given us an opportunity to see them.
Woah! Close, man.
Look at this!
Ha!
That's exactly what I was hoping
to find.
It's a tree frog, for sure.
You just look at the
big suction cups on each toe.
Look at the way that he's moving
across my hands there.
He is a frog that is
absolutely designed for climbing.
He looks a little bit actually like
the gladiator tree frog and he also
has on the thumb of each hand,
this little protuberance here, which
is used for boxing with other frogs.
Let's put him back.
You're a very lucky frog.
You live in frog paradise.
Gordon has now followed the otters
for two miles up the jungle creek.
Softly, softly, he's getting closer
and closer.
Just creeping down the creek,
with Gerry paddling.
I just don't want the otters
to go overland.
As soon as they go overland,
we've lost them.
Otters right here,
can't see them yet. Just hear them.
Beauty, they are so beautiful.
They've seen us.
OTTERS SNORT
Their beautiful fur was
almost their undoing.
A century of persecution drove
them to the verge of extinction.
This group is so at ease,
it's clear there's no hunting here.
OK, there's one coming
right towards us now.
OK, and he's got a fish.
Feeding. OK, nice and gently.
Stay very still.
Giant appetites need giant portions.
Plate-sized piranha - bones and all.
What's he caught? Piranha.
And they always eat them tail first
for obvious reasons. The youngster.
Oh, lovely. This is just exactly
what I've been wanting to see.
Giant otters
completely naturally.
Oh, that's what
happens when somebody's got a fish
and somebody else wants it.
That's not going to last long,
they have a voracious appetite.
Oops.
And off he goes, off to
catch another one - awesome.
At the waterfall, Steve
and Tim have a desperate struggle
to bring the
kit down in the freezing spray.
I've never been this cold right
slap bang on the equator before.
They need to get dry
as quick as they can.
HE COUGHS
We don't want to go that
way, we want to go lower.
Let's head down this way.
They must find a spot to
pitch camp before night sets in...
but in this boulder field,
there's little chance.
At base camp, the mood is up.
The team have fallen under the
spell of this enchanting forest.
This is pristine, this is intact,
this is as pure as it's ever going
to be. Let's just keep it that way.
It's clearly not been hunted,
it's just really untouched
and to preserve that in its
pristine state would be fantastic.
WATER RUSHES
Tim, you in there, mate?
It's almost dark
when Tim discovers a tiny cave.
Yeah, this is good.
A sleeping place here.
We'll get at least
one of us in here.
Oh, let's get a brew on.
Oh, the luxury. Mm, brilliant.
The cave floor is just
a jumble of rough rocks.
It's going to be a long night.
At first light, Justine,
as ever, is up her tree.
Now, the family of howler
monkeys have totally accepted her.
She's even found a new
addition to the family.
It's a female, wow.
She's got a baby on her back.
Fantastic.
The haunting calls of these
cautious animals
embody the spirit of
the South American rainforest.
To know there's a healthy
breeding population here
is a great lift for the team.
Ah, there's the big male there.
This is the big alpha boss.
So, there are two males.
This big one, the smaller one and
there are two females,
the one with the baby
and the other one.
Another piece in the puzzle.
Beautiful animals.
They're absolutely stunning.
After a big breakfast
of green leaves,
the whole family settles
down for a long morning snooze.
For Steve and the team,
it has been a really miserable
night without a wink of sleep -
and they weren't alone.
We had visitors last night.
I got up, turned on my
head torch and hundreds
of cockroaches and cave crickets just
scampered for the shadows,
and they'd been having a go
at our food.
There's just
holes in absolutely everything.
Mind you, I left my mug full of
sticky hot chocolate last night
and they've cleaned it out completely
so I don't have to do the washing up.
Fantastic!
It's not just cockroaches
and the crickets
that we're sharing our cave with,
it's absolutely alive
with these rocket frogs
and this one here actually has really
well-developed eggs on its back.
It's carrying around its
tadpoles inside the eggs.
You can even see little bubbles
of air coming out of each egg.
This species doesn't actually
go through the free-swimming
tadpole stage at all.
The eggs will develop
on their mother's back right through
until they're froglets, and they'll
hatch out ready to hop about.
It's just enormous.
Yeah.
Finally, Steve can begin his
real challenge -
to survey the
plants and animals down here. Woah!
The slippery vegetation
conceals deep pitfalls.
No ground there.
It would be a
terrible place to break a leg.
The pools of water that gather in the
leaves made by these bromeliads
are a really challenging
place to make a home.
But there's plenty of creatures
down here that manage it.
Possibly the most appealing of all
of them though is this little guy.
There, look at that.
Isn't he gorgeous?
Oh, look, on the leaf.
It's a golden rocket frog
and the only place in
the world you find these is in
the Kaieteur National Park.
From egg to tadpole to frog,
this single plant can be
their home for life.
These really are the most
exquisite little jewels
and every other bromeliad around here
has one or a pair living in it.
It's not just the animals
that are exotic down here.
There are wonderful plants absolutely
everywhere around here,
but nothing as exquisite as this.
This is a slipper orchid
and it's very aptly named.
You can almost imagine
some dainty Cinderella
slipping her toes into that.
This'd be worth an absolute fortune
to orchid collectors back home.
But here,
they are just about everywhere.
It's a bit like strolling around the
Chelsea Flower Show,
except that
you've got that in the background.
I think this really brings home just
quite how unspoilt Guyana is.
The Kaieteur is the country's only
real tourist attraction,
but we were up on top for three days
and didn't see a single person
and down here, well, you could count
on one hand the amount of people who
have seen what we're looking at now,
and, you know, it's five
times the height of Niagara.
You're just standing here with this
water in your face -
it's completely overpowering.
Gordon is checking whether
his camera trap has worked.
It's been lying in
wait for a week now.
Hard to say whether anything's
been up here because of the rain.
With any luck, it will have filmed
the otter family out of the water.
Ah, the tape has reached the end.
So we have one hour of stuff.
OK, we've reached
the beginning of the tape.
Play.
Oh, curassow!
I actually saw...
curassow the other day quite
close to here, three of them,
so I wonder if it's the
same ones. Two.
He's camera-shy, this one.
That's very nice.
Oh, hang on,
hang on.
On the top of the log
there's something, sort of,
spotty, like a cat.
I mean, it might
have been an ocelot.
It's a jaguar!
I cannot believe that.
One of the most difficult
animals in South America to see
was right here, literally.
It walked along this path.
The mysterious jaguar.
Beautifully camouflaged,
extremely rare,
these solitary beasts
roam huge areas of this vast jungle.
It's a fantastic stroke of
fortune to find one here.
That is unreal.
I do not believe that.
I think I said, if we get jaguar,
it's going to be by luck,
not by judgement,
and this is just by sheer luck.
We put this out for otters
and we've got a jaguar.
Unbelievable.
That is incredible.
At the waterfall, Steve is
desperate for some decent rest.
After the discomfort of last night,
I've decided to
set up a basher and sleep outside
in the elements tonight.
I think we've done really well to
have spent two days down here so far
and for no-one to have got hurt.
This place is an absolute death trap,
so fingers crossed everyone
gets through alive and well.
Back at base camp, the rest of
the team have cause to celebrate.
That's the biggest cat
that you'll find in South America.
After just ten days, they've
found howler monkeys, giant otters
and the scientists have
catalogued over 200 animal species.
All evidence of the value of
this virgin rainforest.
And the best news of all,
concrete proof
that South America's legendary
big cat is living and hunting here.
Wow, wow!
But not every member of
the team is celebrating.
All of a sudden a really, really
heavy electrical storm's come in
and the rain is unbelievably heavy.
I have to keep throwing up this tarp
to get all the water off it.
But the most worrying thing really
is that this storm is getting
closer and closer.
It's right overhead and we're
pretty much the only feature in a
landscape at the moment.
This is turning into the most
miserable night of my life.
In the second phase of the
expedition, the team push deeper
into the jungle.
The number of animals they're
discovering goes up and up.
Oh!
This would go right through my hand.
And they climb a remote mountain to
explore a strange new world.
North of the Amazon
lies another jungle,
still unknown and unspoilt -
the rainforests of Guyana.
A team of explorers,
scientists and filmmakers
is in the heart of this
threatened jungle.
Their aim - to survey the animals
in this great wilderness.
Here in Guyana, this is pristine -
it's untouched. Unchanged.
Wow! Our job is to prove that these
forests are worth more alive than
they could be razed to the ground.
The expedition is moving into
its second phase
and the team must push harder
to discover more of
the extraordinary creatures
hidden within this rainforest.
