The Amazing Animal Kingdom Of Madagascar

Locusts. They're normally solitary insects. But when there's an abundance of crops, their numbers can reach plague proportions. These flightless hoppers can form armies a kilometer long. But they have only just begun on their path of destruction. At five weeks old, they morph into fully-fledged adults. They can take to the air in their beaks. A swarm this size may only appear once in a decade in Madagascar. Tons of vegetation. On reaching the highlands, a plague is finally stopped by the heavy mountain rains. Wet wings prevent the locusts from flying until eventually the swarm runs out of food and dies. Tiny Laborde's chameleons, only three centimeters long, begin to hatch. They live for only four months. The shortest lifespan of any land vertebrate. But this young male will race against time. In the dry season, there is little food. But his hatching is perfectly timed. It's the start of the rainy season. The landscape is transformed into a flush of green. Just what this growing chameleon needs. As his eyes can move independently, he can spot a meal in any direction. And by locking both eyes onto a target, judge distance with deadly accuracy. With so much food on offer, the male Laborde's chameleon can grow five times his size in just two months, transforming into an adult male with an eye-catching horn. A female approaches. But the male has a rival. With such short lives, there's fierce competition for a chance to mate. Madagascar has had a turbulent past. At its birth, it was ripped from India and Africa, and the geological upheavals have continued since. The north of the island is speckled with slumbering volcanoes. On the forested slopes lives another Madagascar speciality, chameleon. Chameleons weren't amongst those pioneering castaways. Theirs is a different story. It's thought that they evolved here in Madagascar itself. They're wonderfully adapted to a life in the trees. Their toes are fused, so their feet grip like tongs. And the arrangement of their legs is unusual for a reptile. They're beneath their body. This allows them to walk on branches thinner than their body. A male panther chameleon, one of the biggest. A second male is in his tree. He won't like that. If the intruder doesn't back down, there will be trouble. They're evenly matched. It's neck and neck. The territory holder wins, and the loser takes the quickest way out. Crowned lemurs. They don't live up here, but they must cross the peaks to find fruiting trees in the forest pockets. Exposed to the tropical sun, it's devilishly hot. The group seeks shelter and a brief respite. The lemurs are vulnerable here and need to get a move on. There's still a way to go before they reach the forest. They get to what looks like the most daunting part of the journey. A 30-metre drop where the limestone has fallen away to create sheer cliffs. But crowned lemurs are as good at rock climbing as they are at tree climbing. Once down, they'll find shelter from the heat and plenty to eat. But they must be on their guard. There is one danger that every lemur on the island fears. A hunter that climbs as well as they can. The frosser. No big African predators made it to Madagascar. There are no lions, no leopards, no wild dogs. Instead, the island's top predator is a giant mongoose. And it eats lemurs. But it has more curious habits. It's the mating season and this female has stationed herself 15 metres up a tree. She's chosen a branch that will just support her own weight plus that of a male. A male approaches. If she approves of him, she'll allow him to mate. If she doesn't, she'll back away to a thinner branch and he won't be able to get to her. She's only fertile for a few days a year. So setting herself up in this tall tree is a good way of advertising her availability to suitors. And it seems to work. This is the sixth male she's entertained today. Here in the far south of the island, the extreme conditions make this a land of rare specialists. There is wildlife that's found nowhere else in Madagascar. A little nocturnal mammal whistling in the dark. It's Grandidier's vonsera, one of the world's rarest carnivores. They survive on a diet of almost nothing but insects. As the climate here dried, only the toughest and most adaptable stayed on. Grandidier's vonsera, able to survive on such a diet, was able to hang on. They're sociable and playful, but their lives remain largely a mystery. The intense dryness of this end of the island has demanded some ingenious behaviour. In this desert scrubland, desiccation is just as problematic for a spider as for a mammal. An empty snail shell would make a perfect refuge from the heat. But it's not safe lying on sand. So this spider begins an astonishing process. It attaches silk to the shell and starts to haul it into a bush. This is the first time this has been filmed. And maybe the first time it's even been observed in the wild. Each new strand is shorter than the last, so the shell gradually gets pulled up. Technique is key. It's important that the shell is secured from several angles for maximum stability. This spider has got it wrong. And when the wind springs up, it totally loses control. Ring-tailed lemurs are just as suited to life on the ground as up in the trees. And that makes them far more adaptable than most of Madagascar's lemurs. Several troops of ring-tails manage to make a living in these highlands. Some of the luckier ones occupy a more sheltered valley where a few trees have managed to take root. Morning fog, condensing on leaves, is an important source of water. Although the mornings still have a chill to them, life here seems more relaxed, but also more crowded. Pied crows need to be moved on, not least because there are some vulnerable arrivals in the troop. Almost every female is carrying an infant, an indication that life is comparatively easy up here. With more protection from the elements and a little more food, this troop is particularly large and can devote plenty of time to their social lives. One female even has twins, a rare event amongst ring-tailed lemurs and a direct result of a good food supply. But this valley troop still has to work hard to collect food in this broken landscape. Few lemurs are such good rock climbers. There's a real bonanza at this time of year. While some gather canopy fruits, the