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Somewhere
on the outer reaches of the galaxy

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There's a small planet

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dominated by an alien life form
creatures too numerous to count

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they can survive conditions
no other creature can tolerate

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Other life forms try to destroy them

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but their resilience
has been their strength

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for hundreds of millions of years.

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They lurk in the darkest of corners
or control entire landscapes.

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They seem to come from the world
of science fiction

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but they belong to the world
of science fact

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welcome to the world of insects.

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Planet Earth.

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Temperature range
- 80 to +50 degrees centigrade.

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Atmosphere nitrogen oxygen.

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Life abundant and diverse.

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Humans think they own this planet

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but they've only been around
for a couple of million years.

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This world belongs to insects

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and it's done so for nearly
four hundred million years.

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Possibly 30 million differect kinds

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more than the rest of the animal
kingdom put together

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a billion, billion individual insects
alive at any one moment.

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They range from the grotesque

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to the bizarre

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to the beautiful.

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Insects are vital to life on earth
without these tiny creatures

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even the human race couldn't exist.

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Each and every insect is a perfect
miniature machine.

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Insects owe their dramatic success to

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sophisticated software
and elegant hardware.

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Humans have hardly begun to
understand these designs

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they've barely glimpsed
this strange empire

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but insects have invaded every corner
of the human world.

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And in the few hundred years since humans
started trying to classify insects

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they've only managed to name to
pin down less than than a million.

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And the most that's known about those
is the Latin name they've been given.

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Only a few thousand are understood well.

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Most insects live in the tropics

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but they've colonised every continent
and island on the planet.

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Transported by wind and wings

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insects have conquered the globe

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yet this beetle is as big
as they ever get

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a little bigger than a mouse.

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Because they've so tiny

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the world is a
very different place to insects

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and they've had to solve life's problems

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in very different ways
from bigger animals.

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Unearthly shapes
and weird structures designs

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that go far beyond anything dreamed up
by human imagination.

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Living in a miniature world makes them

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as different from humans
as it's possible to be.

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It's these differences
that make them seem so alien.

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Large animals are supported
by a skeleton on the inside

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and their soft tissue

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muscles and skin are on the outside.

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This rigid framework of
bones works so well

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that this design has supported
the biggest creatures that ever lived.

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Insects are built the other way round
they've hard on the outside.

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They wear a tough

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waterproof armour
that protects their soft insides

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and supports their body the best design
for their miniature world.

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An external skeleton
has another advantage

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it can be moulded into
any shape imaginable precision tools

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or powerful weapons.

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Even the fearsome horns
of a rhino beetle

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are just extensions of its skeleton.

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And the skeleton is strong
enough to stand up

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to the strain of being grabbed
and squeezed

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these beetles would find it
hard to actually hurt each other.

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Their dispute is settled
by a grappling match.

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But insect design goes far beyond
heavy duty engineering

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they've also perfected
micro architecture.

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The glittering colours of a jewel beetle

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are nothing to do with pigments

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instead

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it's all done with light reflecting off
their delicately textured surface.

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At a microscopic level

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its casing is sculpted
into tiny transparent plates

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slanted and shaped like cut glass to
reflect all the colours of the rainbow.

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And these ridges are precisely
the same distance apart

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less than a thousandth
of a millimeter.

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They decorate each and every tiny scale
on the wing of a morpho butterfly

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and reflect iridescent blue
that shimmers

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and changes
with the direction of the light.

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The butterfly sheds a few scales
as it flies

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and still they reflect the light

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leaving a sparkling firework
display in its wake.

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This hard outer casing
may be a design miracle

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with flexible joints
that allow it to bend

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but the problem is
it can't stretch and grow.

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And a caterpillar's life is
dedicated to growing

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these have to increase their size
by 20, 000 times

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between hatching
and turning into moths.

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So, when they get too big
for their casing

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they moult.

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A new, soft skeleton
is ready underneath

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all the caterpillar has to do is loosen
the old one and step outside.

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The new casing is soft at first

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so it can be inflated then hardened

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giving the caterpillar a bit
more room to grow.

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Not only is this casing waterproof
it's airtight.

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Like most other creatures

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insects need oxygen
but they don't have lungs.

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Instead, down each side

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they have a series of holes

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which are normally kept tightly sealed.

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But every now and then

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they open and the air rushes in.

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The holes lead to a network
of tubes made

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from the same material
as the hard casing.

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Inside the armour
in its liquid interior

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the caterpillar's organs
its tubular heart

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and massive gut are all connected
to a complex

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branching network of air tubes.

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Within the tissues

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the tubes branch ever finer
until they've so minute

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they can penetrate individual cells

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in fact each and every cell

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is plumbed directly
into its own oxygen supply.

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Their elegant breathing system

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and waterproof armour
were the breakthrough

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that allowed insects to invade dry land.

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Before that, most life on earth
lived in the sea.

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But it was another design innovation

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that allowed them to complete
their conquest of Earth.

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That happened 350 million years ago

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in the great carboniferous swamps.

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Insects evolved wings.

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No one has any real idea
how this happened

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the earliest fossils
had fully formed wings

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like those of dragonflies.

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Except that some of the
first dragonflies were huge

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they had a wingspan of half a metre.

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Yet again

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wings are made of the same material
that forms body armour

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but here, it's so thin

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it's transparent and supported
by a network of veins.

