The video offers a captivating glimpse into the intricate and often hidden world of natural survival strategies across different ecosystems. It illustrates the incredible adaptations of various species, such as the touch-me-not balsam, netted carpet moth caterpillars, and Namib desert's hot rod ant. These accounts of survival not only highlight the vibrant diversity of life but also reveal the ingenious methods animals use to thrive in their respective environments.

The intriguing behavior of insects such as army ants and bees is also explored, showcasing their complex colonies and survival techniques. These narratives underscore how, through evolution, creatures have developed unique mechanisms for survival, such as chemical warfare in beetles or swarm intelligence in locusts. Equally fascinating is the account of the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies, symbolizing change and transformation.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. exude [ɪɡˈzjuːd] - (verb) - To discharge slowly and steadily. - Synonyms: (ooze, secrete, emit)

Each night, the leaves go limp as the balsam exudes any excess moisture in the waterlogged soils of the lake district.

2. transcend [trænˈsɛnd] - (verb) - To go beyond the limits of. - Synonyms: (surpass, exceed, overpass)

These are insects that, by working together, transcend individual size.

3. impregnable [ɪmˈprɛɡnəbəl] - (adjective) - Unable to be captured or broken into. - Synonyms: (invulnerable, impenetrable, unassailable)

Their massive jaws create an impregnable barricade.

4. distasteful [dɪsˈteɪstfəl] - (adjective) - Causing dislike or aversion; offensive. - Synonyms: (unpleasant, disagreeable, objectionable)

It certainly makes the beetle itself very distasteful.

5. suffocate [ˈsʌfəˌkeɪt] - (verb) - To deprive of oxygen; to smother. - Synonyms: (strangle, choke, smother)

Its mouth envelops and suffocates the earthworm.

6. dismembered [dɪsˈmɛmbərd] - (verb) - To cut, tear, or pull the limbs off. - Synonyms: (mutilate, disjoint, divide)

The dismembered body is hauled back down the trail to feed the nest.

7. consuming [kənˈsuːmɪŋ] - (adjective) - Completely filling one's mind and attention; absorbing. - Synonyms: (engaging, engrossing, captivating)

Locust eats its entire body weight every day, and a whole swarm can consume literally hundreds of tons of vegetation.

8. predation [prɪˈdeɪʃən] - (noun) - The preying of one animal on others. - Synonyms: (hunting, stalking, pursuing)

A praying mantis plucks unsuspecting ants from the column.

9. accomplishment [əˈkɑːmplɪʃmənt] - (noun) - Something that has been achieved successfully. - Synonyms: (achievement, attainment, feat)

Just staying alive for its first few hours is a significant accomplishment for a newly hatched insect.

10. probing [ˈproʊbɪŋ] - (verb) - To search into or examine thoroughly; explore. - Synonyms: (investigating, exploring, delving)

Each day, it sends out a silent probe into the forest in quest of food.

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These touch me not balsam have sprung up to cover the woodland floor. Each night, the leaves go limp as the balsam exudes any excess moisture in the waterlogged soils of the lake district. This is a handy adaptation. Soon their blooms unfurl. As the petals of these strange shaped flowers drop off, seed pods begin to form. These pods are the favorite food of the netted carpet moth caterpillar. Although it was once thought to be extinct, the netted carpet moth survives here in the lake district, its last remaining stronghold. Touch me not balsam is their only source of food. These plants have a surprise in store. They're seed heads explode. It's how they became known as touch me not. But nobody told the caterpillars this. The caterpillars have no warning when these little bombs go off, it's not just seeds that get hurled across the forest floor.