There are probably hundreds,
if not thousands of species here
that haven't been seen by anybody.
And we will find them first.
But it's proving tough.
For 48 hours, Steve Backshall
has been battered by one of the
world's most powerful waterfalls
and the worst the elements
can throw at him.
The storm is getting closer
and closer. It's right overhead.
And, er... I'm just
a bit scared, actually,
I'm going to get struck.
I'm pretty much the only feature
in the landscape at the moment.
If there's a lightning strike down
here, then I'm gonna get hit.
Guyana - the size of Great Britain,
with just 2% of the population.
The towns are
clustered on the coast.
Travel inland and you
find nothing but jungle.
In the heart of the forest
lies Kaieteur Falls.
It's five times higher than Niagara,
and sheltering at its base
is expedition naturalist and
climber, Steve Backshall.
Well, that was about the most
miserable night in my life.
I was doing fine
until the storm hit.
And then all of a sudden
I was woken up by this
enormous weight on my head.
And it was just all the water
gathering in my shelter.
And from then on in, it was a
struggle to keep the thing up.
Two nights without sleep
and I am absolutely ruined!
It's been worth it.
He's the first naturalist ever to
explore this unique habitat that's
constantly drenched in spray.
Look at this!
He's discovered a bizarre
world crawling with frogs,
where freshwater crabs scuttle
through a valley full of orchids.
This is one of the most
dramatic places I've ever been.
And just to be completely enveloped
in this mist, it just feels like
you're part of the waterfall!
It's one of the most exciting,
fantastic places I've ever been
in my life!
But it's no place for humans.
For two nights, Steve's had
no sleep and little food.
To get out, he must haul himself
up 240 metres of rope.
Ascending on a rope which is
about as wide as my little finger.
Which is why I'm moving up here
at a snail's pace.
God, it's a long way!
The rest of the team are
in the jungle base camp and
there are monkeys close by.
Gordon - we've got brown capuchins
above the ladies' loo! Mmm.
Gordon Buchanan is an expert on
South America's rainforest animals.
Were you asleep?
About an hour.
I got up at three this morning.
Right, what do I need? Clothes!
What were you dreaming about?
I was dreaming about monkeys,
funnily enough!
Premonition!
His job is to record these animals
on camera.
So far, he's been tracking
creatures through dense forest.
But now wildlife is
coming right into camp.
It's right there, sitting.
I hope that's rain that's
falling down! And not urine!
Two of the scientists, George and
Raquel, spotted the monkeys near
their jungle laboratory. Here.
There!
They're brown Capuchins.
They're foraging side by side
with squirrel monkeys.
There are eight species of monkey
in this part of South America.
The team aims to find out
how many live in this forest.
There's one up here. Look!
That's right overhead.
Oh my God! There's one right here.
He's just having a bite to eat.
Primates are normally nervous
when humans are around.
But this forest is unusual -
it's not been hunted and the
monkeys show little fear of people.
They're after this tree, there's
some fruits in it. I'm seeing him
throwing out the seeds.
Monkeys are important seed
dispersal agents for the forest.
Just being so close to camp,
I am astounded that there's
any activity here from any animal,
let alone a primate.
On the other side of camp, another
monkey has just been spotted
by wildlife camera woman,
Justine Evans.
Yes, I can see, cos he's moving.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yes! Fantastic.
Got some spider monkeys here.
This one doesn't seem particularly
happy about us being here.
It's making lots of little noises.
Getting a bit upset.
He just threw a branch down at us.
Amazing arms.
Very gibbon like.
This is really an amazing place.
I didn't expect to wander out of
camp and see so much.
Especially from down in
the understorey.
You normally just don't see
anything, it's so hard.
Yeah, it's really great. Good time.
To catalogue the species that
live in this remote jungle,
there's an international team
of scientists on the expedition.
They are working out of
a purpose-built jungle lab
in the heart of the camp.
Studying the plants is Guyanese
biologist, Dr Raquel Thomas.
In this forest we have over 6,000
species of flowering plants.
Every time I come in here,
there is something new to see
and new to learn.
That's why it's important.
In charge of the river survey
is fish expert, Dr Phil Willink.
These are places that we need to
come to now and work in
before they change, before people
move in and ecosystems are impacted.
The expedition's results will be
shared with the Guyanese Government.
It's a very poor country, trying
to decide whether it can keep
its forests intact, or if they have
to be logged for much-needed cash.
Which one is that? That's a wolf
spider. That's a big one.
There's probably species here
that haven't been described yet.
Working with the team
is Dr Russ Mittermeier.
He's the president of Conservation
International which is campaigning
to keep these forests.
In Guyana you still have virtually
all of the forest intact.
And it has the greatest remaining
rainforest wilderness area on earth.
And if we have rainforest wilderness
50 or 100 years from now,
it's going to be in this region.
So it's a fabulous area.
It's unlike any place else on earth.
It really is the hope of rainforest
wilderness for this planet.
For an hour, Steve has
been dragging himself
up the rope inch by painful inch.
Oh, shoot!
HE GROANS
Steve has climbed some of
the world's highest mountains
and run extreme marathons - but
this climb has all but defeated him.
BLEEP!
Absolute hell on earth down there.
It's so cold and wet.
As the rest of the climbing crew
make it safely to the top,
Steve collapses from the exertion.
The expedition medic is on hand.
Here, have some water.
Sit on this bank over here, mate.
How are you feeling now? Fine.
You've just got to rest, mate.
You've just done a big exertion
after the couple of days
down there, as well.
You really have got to chill.
Thanks, mate.
Don't be walking around and don't
be grabbing no ropes up here. OK!
Steve can now return to what should
be the safety of base camp.
But some creatures are
getting too close for comfort.
Oooooh!
This little thing could kill you?
Yes.
They bite, those ants. They're
only little, but they bite hard.
We've invaded their space,
not the other way round.
They're just reclaiming it now.
Ow!
Insect expert Dr George McGavin
has been stung by a scorpion.
Cardinal rule - do not stick your
hand in a bucket you haven't checked.
Right in the finger.
Imagine you've heated up a pin
to about 120 degrees C and you
stab it right through your finger.
I imagine what that would
feel like is what this is.
George's sting is painful,
but not life threatening.
Really funny feeling.
Steve is back in camp and the whole
team gathers for the usual,
piranhas and rice.
The day's work is not done.
After dinner, George has an
unpalatable task for everyone.
He's organised a scorpion clear-out.
They split up and scour the camp.
George told me that he'd seen one
in the bathroom. Bathroom!
Does it look like a bathroom?!
No, it's just a huge hole.
I think I'm getting a bit of
a bum deal here.
Each team is armed with
an ultraviolet torch.
Wow! I've found two tiny scorpions.
I don't believe it.
Under ultraviolet light,
scorpions are easily spotted.
It's amazing how they glow,
isn't it?
Just a little itty bitty one.
Good start. Look at that.
Woo-hoo!
There it is.
George and Raquel have the
biggest catch of the evening.
There he is.
There's the little beauty.
That would have handed you
quite a painful sting.
If I was to ease off the pressure on
these forceps, it would leap forward,
grab my finger,
sting me in the thumb...and that
would be very unpleasant.
The fatter the tail,
the worse the sting.
I haven't seen any really
big ones yet. This is not big?
That's not big, no.
It's big to me!
Scorpions love to crawl into
small, dark places,
so it's a good idea every night to
turn your sleeping bag inside out.
Scorpions aren't the only
unwelcome guests.
There's a highly venomous
centipede in the women's dormitory.
Steve. Steve.
Steve.
I've got a centipede in my bed.
I was quite hoping
you'd remove it for me.
Steve's had years of experience
handling poisonous creatures.
Centipedes are way harder
to handle than any sn...
Yeah, this is called a scolopendrid,
which has a nasty bite to it.
Ooh, it's feisty!
His front feet have adapted into
poisonous, venomous claws,
which he uses for biting.
Every one of those feet has a
nasty toxin, as well, which leaves
horrible scratches on the skin.
He's all right.
Cheers, Steve. Night night.
Thank you!
The heart and soul of the base
camp is the beach.
It's where the fish are gutted,
the boats are stored and where
everyone comes to wash and cool off.
It's a welcome respite from
the stifling jungle heat.
All the sweat, the dirt, the grime.
The one good thing is, you have the
beautiful river out there to bathe
in, because it's fresh water.
Absolutely beautiful.
Justine was coming down
for her morning wash,
but something has changed her mind.
Oh, dear.
There's a big caiman on the beach.
Exactly where I wash. This is
the first proper one I've seen.