mother of the twins stays lower and gathers fresh leaves. The young are born during the fruiting season, when demands on the mothers are heaviest. As the gradient slackens, the rivers slow and spread. Down here, the forests are even more luxuriant. It's so wet that some tree frogs don't need to lay their eggs in water. Instead, they stick them to the underside of leaves, well out of reach of hungry fish. In less than a week, they've already developed into tadpoles. They mature very quickly, but not quite fast enough in this case. The most unlikely of predators has stumbled on these clumps of spawn. The protective jelly merely slows down the wasps' smash-and-grab tactics. The wasps return again and again, chewing up tadpoles before taking them back to their own nest. And yet, the tadpoles aren't entirely helpless. By the time they're only five days old, they're already able to react to the vibrations created by the hunting wasps. They hatch prematurely when stressed like this, and as the jelly liquefies, the tadpoles dribble down to the leaf tip and into the water below. They may be underdeveloped, but they can swim well enough to give themselves at least a fighting chance away from the jaws of the wasps circling above. Red-ruffed lemurs are big and noisy. This troop has hit the jackpot. Two trees, a fig and a harami, practically next door to each other, and both loaded with white fruit. With so few seed-eating birds on the island, the trees rely on lemurs, like the red-ruffs, to disperse their seeds through the forest. After gorging all morning, the clan settles down nearby to sleep off their lunch. But while most doze, one lemur stays behind. It's his job to guard the trees from fruit robbers. And in such a rich forest, a fruiting tree quickly becomes a magnet for other interested parties. Madagascar green pigeons are quickly seen off. A vasa parrot has slipped in under the lemur's guard. But it makes little impact on the supply of figs. Others need to be watched more carefully. A gang of white-fronted brown lemurs has spotted the fruiting trees and want to share. The males have striking white caps, and they lead the raid. It takes the red-ruffed guardian a while to catch on to what's happening. The brown lemurs are quick and agile, and with ten of them, and one of him, it's not that easy to get control of the situation. By the time he's finally seen them off, the rest of the clan are on their way back to feed in the harami tree. With food just an arm's length away, these particular lemurs appear to be living the good life, at least for the moment. In such tough times, there are battles for territory in the most unexpected places. As night falls in the Baobab forest, an extraordinary crowd emerges. They're baby flatted bugs. By day, they're barely visible, but at night, they swarm over the trees and start to feed. They drink sap, and each settles itself into a spot on the branch. But even at this miniature level, there's a battle for resources, and here and there, fistfights break out. This curious spat has never been observed before. For the most part, however, they feed quietly, and as they feed, they excrete unwanted liquid called honeydew. It coats the branches and remaining leaves, and this is very attractive to other insects that are out and about at night. And that, in turn, provides a feast for mouse lemurs. At around 60 grams, mouse lemurs are the world's smallest primates. These are all male. The females are fast asleep in tree holes, and have been for months. They can sleep right through the dry season, and they'll only emerge when the rains come. It's a way of saving energy. So for now, the males are on their own, feeding on anything that will take them through the lean times, and waiting for the day that the females awake. The bear babs begin to put out a first flush of green leaves. They're drawing on the precious water they've stored in their fat trunks. There will soon be rain here, and the bear babs sense that it's coming. There's a scent of rain in the air. Other life is beginning to stir. This little chameleon has not long hatched, but already it's in a race, and it has one of the strangest strategies of all for dealing with the extreme dryness. They are labords chameleons, and they only live in this part of the island. This little male already has a voracious appetite, although this spider may be beyond him. These strange little chameleons have the shortest life cycle of any land vertebrate in the world. They spent the last nine months underground inside an egg, and now they have just eight weeks to grow to adult size. They will have to grow more than a centimetre a week. There is no time to waste. Conditions are so tough that living fast is the best strategy. By the time the rains begin, his life will be almost over. In fact, the rains have already started. Only a splash, but a sign of a deluge to come. For now, it's barely enough to wet the ground, but it's enough to bring the mouse lemur females out of hibernation. And the males are getting themselves ready for them. They only have one chance to mate during the entire year. Tonight's the night, and they can hardly wait. It's understandably competitive. These two males are fighting outside a female's tree. One of the males tries his luck with her. A swift left hook seems to make her feelings clear. But he persists, and she finally allows him in. Trees that looked lifeless are now revived and green. And there has been another transformation. The little Laborde's chameleons have grown enormously. This male is now five times bigger and in full breeding colours. And this female has become a real beauty. The male touches the branch with his tongue. He can taste that she's been that way. But before he can get to her, he has to fight off a rival male. They're all racing against time. Their lives are so brief that they only have one chance to mate. He approaches her, but she seems less than keen. It may be that she's already mated and is already pregnant. He might be too late. She couldn't afford to waste time. As soon as she's laid her eggs, she'll die. And all the males will be dead soon after. Their lives are lived only in the brief wet season. The violence of their short lives hastens their end. Living fast and dying young. It's a radical strategy for a place where resources are low for most of the year.