1
00:01:05,932 --> 00:01:08,127
No man's land.

2
00:01:15,008 --> 00:01:20,947
The Australian outback place too barren
for human to cultivate

3
00:01:21,081 --> 00:01:25,484
leaving that clear for the massed
for insects.

4
00:01:35,061 --> 00:01:36,585
At certain times

5
00:01:36,729 --> 00:01:41,632
Australia locusts breed in
unthinkable numbers.

6
00:01:53,012 --> 00:01:57,176
Out here, though, they have little
impact on the human world

7
00:01:58,485 --> 00:02:03,354
the two dominant forces on the planet
just each other by.

8
00:02:06,593 --> 00:02:09,153
But when the young locus hoppers
get their wings

9
00:02:09,295 --> 00:02:14,858
head for places are at cultivated
they clash with humans.

10
00:02:16,402 --> 00:02:22,136
It's a plague...
a war two very different world.

11
00:02:30,216 --> 00:02:33,982
Army worm caterpillars of
march in East Africa

12
00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:37,578
that 'army' is too small for them.

13
00:02:38,191 --> 00:02:40,751
Army worm moths reproduce
in their billions

14
00:02:40,894 --> 00:02:42,987
when conditions are just right.

15
00:02:43,196 --> 00:02:45,391
The problem is
that when humans plant crops

16
00:02:45,532 --> 00:02:48,057
they create perfect conditions.

17
00:02:59,479 --> 00:03:01,106
And when they've
ravaged one field

18
00:03:01,247 --> 00:03:06,048
they march to next a relentless
tide eating machines.

19
00:03:15,461 --> 00:03:18,658
African farmers suffer for years
of drought alternant

20
00:03:18,798 --> 00:03:23,929
with years of plague for it seems
just can't win.

21
00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:29,401
And it's not just farmers

22
00:03:32,412 --> 00:03:33,902
insects have invaded city

23
00:03:34,047 --> 00:03:36,242
since cities first exist

24
00:03:36,382 --> 00:03:39,579
people have always fought back.

25
00:03:41,754 --> 00:03:46,123
One of the longest running feuds
has been with cockroaches.

26
00:03:48,394 --> 00:03:54,822
They contaminate food, cause diseases
and generally of human sensibilities.

27
00:03:57,237 --> 00:04:00,172
Whenever and wherever humans
have built homes

28
00:04:00,306 --> 00:04:03,366
cockroaches have moved in with them.

29
00:04:05,178 --> 00:04:07,078
Humans have invested much time

30
00:04:07,213 --> 00:04:13,550
effort and technology into the ideal
of a clear cockroach free world

31
00:04:13,653 --> 00:04:17,145
but cockroaches appreciate
human technology.

32
00:04:23,229 --> 00:04:24,753
They live just as happily rigs

33
00:04:24,897 --> 00:04:29,027
and nuclear submarine
as in hotel basements.

34
00:04:53,693 --> 00:04:58,062
Humans spend billions of pounds
each year on this problem.

35
00:04:58,197 --> 00:05:00,290
They've manufactured deadly chemicals

36
00:05:00,433 --> 00:05:06,394
that can exterminate millions of
but millions aren't enough.

37
00:05:08,174 --> 00:05:12,668
Some always survive the few
that are resistant

38
00:05:12,812 --> 00:05:16,748
they and spawn whole new population
of poison proof insects.

39
00:05:29,462 --> 00:05:32,260
The war escalates more and more money

40
00:05:32,398 --> 00:05:34,059
is spent on creating new

41
00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:36,361
and ever more lethal chemicals.

42
00:05:36,502 --> 00:05:40,768
Some of most dangerous substance
ever known are insecticide.

43
00:05:42,508 --> 00:05:44,601
In trying to live insect lives

44
00:05:44,744 --> 00:05:46,644
humans saturate the homes

45
00:05:46,779 --> 00:05:51,443
their fields
the world with toxins.

46
00:06:11,471 --> 00:06:12,529
Perhaps, after all

47
00:06:12,605 --> 00:06:16,837
sophisticated chemical engineering
can never be final solution.

48
00:06:30,189 --> 00:06:32,384
Despite all human ingenue

49
00:06:32,592 --> 00:06:36,084
there's still only one guaranteed
method of kill cockroach.