The black caiman. It's the largest
predator in South America
and like so many animals around
camp, is growing bolder by the day.
He's one that could quite happily
cause damage to fully-grown adults.
You can see the guys down here
cleaning fish.
That croc is 11, 12 feet long,
and this is exactly the way that
caimans start becoming a problem in
villages round here.
People are cleaning their fish,
the caiman gets bolder and bolder,
and they eventually take some of
the dogs, then it moves up to
taking someone's child.
Whoa!
Caiman are just one of
hundreds of intriguing creatures
that thrive in these waters.
Steve joins Dr Phil Willink
on his survey of fish.
You'd better get something good
out of this, Phil!
It's a freshwater anchovy.
Wow, I can't believe I'm risking
my life for anchovies!
They'll be the first scientists
to search beneath the surface
in this region.
We know very few people have
been up here.
Who knows what's living
in these areas?
There's probably a lot of
new species hiding in these rocks
and these rapids.
The combination of nobody being
here before and a difficult habitat
to collect in, we're gonna
find a lot of new species.
With each passing day, more
animals and plants are being
catalogued in the jungle lab.
Look at this.
This is my baby in here.
George has started a study
of the forest's spiders.
One of these whip spiders
is just about to...
Yeah, look at that.
Look at her egg sac there.
His enthusiasm is not
shared by everyone.
Beautiful! Spiders!
Spiders!
Yeah? That's why I stick to plants!
I'll persuade you eventually.
But George has set his sights on
finding an even bigger spider.
He's discovered a skin shed by
the world's largest tarantula,
the goliath bird-eating spider.
They are here,
obviously, cos there's the evidence
of an empty skin. So there's a larger
one than this somewhere in the area.
Each time it climbs out of its
skin, it's getting bigger?
Absolutely. So it grows a new skin
underneath the old skin,
but those fangs are just pin-sharp.
Cat's claws or an eagle's talons.
And they're really hard.
I've eaten one of these. You've
eaten these? Yeah. Fantastic.
We were filming the Piaroa Indians
in Venezuela.
This is like fast food for them.
I've heard that, after they eat them,
they use...they remove the claw like
this and they actually use it as
a toothpick.
They remove the bits of...
Actually, it works!
That's bloody good, that!
Back on the river, Steve and Phil's
fish survey is off to a bad start.
Their net is caught.
We've either got the biggest fish in
the world or it's attached to a log.
I'm guessing a log.
Is it coming up? No, not at all.
Shall I have a swim?
Go down, untangle it?
What I don't want is for you to go
down there and get tangled in it.
'He's freed the net,
but it's full of piranhas.'
Woah!
'Black piranhas are
notoriously aggressive.'
Great, they're both chewing
holes in my other net now!
He's very close
to taking a chunk out of your arm.
God, look at that!
You could actually see the
scratches it's made in the metal
with its teeth. That is insane!
I can't believe I'm swimming in here!
GRUNTING
What is making that noise?
Is it the piranha?
They're making it with
their swim bladder somehow, yeah.
Whether it's an intentional
form of communication, I don't know.
Wow, that is a really
good-sized piranha. Mmm-hmm.
These are bigger than the
red-bellied ones they had
in all the horror movies.
Look at that!
That is a set of teeth
to be reckoned with.
And if they break or they
get dull, they replace them.
Really? Yeah.
What good's a piranha with no teeth?
'In the river, they're finding some
of the jungle's fiercest predators.
'On land, Gordon's found one of the
jungle's most vulnerable creatures.'
Really difficult to see,
but just taking a round
thing hanging off the tree,
it's a wren's nest, very well
camouflaged.
The nest itself is tiny.
You could easily fit it
in the palm of your hand.
Smaller than a tennis ball.
The bird is same kind of size as
the wrens that you get in the UK,
and the eggs and chicks that it
might have, microscopic, almost.
Yeah, keeping going, Gordon.
'Gordon sets up CCTV
cameras by the nest.
'He doesn't want to disturb
these timid birds,
so he's keeping his distance.'
It takes a huge hassle factor out
of it, because we don't constantly
have to sneak back and forward.
This is something we just power up,
see if there's something going on,
and have somebody monitoring it.
'Guyanese student Defreitas Haynes
will follow the chicks' progress
from the lab.
'It's a unique chance to record the
development of these tiny ant wren
'chicks until they fly the nest,
if they make it.'
This nest has to be so well
camouflaged, because the forest is
full of loads of stuff that will
predate on the eggs or the young.
There's snakes, there's other
reptiles, there's birds,
there's rodents, pretty much
everything will be out
to get whatever's
inside this nest.
It's a very dangerous place
for this little bird.
'They have no defence
against predators.
'They can only rely
on not being seen.
'Steve and Phil's
fish survey continues.
'They've already found
huge piranhas.
'Now, with the help of local
fishermen, they're hoping
for a far more impressive catch.'
SPLASHING
OK.
This is a big fish. Big?
Woah, look at the size of that!
It's a big one!
Oh, that's unbelievable!
That is the banana catfish.
SNORTING AND GASPING
'Surveying fish is not easy.
'They must identify each species
and return them to the water
as quickly as possible.'
You can tell it's called the
banana catfish because it's yellow
on the belly, like a banana.
And probably a good 20 years old,
would you say, Phil? Could be older.
These fish can live for a long time.
This fish is just
covered in parasites.
One popped out! Don't lose it!
We've got another one, Phil!
Where is it? Just down there, look.
Another one there, look. It's
actually scattering blood everywhere.
It's like a full leech! OK.
Let's put our friend here back in,
cos he's absolutely wonderful and
we wouldn't want to harm him.
So, old fella, off you go.
Absolutely fantastic.
Excellent.
Nothing like as exciting as
what we've got in here.
'The parasitic fish Steve's
collected are known as
vampire catfish or candiru.'
Apparently, if you stand in the water
in these areas and go to the toilet,
it will swim up the stream of urine
and right inside you
and lodge inside you, using
two backward facing spines.
These candiru actually swim in,
latch into the gills of a large
fish and drink the blood.
You can see this one here, which
dropped out of the gills, is
absolutely thick
full of blood.
The big lesson, I guess, is, if
you're in the river,
don't go for a wee!
'The ant wren nest is unguarded.
'The parents have had
to go in search of food.
'Now ants have started
attacking the chicks.'
It's not looking good, cos the ants
are increasing and the birds are
going...twitch like
this every so often.
Gordon, ants are swarming...not
swarming, but there are quite a
few ants on the rim of the nest and
they're round and inside the nest.
Oh, yeah, they're right in there.
I'm really worried where the
adults are, cos the adults, I assume,
would come back and just remove them.
Yeah. When was the last
time the adults came in?
Have they been in
within the last hour?
No. Is that usual?
I would have thought at this stage
they'd be coming in more regularly,
at least once an hour.
With food.
Yeah. You're probably enjoying this.
You're not a big fan
of feathered animals.
No, they're OK, but it is a sort of
irony that the ant birds are being
attacked by the ants.
There's an adult.
Oh, look, and a cricket.
A bush cricket, look at that!
That's a whopping great bush cricket!
SQUAWKING
Fantastic. Listen to the noise.
Oh, she's eating it.
Now, is she eating it because she
has to remove the ants?
Let's see what happens. Oh, yes!
There we are.
Come on! Eat those ants, baby!
The ants knew that there was an ant
bird around and off they went,
that's it, gone. This is absolutely
great.
Higher animals need insects.
Insects are the food of the world,
and without insects
you wouldn't have any of this stuff.
'Steve's discovered what
rules the depths by day.
'Now he wants to
learn what hunts by night.'
Ah! Oh, my God!
These are called sabre-tooth
characins, or sabre-tooth tetras.
It's the nearest looking thing to
an actual monster I've ever seen.
It certainly deserves its
sabre-tooth name. That is incredible.
These teeth are so long they need
special sockets in their skull
to accommodate them, otherwise
they would just pierce their brains.
Oh, God, OK. This is a top predator.
They're extremely fast. They swim
around and they come up below fish
and just spear them and just kill
them instantly, just like that.
They spear them, the fish
are immobilised and then eat them.
I've got my fingers
disturbingly close to those teeth.
I would imagine those would just go
straight through to the bone,
wouldn't they?
They'd go right through your hand,
no doubt about it.
They're very strong.
And he's got to go back.
Let's see if I can put him
in without losing my hands!
Yeah, careful.
Now we're seeing the night shift,
the big cat fish, the sabre-tooths.
By day, the piranhas rule
the rivers. You're never safe.