The Namib desert, one of the most exposed places on earth. As the sun climbs high, everybody takes cover from the extreme heat. Everybody except the hot rod ant. As others take refuge, their day is just beginning. Cleaning out the nest, the sand can reach a scorching 70 centigrade. The ants long legs raise their bodies above the surface, where it's ten degrees cooler. But if they stand still, they will fry. They must keep moving or risk the same fate as their quarry. The creatures that have collapsed from heatstroke. Too deeply buried, but a good place to cool off. Foraging decisions must be fast, too big, perfect. Back to the nest before they also die. But they strayed into a minefield. Each of these strange cone shaped pits is a death trap, with a brutal predator at its center. Here lie antlion larvae, tiny ambush predators with venom filled pincers. Some ants manage to escape, but the antlion has other tricks. Flinging sand into the air, it creates an avalanche. In this cone of death, the walls are so angled that the sand slips beneath the ant's feet. As boulders rain from the sky, escape seems almost impossible.

Phew. An uchpster beetle in South Africa. He hunts ants. Eating ants may give him more than just nourishment. He may get something else from them that helps him fight his enemies. The ants launch a counterattack and nip his ankles. But he simply kicks them out of the way. The valiant ants drive him off straight into real danger. A mongoose. It's inquisitive, but it's also wary of the uchpistae. A black and white pattern is a warning signal. The beetle takes aim and fires formic acid straight at the mongoose's eyes. And mouth. The beetle probably collected this acid from the ants. It certainly makes the beetle itself very distasteful. And that, in turn, makes it worth mimicking. This defenseless little lizard carries the beetle's warning pattern. It also imitates the way the beetle runs. Not particularly well, it's true, but well enough to fool predators into thinking it just might be an acid firing beetle.

All kinds of insects have developed chemical weapons. A pair of devil rider stick insects. They fire bitter tasting oils, terpenes, european wood ants under attack from a hungry crow. They fire the sort of acid that gives nettles their sting. So this is like one of us falling into a nettle patch. But the master of chemical warfare is the bombardier beetle. It can create a chemical reaction within its body so violent that boiling, caustic liquid explodes out of its abdomen. By pulsing the jet 500 times a second, it keeps its rear end just cool enough to prevent it being cooked.

The tusked wetter is New Zealand's equivalent of a mouse and a worthy snack for a foraging pig. With pigs snuffling close behind, there is only one place to go, and it's the last place you would expect. This wetter is an escape artist. The pigs can't see or smell him. When he's underwater. He can stay under for up to ten minutes. And now the coast is clear. 80 million years of isolation have endowed this ancient creature with extraordinary survival skills.

The army ant. This may look like a ball of a million individuals, but make no mistake, the colony acts as one. A super organism with a sensory system of 2 million antennae. A skeleton made from the living bodies of workers. A defense system of soldier ants, ready to act at any sign of danger. A digestive system processing piles of food deep inside. Even a coordinated system for dealing with all the waste. These are insects that, by working together, transcend individual size. The colony can search the entire jungle and flush out its wildlife. Each day, it sends out a silent probe into the forest in quest of food. It doesn't use scouts like other ants. Instead, a vast search party pushes into virgin territory, seeking out the signs of anything alive. They spread out along a ten meter front, sweeping across the forest floor. To find prey, the ants must first touch it. The irony is that this, the most successful hide and seek player in the forest, is almost completely blind. It distinguishes the living only by their movement. As long as an animal remains still, it is safe. But the slightest twitch will give it away. Within seconds, the prey is pinned down. Within minutes, it's torn apart at its joints. The more the prey struggles, the more the ants engage. Right across the raid front, prey of all sizes are driven from their hiding places. Even wasps must abandon their homes. When the ants arrive, everything alive in the path of the raiders, overwhelmed by sheer numbers. To survive here, you have to be prepared to die here.

