Intimate Relations on BBC's 'Life in the Undergrowth'

The world of invertebrates is a web of relationships with plants and other animals. This Saturday on GMA News TV, BBC’s “Life in the Undergrowth” relates the incredible stories on these Intimate Relations.   In the upper reaches of the Amazonian rainforest are strange areas, sometimes the size of a football field, in which only one kind of small tree grows. These are known as ‘Devil’s gardens’ by locals, but rather than being the work of devils, they are the work of minute ants. These ants ‘farm’ the particular trees that give them shelter, and in order to make sure these trees grow without competition, the ants kill off all other types of seedlings in the surrounding vegetation.   There are those that rely on the living eggs or larvae of other species to provide a ready shelter where their own eggs can develop and have instant food when they hatch. The world’s smallest insect, the fairy wasp, is only a quarter of a millimeter long, but it can fly underwater in order to find the eggs of water beetles in which to lay its own brood.   And because caring for their offspring can take a lot of effort, some insects have evolved highly complex strategies to induce other species to nurse their young on their behalf. The blister beetle’s larvae huddle together on the end of a piece of grass and mimic a female bee. When a male bee attempts to mate with the ‘female’, the larvae grab onto his belly. Confused, he flies away and searches for a real female. When he eventually finds her and mates with her, the beetle larvae hurriedly swap from his front onto her back – and hence get carried back to her nest where they eat her pollen supplies and eventually, the bee’s larvae.   Then there’s the blue butterfly which tricks ants into rearing its caterpillars inside their own nest. The caterpillars produce a pheromone exactly like those of young ants and so they fool the ants into protecting and feeding them until they are ready to fly out. But unlike the ants, a certain wasp can tell the caterpillars apart from the young ants. And more amazingly, this wasp can detect which ant nest has caterpillars inside. The wasp enters the nest and goes down into the brood chamber to lay its eggs into the caterpillars.   Dubbed in Filipino, “Life in the Undergrowth: Intimate Relations” airs this Saturday, November 10 at 10PM on GMA News TV Channel 11.