Just going to move very
slowly, keep an eye out for spiders.
'In the dark of the forest,
George and a team of local
'trackers are stalking the
world's largest tarantula.'
You're coming this way?
Yeah, I can see your light.
Have you found a new hole? Over.
You can see it at the hole?
It's there?
INDISTINCT TALKING
OK, I'm on my way. Wait there.
Oh, wow!
There it is. Oh, my goodness!
Theraphosa blondi, the goliath
bird-eating spider.
Oh, wow. Great.
The trouble with this is, the first
fright that she gets and she'll
dive into that hole again and we
won't ever be able to get her out.
That's OK, that's fine. I'm going to
try a little stick to
tease her forward.
Is there any way you could
round the back and block the hole?
'Poor sighted, tarantulas hunt by
sensing vibrations in the ground.
'They wait to pounce on passing
prey.'
She is a beauty.
That's it, that's it, that's it.
Now, these guys don't
normally bite as a first defence.
They normally flick hairs, and
she was flicking hairs.
Let's just block that hole...
'The barbed hairs are designed to
irritate a predator's skin,
eyes and lungs.'
Those hairs are extremely irritating.
I want to cough. Don't let me cough.
Cos if I cough, she'll get a fright.
I'm desperately trying
not to cough at the moment.
OK, it's gone. Thank God for that.
These guys have inch-long fangs,
and you really don't want
that in your finger.
Oh, dear.
Do not cough.
But you see how
incredibly beautiful she is.
She moves serenely like...
Oh, she jumped.
I'm going to try and get her back in
the box, only because I want to see
how heavy she is,
after which we will bring her back
to her hole here.
I've got to get back.
It's flicked the hairs and there were
clouds and it's gone on my face,
gone up one arm, inside my arms.
It's gone up this arm. I've actually
inhaled some of them so I'm coughing.
Which shows what an effective way
of putting off enemies it is.
You don't need inch-long fangs
if you can make somebody
twitch and itch all over. Agh!
'Early next morning, Steve and Phil
are trawling the shallows by camp.'
Look at these ones. We have
around a dozen species right here.
They're all related to tetras.
This is called the characidium.
Here's a cichlid.
Oh, yes. Popular in the aquarium
trade.
Oh, I think we have
something interesting here.
This, I think,
is a brand new species.
No way! Undescribed.
How do you know
just by looking at it?
Because I've worked on the Guiana
Shield before in different countries
and I've seen fish
similar to this in the same genus,
but this is looking very different.
So we'll try to make
some more comparisons.
But I think we have a brand new
species to science right here.
No way! Really. All that hard
work finally paid dividends.
Right here, right by camp,
right with all the piranhas.
And everything else. This is a very
small area, about 10ft wide.
Caught a dozen species.
That just exemplifies how
high the biodiversity is here.
Yeah. Oh, we've got another one! Two.
Great stuff!
I'll get this into the aquarium.
Yeah, thank you.
'All the indications are that this
area is completely undisturbed,
'never fished, never hunted,
and its ancient trees intact.
'In the 21st century, that makes it
a rare rainforest indeed.'
Oh, come on, baby. I want to weigh
you, that's all.
Now, come on, be nice.
Just go in this bag. There you go.
'George's giant tarantula has
spent the night in the lab,
'and he's taking its vital
statistics before releasing it.'
Just feeling her in my hand,
she feels about the weight
of a small spiny rat.
Now, that's 85 grams.
That's a good size.
This is an amazing place.
All the animals here are just huge.
It is a land of giants, this.
You've got giant plants, giant
otters, giant spiders,
giant this, giant that.
You know, and this being the
world's biggest spider species,
for me, is an enormous thrill,
an absolutely enormous thrill.
No way!
'Another animal
has come in to camp.'
Somebody said there was a vulture and
I thought it was just on the tree.
How long has he been here?
Um, just five minutes.
The reason that vultures have a bald
head is because they feed on smelly,
rotting carcasses, and if they had
feathers on their head, it would just
get completely matted up
with rotting flesh
and blood and guts.
So they've evolved to have a
completely bald head so
it's more manageable.
Vultures never wake up with a
bad hair day or a bad feather day.
This system is working like a treat.
We've got live pictures coming from
two very different species of birds.
It's just incredible how
quickly these chicks are growing.
This is all flight preparation,
really, making sure that the feathers
are all in order.
Before too long, they're going to
realise what these wings are for,
and they're going to flutter out.
'In just a few days, Gordon's
surveillance cameras
'have recorded a variety of animals
that live in and around camp.
'So far, most of the expedition
has been focused on a small
area of forest.
'But across the border in
neighbouring Venezuela,
Steve has another challenge.'
Where Guyana meets Venezuela and
Brazil, there's a remarkable range of
mountains called the Guiana Shield.
'Some are totally unexplored.'
The tops of the mountains are
isolated from the forest below, so
anything that lives up there -
plants or animals - is exactly
like it's on an island.
It's growing completely
isolated from everything below.
And that's our mountain.
Look at that!
'Steve's aim as a climber is to be
the first to scale Mount Upuigma.
'His aim as a naturalist is to
discover what lives at the top.'
Nobody has climbed this mountain
before, it's absolutely certain.
We would be the first people
to place our hands on that rock.
'To reach the top, Steve will have
to push himself if he is to succeed.
'Joining him are two of the best
rock climbers in the world,
John Arran and Ivan Calderon.
'Tim Fogg is the rope safety
expert.'
The few biologists that have got on
top of these - they're called tepuis,
these mountains - have found
new species of plants and animals,
and that's what we're hoping to find.
That was a hairy landing!
'A football field in a
tiny Venezuelan village is
the only place to land.'
Hola. Buenos dias. Hola.
This is one of the most
beautiful villages I've ever seen.
This mountain up here is Acopan.
It looks just like a fortress, like
a child would draw a fortress.
And then looming over from the
other side is our mountain, Upuigma.
Look at that. What a place to live!
'There's a 20-mile trek before
they can even think about climbing.
'Their destination, Mount Upuigma.
'Villagers call it The Castle.'
What is it, man?
'In camp, there's a commotion.
'Yet another animal has been
spotted.'
You see it moving there?
In between the hole there? Yeah.
'It's helped itself to food
from the kitchen before
disappearing into the trees.
'Gordon has grabbed another of
his cameras and is on the case.'
This is the scene of the crime.
'He wants to catch the raider
red-handed.'
It has walked through the
kitchen, so there's obviously
something in there that it likes.
It's quite appropriate that
we're using this camera to catch
a thief, cos that's
kind of what they were designed for -
observing people stealing stuff.
Yeah, it is pretty good.
'The trap's set for
the mystery animal,
'but Gordon's taken his
eye off the ant wrens.'
The chicks are gone.
The nest's just here.
The chicks have either
flown the nest or been eaten.
I just can't believe that they're
gone of their own accord.
I'm just hoping it's not something
more sinister.
And the adults are stressed.
There's one of the chicks right here,
just in here.
I thought it was the adult.
It's a female. But just bobbed down.
Lost sight of it.
First he sees one chick...
and then the other.
Oh, brilliant!
That's a very different chick
from when we first met.
Against all the odds,
the chicks have made it.
Fantastic.
As the team gets closer to
the mountain,
the going gets harder.
The approach to the rock face
is steep and heavy going.
Once there,
it'll take three days to climb.
It looks a whole lot different
when you get up close, doesn't it?
Even from a distance you could tell
it was big, but not that big!
You can see some places up there
which are really dark, deep orange.
I think they could be
really dangerous up there.
It's unreliable rock to climb.
Huge chunks can be pulled
away without warning.
They'll start
the ascent at first light.
For now, they need food and rest.
In camp, the mystery thief
is back.
Oh, yes, there it is.
Look at that. Weird.
Opossums. They've been helping
themselves to the kitchen supplies.
We've got two opossums,
just here behind the kitchen.
Goodness me. They're freaky animals.
Oh, wow.
Sweet, isn't it?
They're marsupials. Like kangaroos,
they carry their young in a pouch.
They eat anything,
they're omnivores.
They eats rodents, they'll eat
birds' eggs, they'll eat fruit,
whatever they can get their hands on.
I just wonder if they've
set up home, metres from
where we've set up home.
Isn't it true that in the last week,
things have been coming closer
to the camp all the time?
Yeah, almost every day
there's something new showing up.
Have a look on the ground,
because I saw tonnes of
spiders and ants and things.
Oh, you can see a few wee ants there.
It'd be great if we'd found one
of the big spiders and put this
outside their burrow really close.