50
00:06:42,502 --> 00:06:45,062
Some of the worst insects problems
of all are create

51
00:06:45,204 --> 00:06:49,140
when humans take insects places
they shouldn't be

52
00:06:50,042 --> 00:06:51,907
Tiger mosquitoes, for example

53
00:06:52,044 --> 00:06:56,208
have been accidentally introduced
the United States from Asia

54
00:07:00,286 --> 00:07:02,220
They breed in still water.

55
00:07:02,355 --> 00:07:04,823
Any still water

56
00:07:08,227 --> 00:07:12,926
And the small pools
that collect in old tires are perfect

57
00:07:16,436 --> 00:07:20,805
So perfect, that old tyre dumps
in the southern can swarm

58
00:07:20,940 --> 00:07:23,807
with tiger mosquitoes and their larvae

59
00:07:28,581 --> 00:07:32,574
It's a problem that human
scientists take very seriously.

60
00:07:35,988 --> 00:07:39,321
Tiger mosquitoes carry Dengue fever.

61
00:07:39,459 --> 00:07:41,950
It doesn't in the United States now

62
00:07:42,094 --> 00:07:44,585
someone brought the disease
into the country

63
00:07:44,730 --> 00:07:49,599
there've shortage of mosquitoes
waiting to create an epipvamp

64
00:07:52,271 --> 00:07:57,140
They identify their human victims
by the carbon die in their breath

65
00:08:01,547 --> 00:08:04,311
and they're programme
with frightening efficient

66
00:08:04,450 --> 00:08:06,145
to lock onto their target.

67
00:08:12,124 --> 00:08:15,787
The solution to the timosquito
problem isn't chemical on

68
00:08:15,928 --> 00:08:19,056
that's been tried it's biological

69
00:08:19,198 --> 00:08:26,366
Its another mosquito
'toxorhynchites' 'tox' short.

70
00:08:33,446 --> 00:08:39,351
It's also from South East an ancient
enemy of the tiger mosquito.

71
00:08:44,090 --> 00:08:47,082
Released into the tyre
they perform an aerial

72
00:08:47,226 --> 00:08:50,559
as they scatter their're
the water surface.

73
00:09:09,015 --> 00:09:14,112
This graceful dance is prelude
to underwater carnage.

74
00:09:15,788 --> 00:09:20,987
The 'tox' eggs hatch in voracious larvae
devour other mosquito larvae.

75
00:09:32,405 --> 00:09:34,236
They're insatiable.

76
00:09:37,376 --> 00:09:40,709
But they'll never complete wipe
out tiger mosquito

77
00:09:40,846 --> 00:09:43,542
a few will always survive.

78
00:10:00,766 --> 00:10:04,463
The need for biological control
is becoming more urgent

79
00:10:04,604 --> 00:10:08,165
gypsy moths will introduced into
North America from Europe.

80
00:10:08,307 --> 00:10:11,470
Will no enemies, no competitor
no diseases

81
00:10:11,611 --> 00:10:14,478
there was nothing to hold them back

82
00:10:14,614 --> 00:10:16,946
Their caterpillars eat foliage

83
00:10:17,083 --> 00:10:18,414
any foliage

84
00:10:18,551 --> 00:10:23,511
and can straight forest bare
a drastic solution was needed.

85
00:10:25,424 --> 00:10:26,789
In this laboratory

86
00:10:26,926 --> 00:10:30,327
four million gypsy moth
caterpillars bred every year

87
00:10:30,463 --> 00:10:32,954
and deliberately
infected with virus

88
00:10:33,099 --> 00:10:36,034
live only to this kind of caterpillar.

89
00:10:36,902 --> 00:10:39,268
They're living incubator

90
00:10:41,540 --> 00:10:44,532
the virus multiplies inside then

91
00:10:44,677 --> 00:10:46,338
When this virus eventual kills them

92
00:10:46,479 --> 00:10:50,210
the bodies pulped to make a
concentrated virus sprae

93
00:10:50,349 --> 00:10:52,374
a biological weapon to use

94
00:10:52,518 --> 00:10:55,419
against the caterpillars
stripping the trees.

95
00:11:00,426 --> 00:11:02,257
It's a continuous process

96
00:11:02,395 --> 00:11:07,731
every day containers of artificial
receive yet gypsy moth eggs.

97
00:11:09,035 --> 00:11:14,098
It's a race between the power of insects
and the ingenuity of humans.

98
00:11:27,253 --> 00:11:32,316
The insects have the power to destroy
entire commercial plantations.

99
00:11:32,458 --> 00:11:35,894
Humans have the power to
destroy the insects.