But the sun can return as quickly as the storm arrived, and a rise of just a few degrees is enough to spark a thaw. Even underground, it frozen solid. A mountain stone wetter. It has the most extraordinary survival technique of all, the ability to come back from the dead. Only in a specialized filming chamber can we capture its extraordinary talent. The wetter has developed special proteins which prevent ice crystals from forming inside its cells. A remarkable trick for a creature whose ancestors once lived in prehistoric, warm, wet forests. But when New Zealand's mountains grew up beneath them around 5 million years ago, they were forced to come up with this incredible ability to survive near lethal temperatures. Defrosting uses up a lot of energy, so mountain snowberries are a welcome sight. The wetter needs to stock up while it can. The next antarctic storm could be the return of winter. It can tolerate over 80% of its body freezing solid and can do so day in and day out for weeks at a time. Nowhere else in New Zealand does life go to such extremes to survive.

Back in the hive, those bees too young to forage are housekeeping. Like the hornet queen, the queen bee has the immeasurable task of laying enough eggs to ensure the health and future of the colony. The custom of keeping wild japanese bees is as old as society itself, and yamaguchi has kept bees since boyhood. Japanese bees are so sensitive that it takes great patience and skill to keep them. The art of keeping them lies in understanding their behavior. They make honey stalls for the winter, but they also produce enough for yamaguchi to harvest. Japanese bees may produce less honey than european bees, but the taste is very special. It's the smell of this growing store of energy rich honey, which could be their downfall if it draws in a hornet scout. But right now, the hornets have other problems to contend with.

The nest is now monstrous. The workers have excavated over a ton of earth. There are so many bodies living at close quarters that the queen and her dynasty are in danger of overheating. So workers create air conditioning, keeping a steady flow of fresh air circulating. Being unable to cope with high temperatures is a giant hornet's achilles heel.

The warmth of the hornet's nest belies the change in season. Seasons change fast up here in the mountains, and when autumn arrives, there are far fewer insects around. This means my hives are even more vulnerable to attack. For me, it's an anxious time in the search for autumnal food. A scout hornet discovers Yamaguchi's wild bees. The honeybees fan an alarm pheromone through the air. This alerts the whole hive to the hornets presence. The scout smells the honey within. A prize this rich is worth scent marking. But unlike the european bees, these japanese bees do not attack. Instead, they lure the scout inside. Still, the bees hang fire. Then one is caught. It's the signal the others have been waiting for. Sadeena. Surrounded by vibrating bodies, the hornet at the core of the bee ball begins to overheat. The bees have the advantage, a heat tolerance two degrees above that of their enemy. At 46 degrees celsius, the aggressor is roasted alive. The wild bees have spent millions of years living with the enemy. That's why they alone have developed this extraordinary survival strategy.

He starts his search. A female is likely to be on a tree trunk. But trees in this part of the world are very tall. His search could be a long one. Unfortunately for him, she is 25 meters above him, near the top. She has more normal sized jaws, but then she only needs them for feeding. But he needs immense jaws for fighting, because there are other males around with the same mission. Sheer strength is not enough in these battles. The technique is to reach over your opponent's head and hook your jaws under his wing covers. That's why his jaws are so long and have that odd shape. He's got the grip. Now he has to lift, and that needs strengthen. Another lift is needed, and that's that. Beetle armor is strong, so he bounces. The winner climbs on.

There are more males ready to fight him up here. And here she is at last. But she doesn't seem to be in the mood. So now he has to use his great jaws as a restraining cage. Success at last. But the hurling habit dies hard.

Mantids will eat anything that moves, including other mantids. Time to leave. This tiny insect is now open to attack from predators lurking in the undergrowth. Whether an individual mantis survives or not is partly a matter of chance. Whether it's spotted by a predator, whether it turns right or left. So far, its luck has held. But this hungry jumping spider is still in pursuit. A mantis is born with exceptional eyesight. But a spider's is even better. Although this young mantis can't yet fly, its long forelegs evolved to catch prey, give it reach. There seems to be no escape. But this mantis has a surprising line in self defense, kung fu, praying mantis style. Of course, it's all bluff, trying to look bigger and confuse its enemy.