There is one. There's a hole
just about 10 yards that way.
Ooh, there we go.
Just ten metres from where
George and Gordon are sitting,
a tarantula is stirring.
Some folks call it the skeleton
tarantula, because it has these
little white marks on its legs.
Oh, what's that?
That is a biggish cicada, that.
Here he goes.
It's going forward.
Oh, it's got it!
What speed! Jeez!
You don't get faster than that.
I haven't seen that
before in the wild, ever.
What's actually happening here,
all spiders can't eat solid food.
They have to eat fluids.
The fangs are being used to draw
the prey towards her and then she's
basically emptying enzymes over it,
in saliva, and then she's supping
the soup of the bug, insect soup,
which she then swallows.
There it is. Oh, wow!
Look at that fang, it's just
tearing it apart.
It's cutting it.
It's just scything through it.
See how quick it was.
I'm loving this! This, this is it.
This is what the world
is composed of.
Mount Upuigma.
First light.
A last meal on solid earth
before the trial ahead.
For three days, they'll have
to eat and sleep strapped
to this mammoth wall of rock.
Isolated from the world far below,
they've no idea what wildlife
they'll find at the top.
We really don't know
where we're going.
Up, I think, is the watchword.
What do you think, what do
you think about the first run?
The thing is,
it's going to be very loose.
OK, sure.
Good luck, mate.
Thank you, I'm going.
Steve will be third on the ropes,
behind Tim and Ivan.
Big block going down!
Jesus!
Are you all right, Ivan?
Cannot talk right now.
I've been waiting
a long time for this,
but having seen Ivan struggle so
hard over this first pitch, I can't
pretend to be particularly, er...
..well, happy about the whole thing.
I think terrified's more the word.
OK, I'm climbing Ivan. OK.
Good luck, Steve.
Ooh, heads, heads, heads!
Every single thing that you hold
onto could ping away at any second.
And the consequences of that would
just be,
well, they'd be death,
there's no two ways about it.
I don't want to sound over-dramatic,
but...
Did you come this way? Yeah.
Oh, dear me.
Very glad I wasn't leading that move.
Not only is the rock sheer,
but in parts overhanging, and the
way ahead is difficult to make out.
Here we go.
My God, Ivan.
Yeah, that's it.
A little bit left.
Right on. Right on.
Very nice, man.
Good job. Good job.
That was hard.
In the jungle, the trees above
base camp are buzzing with activity.
Gordon scrambles for his camera.
Yet another species of monkey
has come into camp.
One of the tiniest in the world -
tamarins.
Keep nice and quiet.
(Great, right here.
They're right here.)
It's so tricky.
I don't know how many there are,
but there's movement up there and
then some more movement over there.
This is a first for Gordon.
They're rare, They're only found in
a very small part of South America.
They're very characterful.
They tend to stick to this
understorey, foraging about,
eating insects,
but being very small, makes them
very difficult to see.
There!
The golden-handed tamarin.
Standing at 25cms tall,
they're pint-sized primates.
They're quite...
They're like gremlins.
They move through the mid-storey,
foraging in family groups.
There's some lovely grooming going
on. Two of them, on the branch here.
Oh, a third one, a little one.
It's a baby one!
To see three of them at one time
is nothing short of a miracle.
There's one right in the open.
Oh, what a beauty!
They supplement their diet
of fruit and insects by sucking sap
from tree trunks.
It's incredible how they cling
on with these big claws.
It's almost like bats' claws
that they have.
I can just see, it's got strings
of gum coming from its tongue.
Fantastic!
That was just absolutely brilliant.
They're such a tough little monkey to
try and follow, even tougher to film.
I think I've nailed it, got some
really, really nice stuff of them.
The tamarins are the final addition
to the intensive survey
around base camp.
This phase of the expedition
is now over.
I've seen new fish,
I've seen a jaguar.
I've seen giant otters,
I've seen bird-eating spiders.
Every fourth or fifth insect I see
may turn out to be a new species.
The scientists' work
is far from over.
Everything they've collected
needs to be catalogued
and if it's an animal
new to science, it must be named.
Gordon and George are now
setting off on a major new mission,
a gruelling two-week river journey
into an isolated part of the jungle.
Are you sure we have enough stuff?
The Rewa that we're going to
is truly the middle of nowhere.
It's probably as remote as you can
get anywhere on the planet, really.
Have fun. Have a good time.
Yeah, I will do.
Their destination, the headwaters
of the River Rewa, one of the most
inaccessible regions of Guyana.
The few fishermen that have visited
reported wild animals
showing little fear of man.
If anywhere in South America
could be described as completely
untouched, this is it.
The Upper Rewa is sealed off from
the outside world by a formidable
set of rapids and waterfalls.
With two weeks' supplies packed on
board, they're travelling light
and living rough.
On the face of the mountain,
the climbers have come up against
an intimidating wall of rock.
This next session
is impossibly hard.
Well, it looks it to me anyway.
John's one of the best climbers
in the world,
and so he's already heading up it.
This is fantastic climbing.
Really quite amazing that
it's possible to climb up here.
There's just enough little holes.
You can't see any of them until
you're within a metre of them.
So it's quite intimidating
to launch up it.
Just seeing a blank wall ahead.
John, can you talk me through
this next pitch please?
There's about 15 or 20 metres
of vertical wall climbing.
The first half
is really quite hard.
OK, John, well,
to me that sounds like it's outside
my ability and possibly dangerous
for me to be trying.
Probably wise,
because the chances of falling
off some of the loose blocks onto
the others are really quite high.
Steve's a skilled climber, but this
rock face is beyond even his limit.
He must heave himself up the ropes,
free hanging in space.
He's six hours into the climb and
not even a quarter of the way up.
George and Gordon have reached
the rapids that guard
the headwaters of the River Rewa.
The rapids are impassable.
The only option is to drag the boats
and carry all the kit overland.
We've got logs laid down over
the rocks, so hopefully the boat
will slide over these rollers
and then up through that gap
and then up beyond the falls.
It's the hottest part of the day.
The temperature is 40 degrees
and humidity 100%.
One, two, three.
Right, one down, two to go. What?
Two more to go. I don't think I've
ever been so tired in my life.
There are still miles
of rapids ahead.
It's this barrier which makes
the Rewa so special, protecting the
forest and its animals from man.
Clinging to a cliff face,
Steve's running out of light
and the weather is on the turn.
It's coming in at an absolute rate
of knots. We've got black sky
and a curtain of rain approaching us
and we've got to get
our sleeping arrangements up
very quickly otherwise
we're going to get drenched.
They'll have to sleep on this
vertical rock face, strapped to it
in glorified camp beds.
Above them, 200 metres of
loose rock. Beneath them,
115 metres
of nothing.
We have two Portaledges.
Each one is big enough
for two people,
but since there are five of us,
Ivan has rigged himself a hammock.
How is your bed? Is just perfect.
I'm free hanging but
we have a lot of protection,
so we'll sleep with a harness
and attach it to the protection.
This is difficult enough
in the light, hanging here in
this ridiculous spider's web.
But trying to do it in the dark
is nigh on impossible.
Obviously, all night long,
we have to stay sleeping
in our harnesses and clipped into
as many things as possible.
Cos if you roll out of bed here,
you get more than a bump on the head.
For the first time, I guess I'm
starting to think whether I really
am capable of this, if it really is
something I should be trying to do.
It's no wonder no-one's ever
climbed this mountain before.
I mean, it's overhanging, vertical,
nasty, loose rock, vegetation.
I mean,
this is very, very far from a nice
day's climbing in the Lake District.
Something very serious
could happen up there.
Not so sure I'm going to sleep
so well tonight.
In the third and final phase
of this expedition,
Justine is on the search
for giant anteaters.
It's coming straight towards me.
Gordon and George struggle on up
the river, and are rewarded with
a wealth of rare sights.
What a fantastic bird!
And Steve battles exhaustion
as he nears the top of the mountain.
HE PANTS
Ohhh!
Guyana, South America.
A land covered in rainforest
that's unexplored and under threat.
If we're concerned
about species lost,
we should be concerned
about keeping the forests intact.
For the last three weeks,
an international team
of scientists and film-makers
has been cataloguing the animals
that hide in this wilderness.
It's one of the most spectacular
places on the planet.
They're discovering
it's one of the world's richest
and most pristine rainforests.
(Fantastic...)
The diversity must be
absolutely incredible.
It's hard to think
that this could disappear.
It really needs to be preserved.
Now the team has split up
on different missions.
Gordon and George are travelling
to the headwaters
of a remote river
where the animals are rumoured
to show little fear of man.