100
00:11:36,696 --> 00:11:40,393
Helicopters soak the form
with the viral spray.

101
00:11:51,210 --> 00:11:53,610
But technology works two ways.

102
00:11:57,249 --> 00:12:01,242
As plague rains down
from one human invention

103
00:12:01,387 --> 00:12:04,550
another one offers gyps moths
the chance to escape

104
00:12:23,008 --> 00:12:28,173
Guided by scent
adult moths find females

105
00:12:28,314 --> 00:12:30,475
wherever they are.

106
00:12:41,327 --> 00:12:43,318
Females can't fly

107
00:12:43,462 --> 00:12:46,625
they cool until they find
a vertical surface.

108
00:12:46,766 --> 00:12:51,601
Normally they their eggs on tree trunk
but a car is even better.

109
00:13:19,865 --> 00:13:24,666
The car can take this new generation
far away from plague zone

110
00:13:24,804 --> 00:13:28,205
into a new virus free forest.

111
00:13:30,442 --> 00:13:33,206
Another outbreak begins

112
00:13:33,345 --> 00:13:37,008
but it's not always worms
when humans meet insect.

113
00:13:40,219 --> 00:13:41,083
Sometimes

114
00:13:41,220 --> 00:13:43,984
insects can be used
to human advantage.

115
00:13:45,925 --> 00:13:49,088
This is a plague of mopane worms

116
00:13:49,228 --> 00:13:54,097
big African caterpillars
that devastate mopane bushes.

117
00:13:54,366 --> 00:14:00,828
Humans can't eat mopane bushes
but they can eat mopane worms.

118
00:14:09,215 --> 00:14:11,080
At certain times of the year

119
00:14:11,217 --> 00:14:16,177
they're harvested by the bucketful
by the sackful

120
00:14:21,927 --> 00:14:23,326
Charcoal grilled

121
00:14:23,462 --> 00:14:27,592
they're instant packets of
protect people in parts of Bots.

122
00:14:31,804 --> 00:14:34,170
In fact
so many are drive and stored

123
00:14:34,306 --> 00:14:38,140
that they pick up to a third of
the protect the human diet.

124
00:14:39,612 --> 00:14:43,013
Insects make good eating
it's only Western culture

125
00:14:43,148 --> 00:14:45,241
don't recognize their value

126
00:14:48,220 --> 00:14:49,380
In Thailand

127
00:14:49,521 --> 00:14:53,252
succulent bamboo worms another kind
of caterpillar a harvested

128
00:14:53,392 --> 00:14:55,292
from inside a bamboo shoot.

129
00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:15,847
They'll be steamed

130
00:15:15,981 --> 00:15:19,041
and so then in the market
alongside water bugs

131
00:15:19,184 --> 00:15:22,676
that are drive like little
turkeys them be biting back.

132
00:15:29,295 --> 00:15:31,354
And if the mole cricket
still kicking

133
00:15:31,497 --> 00:15:32,987
they must fresh.

134
00:15:47,613 --> 00:15:52,243
Hornet grubs, about the same size
as prawns, are steamed in the nest.

135
00:16:15,741 --> 00:16:19,609
Insects are eaten in the world over
except in the West.

136
00:16:19,745 --> 00:16:20,871
This is strange

137
00:16:21,013 --> 00:16:24,414
as lob crabs and prawns are
no much different from insect

138
00:16:24,583 --> 00:16:27,950
and snails and mussels
expensive delicacies.

139
00:16:28,087 --> 00:16:32,751
Yet insects are easier to have
and healthier to eat.

140
00:16:34,893 --> 00:16:36,986
Despite the increase in
foreign holidays

141
00:16:37,129 --> 00:16:39,324
and cotact between different
cultural the West

142
00:16:39,465 --> 00:16:42,957
has yet to real
that insects are delicious.

143
00:16:48,974 --> 00:16:52,808
And Westerners don't of gamble
on insects either.

144
00:16:53,345 --> 00:16:54,403
But in Thailand

145
00:16:54,613 --> 00:16:57,810
male role beetles are
set on special logs

146
00:16:57,950 --> 00:16:59,577
and encouraged to fight

147
00:16:59,718 --> 00:17:00,685
They do fight

148
00:17:00,819 --> 00:17:03,947
because there's a female sealed
inside the log.

149
00:17:32,985 --> 00:17:35,351
The winning beetle is the one of

150
00:17:35,487 --> 00:17:37,785
that throws his opponent the log.

