Speaking of the British BBC Broadcasting Company, it is definitely a good hand at making nature documentaries.
Earth Pulse, Our Planet, Blue Planet, Seven Worlds, One Planet, Hunt, and more.
It can almost be said that it is a masterpiece, and it is larger than the nature documentary industry.
But.
With the expansion of the documentary market, in recent years, there have been many excellent documentaries and production companies that have sprung up, and the quality of word of mouth is close to the BBC.
This nature documentary that I'm going to talk about today is one of them.
A Small World
The film was produced by Apple TV.
The film Ant-Man starring Paul Luther is responsible for the commentary.
As soon as the documentary was launched, it received a Douban rating of 9.2.
As the title suggests, the documentary focuses not on the usual characters in the documentary, such as birds and beasts, but on the camera on various small creatures in nature.
Using breathtaking photographic techniques, it reveals the life of these small creatures in nature, and the interesting stories behind them.
For example, in the paradise of wildlife, the vast African continent.
We are familiar with zebras, rhinos, giraffes, lions and other creatures that have flourished in this land from generation to generation.
However, compared with the living habits of large animals that migrate by water, small animals are more "homesick".
During the dry season, large animals often travel thousands of miles to a place with a richer water source for water.
The large area of grassland left behind has become the world of small animals.
As a drag racing party on the prairie, the elephant shrew began its busy life.
Elephant shrews are about the size of a mouse, with a relatively more flexible snout and faster speed.
By its size, the elephant shrew is three times faster than a cheetah.
It builds a "highway network" over a range of several thousand square meters.
Even when encountering a swift predator such as a cobra, it can quickly escape.
In order to provide corresponding energy to the highly depleted body, elephant shrews eat about one-third of their prey every day.
The restless rhythm makes its life seem lonely and frantic.
Relatively speaking, the life of the pygmy badger is much more leisurely.
Living in termite dens about the size of adult elephants, the most they do on a daily basis is to get together to keep warm.
Sometimes I oversleep, and there's a "special person"—a little hornbill that comes and calls for early cooperative predation.
20 pygmy badgers and a hornbill seemed like a strange combination.
But as small animals, working together is the way to live on the prairie where the fittest survive.
Pygmy badgers, which are in large numbers, drive their prey out of the grass.
The little hornbills, who stand tall and look far away, are responsible for guarding the sentry to prevent predators from sneaking in.
Cooperative strategies to help each other help the small animals have a relaxing time during the dry season.
But with the onset of the rainy season, a lot of things change.
Heavy rains washed over the past, and many more streams and water craters appeared on the surface of the African savannah.
The large animals that migrated with it made this situation even worse.
Zebras, rhinos and other animals that live in groups have destroyed the "highway network" that elephant shrews have painstakingly built.
The trampling of the elephants has made the land itself soft and moist due to the rain become uneven.
Dung beetles have worked so hard to roll the ball of dung, and if they are not careful, they may fall into a pothole and never get out.
The largest migration on land was a disaster for both aquatic tadpole shrimp and coroned wheat chickens that nested and hatched eggs on the grasslands.
In the face of the unstoppable beasts that brought up the yellow dust, it could only pray that its bird eggs were the lucky ones that were not affected.
Small animals on the African continent always face larger animals, while the Caribbean coast is popular for small people to survive.
Because of the hurricanes that ravaged every year and the small number of food resources, many relatively large animals have difficulty surviving the disaster.
Only those petite creatures could survive.
For example, the smallest bird in the world, the hummingbird.
This is a male hummingbird looking for a companion.
In order to attract the opposite sex, its feathers become bright and bright.
But unfortunately, this hummingbird chose the wrong object.
It was superfluous to scratch its head in front of a heterosexual who was busy feeding its own chicks.
The slender blind snake is also a unique biological species that evolved under the special natural conditions of the Caribbean coast.
It was as thin as a pasta stick and only half its length.
It's hard to imagine what such a tiny reptile should live on.
But the blind snake has its own recipe — ants.
For it, adult ants are still too big to swallow, so juvenile ants and eggs are naturally the best choice for big meals.
Hunters and prey enter a melee.
Blind snakes do not know how to eat delicious food, and ants are busy carrying young ants to relatively safe places.
Their petite size helped these critters survive the ravages of the hurricane.
Then there's the process of re-establishing life.
For the hermit crab, the most important thing is to find an intact conch and move from its tattered shell into a new "home".
However, finding a suitable shell is not easy.
The smallest hermit crab is no more than the size of a soybean, but the largest can grow to the size of a coconut.
As it grows, it constantly has to change a larger shell according to its body shape.
However, it is impossible to encounter a new home of the right size every time.
So the hermit crabs are very clever to use a "social means".
When a hermit crab finds an unsuitably sized conch shell, it signals other of its kind to "see the house."
And when more and more hermit crabs arrive, they will form a "house change chain".
Arranged from largest to smallest, each crab would then be replaced by a new home that had just been vacated, the eldest one.
In the Australian outback, the competition between small animals is somewhat "bluff".
Umbrella lizards are very territorially conscious animals, and in order to avoid predators and survive, they often choose a tree as their habitat.
However, in the face of the situation of more wolves and less meat, competition is inevitable.
The first step in competition is a bit like "talking harshly."
The umbrella lizard will open its own umbrella-like skin membrane, show its bright colors and sizes left, right, left and right, hoping that the other party will retreat.
And if the two sides are evenly matched, they will have to choose a real battle.
The losing party must choose to flee into the wilderness.
Of course, exaggerated colors and swinging left and right dance steps can not only be used to face the enemy.
It's also a way to attract the opposite sex.
For example, this cute peacock spider.
Paired with a very rhythmic Indian drum, the male peacock spider began his courtship dance.
But unfortunately, the other party not only does not appreciate the face, but may also be a predator who feeds on himself.
However, fortunately, the peacock spider was clever enough and persevering enough, and the heavenly marriage fate finally fell on his head.
When it comes to nature documentaries and wildlife, people often think of penguins in Antarctica, bears in the Arctic, elephants and lions in Africa, and kangaroos in Australia.
But little attention is paid to the fact that there are so many petite but interesting creatures in nature.
Somewhere we overlook, these little beings have their own way of life.
Their petite bodies contain several times more powerful than the outside.
Leaping over the sea of fire, galloping above the grassland, division of labor and cooperation to live in the harsh environment of nature.
Or attack, or defend, or industrious, or Buddhist.
The wonder of the world is in these diverse little lives.