Oh, wow!
They could really mess this area up
in a very short space of time,
and that's terrifying.
Justine is in search of one
of the planet's strangest animals.
And the climbing team
is attempting the first ascent
of a remote mountain.
I don't like this.
Oh, God!
Steve Backshall is finding it tough.
Last night, they camped 115 metres
off the ground, suspended in space.
I'm starting to think
whether I really am capable of this,
whether it really is something
I should be trying to do.
Guyana, the size of Great Britain.
It's one of the few
tropical countries where most
of the rainforest is still intact.
Just over the border in Venezuela,
the trees meet
an extraordinary range
of table top mountains.
The climbing team spent the night
perched high on this rock face.
Getting out of bed
on the wrong side here
is not an option.
Hello, mate.
Bit scary.
This would have to be one of the most
glorious places I've ever woken up.
The view's extraordinary -
you can see all the way to Brazil.
There are wisps of cloud below us,
and the light is beautiful.
The summits of these mountains
have been isolated
for tens of millions of years.
They're a lost kingdom
of strange animals and plants.
No-one has ever climbed
Mount Upuigma before.
If they reach the top,
they hope to discover new species.
I hope that we make a lot
more progress than we did yesterday -
we were very slow yesterday.
The less time we can spend today,
the more time we have on top
to go finding animals,
and that's what we're here for.
Steve's an accomplished climber,
but to keep up with his world class
team, he's having to raise his game.
Steve, just above the belay,
on the right,
there is a loose boulder,
a really dangerous, large boulder,
right above Ivan.
Whatever you do, don't touch it.
Over.
I've got this great big flake here...
..which is ready to go.
It's the size of a fridge freezer.
If it came off...
Oh, God, I don't want to think about
what would happen if it came off.
Shattered boulders far below
lie silent witness
to the unreliable rock face.
How the hell am I going
to get round that?
Oh, God...
Oh, God, that's loose, too.
Oh, shoot.
Take in, John!
(Please don't go, please don't go,
please don't go...)
Oh, Jeez!
Oh, I can honestly say that's one of
the scariest things I've ever done.
The thing about it, Steve,
this is not a good position
to be either, so...
On you come, boyo.
Cameraman Keith is also
in a precarious position.
Are you on something loose too? I'm
not on anything, that's the thing.
All right...
Oh, God!
(I don't like this...)
Over the border stretches
the vast jungle of Guyana.
The country wants
to keep its forests intact.
But it's a poor nation,
and timber raises much-needed cash.
Team members Gordon Buchanan
and George McGavin are heading
to an area that is today remote, but
could soon be opened up for logging.
Their destination, the headwaters
of the remote river Rewa.
Ahead of them,
mile after mile of ferocious rapids.
Wow...
Well, that's quite fast.
It is tough, just getting your head
round this concept
of using the river
as a means of getting around.
And then suddenly,
you hit this big barrier,
and if we want to go on, we've got to
do some heavy grafting to get over.
The wildlife of the upper reaches
is protected
by these treacherous falls.
The few fishermen
that have ventured past
have returned
with stories of animals
that show little fear of man.
This is the point where you work out
exactly what you need
and what you don't need.
We've got three boats,
three engines, all the fuel,
all the food, all the kit...
It's a lot of stuff... a lot of stuff.
They're not the only ones
trying to climb the cascades.
There are literally tens
of thousands of small fish here...
And they're all heading -
this is a holding area -
they're all heading
up this tiny crack here,
it's the only bit on the falls
which they can actually leap up...
I've never seen anything like it.
Well, you wouldn't starve here!
Wow... Look at that!
That is just unreal.
Poor things,
they're just absolutely pooped.
George and Gordon are faring
little better.
Their boat's being dragged back
against the current.
If it flips, they'll lose their kit.
The team battle to regain control.
Somehow, they manage to hold on.
It was very deep there -
really deep.
You'd be amazed
at how strong it was.
You think you're in control,
then suddenly,
the current just takes the boat...
Pphwoof!
Yeah, you really have
to be careful out there.
There are three sets of falls.
Every item of kit
must be hauled over land.
The support team consists
of an ex-military medic...
..one cook...
five boat drivers
and a jungle guide.
Who's got a machete?
This is exactly similar to
what WE have been doing, actually.
Carrying heavy loads of food
and boats up and down the jungle.
This is very similar.
Some of the smaller worker ants
are hitching a ride.
Because there are small flies,
who fly over the swarm here,
and they actually try to lay
their eggs in the heads of the ants
who are holding a load.
And so what's involved
is this very smart trick
where the very smaller workers
actually sit on the leaf load
and fend off the flies
as they come in,
so it's a really smart trick.
And if you see an ant
which has had a fly egg in its head,
the fly egg hatches and grows
inside the head, and eventually,
the ant's head just falls off - just
drops on the ground and rolls away,
and a fly hatches out of it.
That's the last of the kit.
So only three boats now.
And we're done...
in more ways than one.
It's the hottest part of the day,
and the worst job is still to come.
Dehydration and exhaustion
are a real danger.
Steve has climbed some
of the world's highest mountains,
but this first ascent
of Mount Upuigma
is pushing his technical skill
and stamina to the limit.
Oh, God... That is the move.
Got no foothold...
Oh, no!
You all right, Steve?
Just came off... Sorry, John.
Can you get on again?
Ha ha(!)
It's impossible for him to climb
up the rope with his bare hands.
For the moment,
he's well and truly stuck...
..250 metres up.
On three...
One, two...
They've been dragging kit
through the forest for eight hours -
they've saved the worst until last.
It's a good one. Here's the top.
Steady, steady, steady...
Wait, wait, wait, wait...
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
At last... They've made it!
Yay!
Reaching paradise
was never going to be easy.
Straight away,
this river seems rich in wildlife.
Was that what I thought it was?
A giant otter.
Yeah, yeah, right there.
Down it comes, lovely.
Look... There they are!
Oh, fantastic.
Look, there's three of them!
Giant otters make a beeline for the
water to check out the strangers.
So what, we're only
two hours on the Rewa,
we're already seeing
big, classy animals. Yeah.
Absolutely. This is really unspoilt.
What a thrill to be... what,
15 feet from a giant otter.
None of the animals seem concerned
about the newcomers.
Macaws.
That's the first time I've seen them
in full colour in the sun,
because they're always
flying overhead, so all you see
is a dark shape.
If you don't actually see them
in the sun, you don't get
that fantastic blue and gold.
They are stunning...
Really beautiful.
Wingspan about that...
about that, Gordon?
Yeah, yeah. They're big.
Big birds. They're a parrot...
parrot species,
and it's the one that pirates
most frequently have
on their shoulders in cartoons.
Arrr, Gordon lad, ha!
They don't speak.
Since George and Gordon
visited this area,
plans have been announced to log
some of the trees in the forest.
The future of the wildlife
is now uncertain.
Have you got it, Gordon?
They could be the last biologists
to record the animals
in the forest's pristine state.
As they journey deeper,
they hope to find
some of Guyana's
most impressive creatures -
powerful eagles,
big cats, giant snakes.
Now I'm in a real quandary.
Steve is still dangling
250 metres up...
in thin air.
The team is preparing
to get him back on the rock face.
He's handed a device
to help him climb back up the rope.
OK, here it comes.
Mind your hands as well,
take your hands away
from the blue hook.
Mind your head. Here she comes.
How does that work?
Right, what you do
is you open... take it off.
Lift the red up a little bit. Pull
it like you're prising it apart.
That's it. Then spin it,
clip it round the rope.
Right, does that work? It does.
Thank God for you!
OK...
Steve's troubles aren't over yet.
The safety rope
is the team's lifeline.
They must avoid it
snagging on the sharp rocks.
The rope's rubbing really,
really badly above me.
Ooh!
That's going to ping.
I'm sorry, Keith, I might
swing into you if that happens.
No problem. I'm well anchored.
You're clear now, mate.
Everything's cool.
Well done.
They can't afford another setback.
The more time they spend climbing,
the less time they'll have to explore on top.
But there's no guarantee
they'll even make it.
270 miles to the south-east, forest
gives way to natural grasslands.
Here, jungle wildlife shares space
with the cattle
from a few remote ranches.
Camerawoman Justine Evans
is on her mission to find
the creatures which live here.
Look at that!
Beautiful.
We've got marsh around here.
Some of it's quite deep.
The horses can cross it
really easily,
but for us it's a real pain, wading
through all this water all the time.
It's such a great way to get about.
She's heading to the shade
of the forested islands
that pepper the landscape.