151
00:17:48,867 --> 00:17:51,700
Insects here are part of
entertainment business

152
00:17:51,837 --> 00:17:55,102
champion beetle can provide
a nice profit for his owner.

153
00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:04,342
But these are even more profitable

154
00:18:04,550 --> 00:18:07,314
the basis national industry

155
00:18:08,187 --> 00:18:09,745
Silkworms

156
00:18:15,427 --> 00:18:18,419
Silkworms eat nothing
but mulberry leaves

157
00:18:18,564 --> 00:18:22,557
so the factories are surrounded
by huge areas of mulberry bushes

158
00:18:22,701 --> 00:18:26,535
where humans labour like slaves
to the caterpillars.

159
00:18:37,683 --> 00:18:41,084
These insects are
as domesticated as cows

160
00:18:41,220 --> 00:18:43,848
they're totally depended humans.

161
00:18:45,924 --> 00:18:49,951
And the human economy here
depends on the insects

162
00:18:50,095 --> 00:18:52,689
an ancient partnership
has shaped human culture

163
00:18:52,831 --> 00:18:54,696
for over a thousand years.

164
00:19:03,308 --> 00:19:06,869
Once they're fully grow caterpillars
spin their precious strands

165
00:19:07,012 --> 00:19:09,139
as the build their cocoons

166
00:19:09,281 --> 00:19:12,216
this balls
of silk threads a sole reason

167
00:19:12,351 --> 00:19:14,376
for such devotion to the caterpillar.

168
00:19:30,669 --> 00:19:33,604
The cocoons are unwound by hand

169
00:19:33,739 --> 00:19:39,177
each is made single unbroken silk
up to half a mile long.

170
00:19:48,654 --> 00:19:50,588
Then the strands are spin again

171
00:19:50,722 --> 00:19:53,691
this time to human specifications

172
00:20:14,146 --> 00:20:15,113
and finally

173
00:20:15,247 --> 00:20:19,809
they're into something everyone
recognizes as silk.

174
00:20:33,999 --> 00:20:38,527
Human insect partnership do more than
just support industries

175
00:20:38,670 --> 00:20:40,968
they support entire ways of life.

176
00:20:48,647 --> 00:20:50,205
In the United States

177
00:20:50,349 --> 00:20:54,080
team of farm workers are truck
to the fields.

178
00:21:00,392 --> 00:21:05,591
Leafcutter bees as much part of
the cattle induce cowboys.

179
00:21:05,731 --> 00:21:07,289
These are solitary bees

180
00:21:07,432 --> 00:21:09,832
Each lives iown tsunnel

181
00:21:09,968 --> 00:21:13,404
which it stocks with pollen
feed its own family.

182
00:21:18,844 --> 00:21:21,005
As they set out to find provisions

183
00:21:21,146 --> 00:21:26,675
they polling vast fields of alfalfa
as a diet of cattle.

184
00:21:31,690 --> 00:21:35,421
Alfalfa was the biggest crops
in the United States

185
00:21:35,627 --> 00:21:38,755
this in could not continue with bees.

186
00:21:42,768 --> 00:21:44,292
And when they've finish this field

187
00:21:44,436 --> 00:21:46,597
they'll be travel on to the next one.

188
00:22:00,485 --> 00:22:02,453
The bees are just
as have to occupy

189
00:22:02,587 --> 00:22:06,819
of these artificial apartment blocks
as any natural holes and crevice

190
00:22:06,958 --> 00:22:09,426
especially as they're prepare
with bright patterns

191
00:22:09,594 --> 00:22:12,995
cocoons codes to help
each bee its own nest.

192
00:22:15,967 --> 00:22:18,629
Leafcutter bees are receive patterns

193
00:22:18,770 --> 00:22:19,998
humans have destroyed

194
00:22:20,138 --> 00:22:23,403
so many wild populations of insects
with their chemical sprays

195
00:22:23,608 --> 00:22:26,304
now having to forge
new relationships.

196
00:22:29,614 --> 00:22:32,276
But there's one insect
the humans have admired

197
00:22:32,417 --> 00:22:37,150
cultivated even worship from
before the dawn history.

198
00:22:37,289 --> 00:22:38,688
Honeybees.

199
00:23:00,479 --> 00:23:01,537
Until recently

200
00:23:01,646 --> 00:23:04,706
honeybees sweetest thing
humans have ever tasted

201
00:23:04,850 --> 00:23:07,341
it seemed like a gift from the gods.