But it's got away with it. Just staying alive for its first few hours is a significant accomplishment for a newly hatched insect. But there's still a long way to go. With a bit of luck, in two months time, it will be as big and beautiful as this orchid mounted. Or maybe not. After all, mantids are cannibals.

By pooling their resources, the queens have survived their first major challenge. But this coalition can't last. Tensions are already on the rise as the queens jostle for position within the royal court. The weaker crouch submissively before the more dominant, including the founding queen. So begins the delicate maneuvering that will soon take on a deadly significance. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy have little chance of surviving the coming trials.

Another struggle for control is also beginning. Above ground, the corral nest is not the only one in Horseshoe canyon. The desert floor is litanous, littered with similar sized colonies, and there's not enough room for all of them. Now the darker side of the honey ants emerges. It's time for the corral colony to mount a preemptive strike on its nearest neighbors. This killing spree continues through the summer, until the corral colony has eliminated all the other new nests. In their immediate neighborhood, the foundations of the empire have been laid underground.

Two events have taken a darker turn. One of the queens lies dead in the royal chamber. It's not clear why, but the workers have started singling out the weaker queens. First, special attention. At first, it's all very subtle. One isn't fed so often or cleaned as diligently. But then the workers start bullying and harassing their chosen victim. Finally, it spills over into direct attack, and the workers tear the chosen queen to pieces. Nothing can go to waste. Even a royal carcass. Workers carry hungry larvae over to feast on the dead queen, including many that must have been her own offspring. As the weeks pass, the revolution continues. Only the most dominant royals seem immune to attack. They just watch and wait as the workers go about their gruesome business.

When the air itself becomes saturated and the temperature is just right, rare giants emerge. A poella fantas snail. It can grow to the size of a man's fist. So rare, they can only be filmed in captivity, where their extraordinary behavior is revealed. It's still a mystery as to exactly how they track down their food. But one thing is for sure. This snail has unusual tastes and revolting table manners. Its mouth envelops and suffocates the earthworm. It sucked down like spaghetti for anything bigger. It's got 6000 teeth, ready to shred the next meal. In this supersaturated environment, this specialized snail is the ultimate predator.

The rains have arrived in the mountains of East Africa. One of the most organized swarms on earth has appeared above ground. They are driver ants, an insect with a fearsome reputation. In the rainy season, they form these extraordinary hunting trails. Large soldier ants line the trail, protecting the smaller worker inside. Their massive jaws create an impregnable barricade. The soldiers create these protective tunnels whenever they cross open ground. The trails radiate from the nest in every direction. Some stretch 100 meters. A worker, running at full pelt takes 45 minutes to run its length.

The soldiers protect the trail at any cost. Although blind, they are highly sensitive to vibrations and air currents, and become instantly defensive when under attack. Stress pheromones put the whole task force on alert. They are ready to take on anything, including people. They are programmed to keep the trail moving or die trying. Driver ants are the stuff of legend. It is said that they kill everything that crosses their path. It is said that no animal is safe when they're on the warpath. It is even said that they will enter huts to attack people or kill babies left unattended in their courts.

The truth is somewhat different. Although the bites are painful against people, they are purely defensive. The jaws may slice through human flesh like butter, but it's simply a warning. Despite the myths, driver ants are still ruthless killers, but in a way that often benefits the villagers. Dangerous pests like scorpions are quickly set upon by the ants. Even the scorpions deadly sting is powerless against this invincible army. Both workers and soldiers join the attack, dividing up their roles according to their size. As some look for a chink in its leg armor, others prize open its body plates like a tin opener with its sting. Immobilized and faced by such overwhelming odds, the scorpion eventually gives up the fight. The dismembered body is hauled back down the trail to feed the nest.