Trying to find a way through this
so I can get to the top
to see if I can get a view
of some howler monkeys
that are supposed to be up here.
Lots of gnawing,
signs of gnawing going on here.
You can see up here... That looks
really like monkey damage to me.
I don't know about howlers.
Maybe something
like squirrel monkeys.
Well, that's a good sign.
Definitely monkeys around here.
It looks quite fresh, this, as well.
After an hour of searching,
she discovers the hideout
of a colony of bats that feed
only on blood - vampires.
Hmm!
They've got their echo-locating...
They've got their leaf noses
and big ears.
They're vampire bats at the back.
Oh... Wow!
They are the stuff of nightmares,
aren't they?
Vampire bats are perfectly
designed to feed on blood.
Razor-sharp teeth pierce the skin,
and two channels under the tongue
help draw it up.
Whoa!
I don't like the idea of falling
asleep out on the savannah
and having one of those crawling up
onto me and licking my blood.
You can see where they've been
defecating down the wall.
That will all be blood.
Whoa...
A healthy population
of vampire bats signals
there are plenty of animals
to feed on.
Tonight, Justine will camp out
on the grassland.
Tomorrow at dawn, she starts her
search for the savannah's strangest
creature - the giant anteater.
It's going to be a rough night.
So we've only got one tent
that's waterproof, have we?
The tents have got
no outer sheets...no way
of holding them down.
It's all a disaster.
Everything is in here.
I don't know what we're gonna
do when it pours with rain.
We can't all sleep in here.
We're just gonna have to
hide away for a while.
Animals are pretty smart.
They don't come out in the rain.
Even insects don't come out
in the rain.
We're gonna have to sit
and wait it out, unfortunately.
But we've got so few days here
that we've lost a day, effectively,
just because of the rain.
In this untouched forest,
they had been hoping to find
Guyana's top predators -
anaconda, jaguar and harpy eagle.
Just when I said
it couldn't get any worse...
the porridge is burnt!
That's not good for a Scotsman,
is it, burnt porridge? Mmm...
The rain's eased off a bit.
Yeah, it has.
That's good. It's a bit annoying,
because peak jaguar time is...
eight until sort of ten. And
it's now... ? It's now nearly ten.
Despite the delay,
Gordon decides to take his chances.
Ah, a gasteracantha spider!
I nearly plonked myself on that.
This is a fantastic spider.
It's got these amazing spines in the
abdomen. It's quite hard, actually.
If you were to sit on that,
actually,
it would be quite painful.
Very heavily armed with spines.
In search of the elusive jaguar.
The heavy rains
have swollen the river,
and most animals have retreated
into the forest - except one...
the normally nocturnal pacca.
It's a fairly large rodent...
quite commonly found,
but not during the day.
These things could be taken
by certainly an anaconda
round here...jaguar...
Lots of things eat them.
They should be spending the days
underground, the whole family group,
and then they come out and about
at nighttime,
but this one's been scared out
by something.
Come on, Mr Pacca.
Get out of there.
Because a slippery, muddy bank
on the side of a river
is not a good place...
for a plump pacca to be.
Justine has enlisted the help
of a local cattle rancher
in her search for giant anteaters.
He thinks there's one
roaming this area.
Shall we go and tie up over there?
This is interesting.
You can see where this termite nest
has had the top knocked off it,
and it's definitely
an anteater that's done this.
It looks like a good area.
Lots of termite nests here.
Orvin's spotted one.
But the anteater has sensed them.
Made too much noise.
Stuck in a bog!
And off he goes.
Right.
Giant anteaters have bad eyesight
but a good sense of smell.
She must approach quietly downwind.
Fantastic!
It's just really fascinating
to see how it's using this landscape.
It's just specialised with what
this landscape has to offer,
which is lots of ants
and lots of termites.
It's just perfect for it.
Giant anteaters have no teeth,
but their elongated heads
hide a 60cm tongue
covered in sticky saliva.
They're just like aliens -
just bizarre looking.
It's feeding on something now. It's
got its head right down in the grass.
It's got its tongue
and it's sticking it down the holes,
All the termites
get stuck on the tongue
and they just lap up
as many as they can.
They're only walking on their three
main toes, which are curled under,
so they only pull the claws out
when they're actually digging.
They're basically
walking on their knuckles.
Which just looks weird!
They're all together quite strange -
real specialists.
This discovery marks the end
of Justine's journey.
Tomorrow, she must head home.
It's great to see a giant anteater.
First time ever!
First time I've got a shot. First
time I've ever seen one. Brilliant!
After three days of
relentless climbing,
Steve is just 30 metres from
the top, but it's not over yet.
I'm actually not sure
how I'm gonna tackle that.
Got a foothold there, but that's
another that might peel off.
Oh, God!
MAN: Well done.
I think I can see the top!
The next of it's a nasty bit.
Oh, dear! That's all gonna come off.
Oh, God!
He's almost there but,
in this final push,
he's having to cling on
to loose soil and roots.
Go on. Good.
Go on. Excellent.
Hey-heeeey!
Nice one, Steve!
Yes!
Ah! Oh, fantastic!
Steve's work as a climber is done.
Now he must break through
the thick wall of vegetation,
before he can start his search
for wildlife on the summit.
Look at this!
We've popped out into
a moss, bromeliad, fern forest.
This really is the lost world!
As the rest of the team
searches for animals,
Steve is exploring
a rocky shelf above.
They're running in tracks.
You can see there's almost
like roads.
These here are bird prints.
But these are definitely
mammal prints.
Kind of polecat.
A medium-sized mustelid perhaps,
something from the weasel family.
Which means there
are mammals up here.
If we find them, they're
almost certain to be a new species.
They have just three days
to track down the mystery mammal.
Well done. Who found it?
It was just lucky.
Be careful, he's very jumpy.
Look at that underside.
Beautiful colours. Ooh!
Good catch.
What are you? I'm gonna have
to hold him still like that.
I think what's particularly special
about this frog is
I've not seen it in any of the guides
or any of the textbooks
for the frogs of this area.
What's particularly beautiful,
if you look at the underside,
quite dull on top,
but underneath, the belly,
and the underside of the pads,
look at those colours.
That's really quite
dramatic, isn't it?
Unfortunately, it's very difficult
to name a new species
without taking it back to a museum
and running all sorts of tests on it,
and to do that, we'd have to kill it,
which I'm not prepared to do.
So, I'm gonna put it back where it
belongs, in this bromeliad here.
Unidentified frogs,
unknown footprints.
Who knows what else
the mountain holds?
It's been a frustrating day
for George and Gordon.
But at least the rain has stopped.
I have to say this is not
the sharpest tool in the kit.
OK, onions done.
Potatoes?
I've been fantasising about
a slow-roasted lamb shank
for most of last week.
Before dinner, George has
important work to do.
After rain, insects come out.
This is the first ultra-violet trap
that anyone's ever set in this area.
What on earth... ?
I've never seen that before.
That thing there is a
very strange family of bug.
It's not much recorded.
How many things are here? I mean...
200 species easily.
I think it'd be safe to say that
at least 5%, if not 10% of them...
. .may be undescribed.
That's the fact of it.
So if we could save all the forests
in hot countries like Guyana,
then you would immediately save
over 50% of all the world's species.
So that surely is worth doing.
Look at that!
That is just stonkingly beautiful.
This pale, ivory-coloured moth.
Yet at the right angle, you see
these beautiful little golden
beads all round the edge there.
That's just...
That's incredible.
This is a monster!
I've never seen this.
Look at the size of this guy! Whoa!
That is a mole cricket and a half!
That's an absolute beauty.
I'm in my element here and
it makes all the portaging
and the sweating...
It makes it all worthwhile.
George must get some rest.
He needs to be up early
to search for the giant anaconda.
On the top of Mount Upuigma,
the climbers spent the night
sheltering under an overhang.
Now they're preparing for
another day searching for animals.
All this climbing takes
quite a toll on your hands.
You just tend to get nasty,
kind of, blisters,
particularly in the points where
the ropes rub through your fingers.
MAN: Does it hurt?
Yes.
It's not too bad.
Hundreds of swifts
are feeding above,
watched on by their
predators, falcons.
From the second we reached
the top of the climb,
To begin with, we thought it was
a bat falcon, which is quite common.
But those don't occur at
anything like this altitude
or in this kind of terrain.
What does, and what were spotted
in 1999 to the east of us,
is the orange-breasted falcon.
I think there'll be a lot of
ornithologists out there who'll be
really happy to know that it's alive
and well here on Upuigma.