202
00:23:29,441 --> 00:23:34,879
Honeybees are big business now
a multi million ponds industry.

203
00:23:35,013 --> 00:23:38,346
But honeybees very well
out of this partnership.

204
00:23:38,650 --> 00:23:42,051
They're giving homes, are transported
round the world

205
00:23:42,187 --> 00:23:45,884
they've more abundant now
than they would ever be with humans.

206
00:23:50,929 --> 00:23:55,263
This respectful, caring relationship
is how it should be

207
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,335
how has to be, with most insects.

208
00:23:58,470 --> 00:24:01,997
Humans do realize how much
they need insects.

209
00:24:03,675 --> 00:24:04,607
Even so

210
00:24:04,743 --> 00:24:06,904
the human attitude to
insects is shaped

211
00:24:07,045 --> 00:24:10,742
more by the few
that are pests hostility

212
00:24:10,882 --> 00:24:15,945
and indifferent than by the knowledge
the humanity relies on insect

213
00:24:16,087 --> 00:24:18,715
It can't survive without them

214
00:24:38,143 --> 00:24:42,273
The problem is that human know
so little about insects

215
00:24:48,687 --> 00:24:51,417
most of what they do know
about anything

216
00:24:51,623 --> 00:24:54,854
is represented in the world
universities and museums

217
00:24:54,993 --> 00:24:56,824
those monuments to human knowledge

218
00:24:56,962 --> 00:24:59,795
and belief in dominance
over the nature world.

219
00:25:01,099 --> 00:25:04,000
Billions of specimens far drawers
and on shelves

220
00:25:04,135 --> 00:25:07,002
stored in basements
and vaults.

221
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:25,178
Almost every one of the world's birds
or mammal, for example

222
00:25:25,323 --> 00:25:29,555
is represented somewhere
by a specimen in some museum.

223
00:25:40,605 --> 00:25:44,803
It might seem that all nature has
been classified and labelled

224
00:25:44,943 --> 00:25:47,810
but nothing could be further
from the truth.

225
00:25:49,814 --> 00:25:53,272
In all the cabinets, in all museums
in all the world

226
00:25:53,418 --> 00:25:57,252
there are some one million different
kinds of insects

227
00:25:57,389 --> 00:26:00,950
maybe thirty million are
yet undiscovered.

228
00:26:04,729 --> 00:26:06,594
Quite unknown.

229
00:26:10,368 --> 00:26:13,599
They live out their live
oblivious to science

230
00:26:13,738 --> 00:26:17,970
supporting the human race ways
people can't yet comprehend.

231
00:26:22,647 --> 00:26:24,638
Even in the depths of a museum

232
00:26:24,783 --> 00:26:27,877
insects have no respect for science

233
00:26:29,588 --> 00:26:32,386
museum beetles feed on dead matter

234
00:26:32,591 --> 00:26:35,617
and neatly arranged specimens
are sacred.

235
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:40,220
Unchecked, these beetles can destroy
knowledge itself.

236
00:26:42,601 --> 00:26:48,039
Some insects it seems can
survive anywhere on anything.

237
00:26:53,712 --> 00:26:57,204
But the majority of inssects
are fragile creatures

238
00:26:57,349 --> 00:26:58,873
Even it's destroyed.

239
00:27:14,299 --> 00:27:19,066
As humans eliminate wilderness
in their drive dominate the planet

240
00:27:19,204 --> 00:27:24,301
the of them and the dread of them
are on every beast the Earth.

241
00:27:24,809 --> 00:27:27,369
Hundreds,
if not thousand of insect species

242
00:27:27,579 --> 00:27:29,911
become extinct each year.

243
00:27:30,348 --> 00:27:34,648
Tragically, most of the have never
been glimpse by human eyes

244
00:27:34,786 --> 00:27:37,721
and now that privilege
is gone ever.

245
00:27:38,123 --> 00:27:41,286
Yet, if all insects were
destroyed tomorrow

246
00:27:41,426 --> 00:27:45,089
human could not hope to survive
without them.

247
00:27:45,230 --> 00:27:46,857
They break down waste matter

248
00:27:46,998 --> 00:27:51,731
pollure crops and keep the human race
from starvation.

249
00:27:53,304 --> 00:27:56,330
Insects, though,
would scarcely notice

250
00:27:56,474 --> 00:27:58,635
if human disappeared tomorrow

251
00:27:58,777 --> 00:28:02,076
into of the world, their planet.