The farmers fields provide even more opportunities for the attack force. Pests disturbed by digging are soon dispatched by hundreds of razor sharp jaws. The ants make a clean sweep, capturing up to 100,000 insects in a single raid. Despite the ants formidable reputation, most farmers value their role as pest controllers in defence of the trail. The ants take no prisoners. But even an innocuous looking insect can be surprisingly dangerous. The soil millipede is killed quickly, but the soldiers highly sensitive antennae immediately reveal that it's poisonous. The message soon reaches nearby ants. They know exactly what to do. They gather lumps of mud and bury the problem. With the millipede out of harm's way, the trail can safely continue its journey.

But more dangers await the trailblazers. A praying mantis plucks unsuspecting ants from the column. He seems to have the upper hand. But the ants he kills send out a dying message. Reacting to this pheromone, reinforcements arrive. The mantis is a deadly predator, but the ants know exactly what they're dealing with. One soldier grabs the mantis's jaws, stopping it from doing any more damage. Other ants swarm over the mantis, butchering it with surgical precision. The mantis fate is sealed by a clinical decapitation. The eggs and pupae are taken into the new nest. Here, they're safe.

The millions of interlocking ants that make up the nest superstructure create an impenetrable barrier. Only from the outside is it possible to get an idea of the nest's huge scale. Literally millions of individuals form a nervous network that communicates using pheromones. As ants pass messages to each other, they effectively act like brain cells. Through the millions of interconnections, they arrive at a decision that works for the benefit of the colony. Like human brain cells, individual ants are not intelligent. But the links between them create a mind. An ant superbrain. Deep inside is the queen. Her role is to replenish the colony by laying 2 million eggs a month. She is merely an egg laying machine under the collective command of all the ants that make up the mind of the hive. The ants create a different kind of intelligence, a brain that exists outside any single body.

There is no other species on the planet that responds as quickly and as dramatically to the good times. As the desert locust, eggs that have remained in the ground for 20 years begin to hatch. The young locusts are known as hoppers, for at this stage, they're flightless. They find new feeding grounds by following the smell of sprouting grass. Normally, it takes four weeks for hoppers to become adults. But when the conditions are right, as now, their development switches to the fast track. As the vegetation in one place begins to run out, the winged adults release pheromones, scent messages which tell others in the group that they must move on. And when groups merge, they form a swarm. Locust eats its entire body weight every day, and a whole swarm can consume literally hundreds of tons of vegetation. They have to keep on moving. The swarm travels with the wind. It's the most energy saving way of flying, following the flow of wind, means that there always heading toward areas of low pressure places where wind meets rain and vegetation starts to grow. As they fly, swarms join up with other swarms to form gigantic plagues. Several billion strong and as much as 40 miles wide. They will consume every edible thing that lies in their path. This is one of planet Earth's greatest spectacles. It's rarely seen on this scale, and it won't last long. Once the food has gone, the steady roar of a billion beating locust wings will once again be replaced by nothing more than the sound of the desert wind.

We've seen how managing woodland and farmland for butterflies can preserve the countryside we love. And also how butterflies can inspire the next generation to protect it. But if you still have doubts about whether butterflies can make our countryside a better place, then you need look no further than the humble caterpillar. Because if there's one thing we've learned from them, it's that change is possible. This is a brimstone. It emerged from an egg a few weeks ago. But now it's ready for a change. First, it spins a silken pad, a place to anchor hooks on the rear of its body. In a move to rival a contortionist, it passes strands of silk behind itself, creating a girdle to support it through the change to come. With anchor and line secure, the transformation can take place. Caterpillars are little more than stomachs on legs, but that body has served its purpose and can be discarded in favour of another. The caterpillar's head is about to split wide open. And when it does, something very different will emerge. A chrysalis.

The caterpillar was an eating machine, an identity rolled up like a sock and discarded. This body is for something different, an agent of near miraculous change, and one responsible for making butterflies powerful symbols of hope and transformation. This is a sign that something beautiful is surely on its way. The chrysalis is one of the most enduring symbols in the natural world.

Science, Evolution, Nature, Survival, Innovation, Global, Bbc Earth