It looks to me like we've got
a pair with a youngster.
There's all sorts of interactions
going on between the three of them.
Very, very vocal birds.
As Evan explores the cliff face,
Steve is hunting
for the mystery mammal.
There's a great little hole down here
with loads of paw prints.
It would make a perfect burrow.
Let's go inside with the night
camera, see what we can see.
It smells quite strong in here.
That kind of musty, animal smell.
It certainly looks like a perfect
burrow for a medium-sized mammal.
I can't see anything. There's loads
of prints, but there's no droppings.
Since first light, George
and Gordon have been continuing
their search
for Guyana's top predators.
One of the boatmen thinks he's seen
a giant anaconda
hidden in the bushes.
One big one.
Anaconda?
Anaconda? Yeah. And if he says
it's a big one...
It'll be big. It'll be big.
There's a big one.
It's a big one indeed.
Can we get in there? Goodness me.
It's like a car tyre. Yeah,
it's like a car tyre on its side.
A very large car tyre.
Gordon is just going to sneak
onto land
and try and get a picture of
this anaconda on the ground.
Razor grass.
Gordon's about eight
feet away from it.
Goodness me, that's a huge snake.
It's five metres long,
its body the size of Gordon's waist.
Just doing a bit of pruning.
You can't really get
a clear view of it.
I've seen an anaconda smaller
than that eat a whole pig.
Something the size of me,
it could possibly do it.
Anaconda kill by coiling their
body tightly around their prey
and stopping the blood circulation.
The victim is swallowed whole.
If you're scared of snakes, this
thing would give you nightmares.
His tongue's not out.
If his tongue comes out,
that means it can sense us.
It can actually taste us.
At the moment, I think
it's just fast asleep.
Oh, my God!
Now that is... That's big.
This place really is
strangely rich in wildlife.
I've never seen or heard
of anywhere like this place.
This is a land of giants.
It's eyes are open. Look.
It's great to see it and I think
we should just leave it alone.
They head into the forest,
where they're confronted
by a yet another giant.
This is an enormous tree!
It's a silk cottonwood.
Absolutely vast! That's
bigger than anything we've seen.
Definitely. Good grief!
That is incredible. Look at the size
of those buttress roots. Oh, wow.
Look, look, look! What have you got?
What have you got?
Oh, my God! It's one of those...
That is incredible!
This is a hawk moth,
which has been infected by...
Is it a fungus?
Exactly. That's grown
throughout the whole animal.
The disease makes them
crawl up higher,
so that when they die and
the spores erupt out of the animal,
it spreads over a further area.
You have to be very careful
what you eat in the jungle,
because there are things
that can make you feel very sick
or things that will
grow inside you
and erupt out of your back,
your stomach, and here's an example.
Sci-fi films, they try
and dream up hideous things,
but actually, in the real world,
there are ten times
more hideous things
happening to animals all around us
than we could ever imagine.
I'll be you any money that
species of fungus is undescribed.
I mean...
It's a very under-worked group.
That, to me... is quite unique.
It's only from the air that you can
see the vast scale of this forest.
Guyana's trees alone lock up 2.7
billion tonnes of carbon,
vital in the fight
against climate change.
But Guyana is a very poor country
and needs to earn money
from its trees.
It faces a dilemma.
To allow logging now
or keep the forests intact
and hope to trade them for
carbon credits in the future.
So far, this forest is untouched,
but it may not be for much longer.
It's the last night on Mount Upuigma
and after dinner, the climbing team
hope to find nocturnal animals.
They've laid a series
of small mammal traps
and Steve's rigging an ultra-violet
light to attract insects.
Look at these moths!
Look at the size of this. Whoa!
Enormous moths all the way
down this wall here. Look!
Look at the size of that!
These ones here are hawk moths.
They're sphingidae.
Look at the size of that one there!
For scale, that's
the size of my hand.
And they're all exactly
the same species,
with this distinctive eye spot here
and that wonderful colouration
here in the hind wing.
Whoa! Something really
quite extraordinary's happened here.
My light trip has actually
conned these swifts
and they've flown into the wall.
This one here, he's stunned,
but alert.
I think he might head off.
Come on, fella, please be all right.
Thank goodness for that.
Suddenly, there's a noise
from within the mammal trap.
No, no, no, no.
Come back, come back.
Where are you?
Oh, God, no! Oh, he's in there.
He's in there. Oh, he's beautiful!
You're all right.
I'm not gonna hurt you.
Look at the size of the ears
and the spread of the whiskers.
This is definitely a creature that's
accustomed to hunting at night.
That's ever so pretty.
There have been very,
very few species recorded up here.
New mammals are found
so rarely these days,
but that is an extraordinary find.
Makes the whole trip worthwhile.
They could only bring enough
supplies for three days.
Now it's time to go home.
Last night was definitely in
my top ten wildlife moments.
Everything happened at once.
First of all the swifts,
then these moths everywhere
and then we found that mouse.
We've only had three days
to do a rapid assessment
of what lives up here on the top,
but even so, I think
we've had some major successes.
I'm sure that some of the animals
we've found are new to science.
But even more tantalising
are those footprints we found
of some unknown animal and I just
hope that someone gets a chance
to come back
and find out what that is.
It's one of the big tragedies
of my life that I was born now
when it's so hard to find really wild
places that people haven't been to.
It does your heart good
to come somewhere like this
that is not only totally
undiscovered, but is so special.
Gordon has been pulled away
from breakfast.
One of Guyana's
most rarely seen creatures
is high in the trees
right next to camp.
It's just stopped in this tree right here.
I have never seen
a harpy eagle before.
I really didn't think
we'd see one here.
It's enormous. What I'd like
to try and do is get ashore
and that way I can get the
long lens to its full extent
and hopefully get
a really close shot of it.
Please don't go anywhere.
This is just smash-and-grab filming.
You've got to try and find
a position and just get what you can,
because this bird is gonna fly
and we're never gonna see it again.
OK, make sure everything's running.
Oh, wow! Look at that.
You know what? If the jaguar's
the most difficult mammal to see,
the harpy eagle is definitely
the most difficult bird to see.
Beautiful.
It's easy in this place
to say every second day,
"This is the most amazing thing,
the rarest thing that I've seen,"
but honestly,
there is more chance of a jaguar
doing the fandango through our camp
than finding a harpy eagle.
He's got the remains of a monkey.
You can just see its back legs.
That's what harpy eagles do.
They're such huge birds of prey.
They catch big primates
and their claws are so powerful,
they'll grab a monkey,
grab it by the body with one claw,
grab it by the head...
Look at those talons.
They're enormous. Huge.
That size.
The harpy is the most
powerful eagle in the world
and stands a metre tall.
Without a doubt, this is like finding
diamonds at the head of this river.
The further we get away from people,
there's more animals
and the fact that you've got
an animal like harpy eagle
is a good indication that
there must be many monkeys here.
And many monkeys mean
you've got a very healthy habitat.
It's worrying that
it's completely unprotected.
They could really mess this area up
in a very short space of time,
and that's terrifying.
This is so, so unbelievably rare.
It is the holy grail.
OK, it's gonna go. It's gonna go.
This could be the last moments
we have with this bird.
The harpy eagle
is the final discovery for the team.
They'll soon be heading home.
The expedition has produced
important evidence.
This is one of the greatest,
unspoilt rainforests in the world.
There are so few places that
are pristine and untouched.
This is one of them and, personally,
I think that should never change.
From the tree tops to its watery
depths, they've uncovered new,
strange and rare creatures.
They've been burnt, bitten,
and had narrow escapes.
They've catalogued and photographed
hundreds of rainforest animals.
There should be room on this earth
to keep 6% of the land surface area,
a very small area,
in which resides the majority
of all the Earth's species
of animals and plants.
Thank you.
For George, there's one last task.
Delivering the scientific
report to the Guyanese president.
Here is a very brief report
from our trip
which just outlines what we did.
Obviously, there'll be more coming
out of this in the next few months.
Every report, they've all recognised
the importance of rainforests,
especially tropical rainforests. In
climate change, the contribution
to the mitigation or the reduction
of greenhouse gases.
What we all find is that
this particular area
is one of the richest,
in terms of species,
probably anywhere on the planet.
It's incredibly rich.
Shortly after the team
returned home,
the President of Guyana
made an unprecedented move.
He approached the British government
to offer the intact forest
as a global resource to help
alleviate climate change,
in return for financial help.
No decision has yet been made.
The world is just beginning
to recognise the enormous
value of rainforests.
Not only as home
to millions of species,
but as part of the solution
to a global problem.