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The wings of insects are unique

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when birds, bats and pterodactyls
took to the air

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they had to compromise and turn
a pair of legs into wings.

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But insect wings evolved
from scratch completely new structures.

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No compromise here
just infinite design flexibility.

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The hind wings of a Madagascar moon moth
developed long tails rudders

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to keep it straight when it glides.

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Insects were the first creatures
to take to the air

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for hundreds of millions of years

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they had the sky to themselves.

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Although they seem frail

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insect wings can carry them
over vast distances.

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In the case of monarch butterflies

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a journey of thousands of miles
to their wintering grounds.

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But the most sophisticated flying
insect is the humble house fly.

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Its wings are powered
by special muscles

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that can contract at very high
frequencies up to 500 times a second.

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They produce enormous amounts of
power weight for weight

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similar to a small aircraft
piston engine.

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And its flight path is controlled
by an on board computer

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that makes the latest electronic
designs seem primitive.

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It flies on one pair of wings
the hind pair are reduced to knobs

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that act like gyroscopic stabilizers.

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The compound eyes are adapted
for fast flight in confined spaces

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they process data at phenomenal rates.

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To human vision

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anything flickering faster than 15 times
a second appears a continuous blur

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but a fly sees separate images up to a
hundred times a second.

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Neon tubes flicker fast enough to give
constant light to humans

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but look like a strobe to a fly.

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A television picture is made up line
by line so quickly

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that humans see a single moving picture
but a fly isn't fooled.

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But there's one more design problem to
crack wings are delicate structures

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easily damaged on the ground.

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Beetles have solved this problem

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they've turned their front wings
into hard wing cases

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that protect their fragile hind wings.

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This allows beetles to go

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where other insects fear to tread to
live in narrow tunnels

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to burrow through wood
or soil even dung.

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And their legs are still
free to evolve into

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whatever's needed in the case
of dung beetles

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shovels for digging
and packing the dung into balls.

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Inventing wing cased
was almost as successful

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as developing wings
in the first place

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there are more beetles
than any other kind of insects.

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They're masters of the ground
and on six legs

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beetles have the power of speed
this is one of the fastest

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the giant tiger beetle
from South Africa.

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Within it's own world

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it's more fearsome than a tiger

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and faster than a cheetah.

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It's jaws are just as specialized
as its legs gripping

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and crushing its victim so it can drink
every last drop of nourishment.

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When it's finished

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there's nothing left of the moth
except its outer casing

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discarded like an empty bottle.

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To co-ordinate
this extraordinary hardware

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insects also need equally
complex software

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the don't just have a single brain

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they also have separate nerve centers
controlling each pair of legs.

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Humans are trying to build robots
based on the same design

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hoping they'll be able to
cross any terrain

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however rough or unforgiving.

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But there's no contest.

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Micro-processors are huge and clumsy
compared to insect nerve centers.

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All the robot can manage
is an undignified lurch

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while a cockroach can scramble
over any obstacles at high speed.

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In fact, the cockroach is the
fastest thing on six legs.

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At top speed
it can cover a metre a second.

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00:22:27,779 --> 00:22:31,180
Most insects behave entirely
by instinct.

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They've made
with their instructions 'wired in'

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but that doesn't stop them having
very sophisticated behaviour.

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Toctoc beetles, for example

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live in the vast scrublands
of South Africa

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and they can communicate with each other
in a sort of Morse code.

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They tap on the sand

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and each kind of beetle
has its own distinct code

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so their software must be able to
recognize a particular rhythm.

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But some insects are
not just pre-programmed machines

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they can learn.

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The most advanced software so far
discovered belongs to the honey bee.

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Different flowers open
at different times of the day

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and need different techniques
to get at the nectar.

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But a bee can remember
it links the position of the sun

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to the type of blossom
and how to reach the nectar.

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Bees can store data for up to
six different blooms

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but they can only cope with one kind of
flower at any one time of day.

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If the sun's at five o'clock

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it must be yellow daises.

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And if the sun starts to go away
it must be time to go home.

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These honey bees live their lives
on permanent display

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an observation hive in a museum

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is a window onto a mysterious world.

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Normally unseen in the depth
of the hive

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bees discuss their day among
the flowers by dancing.

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This dance language
tells other bees the direction

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and distance of the flowers
and the quality of the nectar.

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And this whole

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complex communication system is driven

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by a few tens of thousands of neurons
packed into space

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the size of a grain of sugar
the brain of a bee

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a masterpiece of micro-circuitry.

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In both hardware and software design

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insects are the ultimate
miniature machines.

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Their design has endured
the test of time

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00:26:04,396 --> 00:26:08,992
insects have dominated this planet
for hundreds of millions of years.

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They witnessed the rise
and fall of the dinosaurs.

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And only a few million years ago

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they witnessed a large brained
ape climb down from the trees

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stand upright and invent technology.

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Since then, insects have invaded
every corner of the human world

250
00:27:09,561 --> 00:27:12,530
including the depths
of their imagination.

251
00:27:24,175 --> 00:27:26,075
People, on the other hand

252
00:27:26,211 --> 00:27:30,204
have hardly begun to explore
the insects' empire.

253
00:27:40,592 --> 00:27:42,787
And for all their technology

254
00:27:42,927 --> 00:27:47,955
humans will never be able to
control this alien world.