Wild Congo - First Season

The Congo River, a pounding pulse across Africa.

The deepest river in the world, home to untold untamed creatures.

The river is born here. He blows bubbles like a baby.

He is the Congo.

Trekking 3,000 miles across Central Africa,

he grows stronger, brazen, ferocious.

Only the Amazon River moves more water,

but the Congo is the world's deepest.

Locals call him Chambeshi.

He answers to many names, takes on different identities,

touches countless lives.

Each November, this river hosts Central Africa's most swinging party.

The largest mammal migration on Earth starts slowly.

These straw-colored fruit bats

fly in from all over Central Africa and gather in one grove.

Swarms of hundreds...

become hundreds of thousands,

then up to ten million.

These unconventional conventioneers pass up food

in their mad rush to get here, a place called Kasanka.

Like a Roman orgy, they come to gorge themselves and mate.

They cram together for safety and warmth,

forming one of the largest fruit bat colonies in the world.

The millions of bats, tight as roof tiles,

roost in an area that would cover just 60 football fields.

Quiet comes to Kasanka again.

As the sky brightens,

this latecomer brushes his teeth and goes to bed.

At twilight, they get the party started.

The famished animals tear into their buffet.

Each night, the half-pound bats eat twice their weight in fruit,

about 6,000 tons' worth.

With bellies full of mobola plums, wild loquat and waterberry fruits,

the bats add about ten tons to each tree they cling to.

In ten weeks, they've picked the grove clean.

Party over.

The bats move on, spreading seeds on their trip home.

Everything goes back to normal just before Christmas.

But there's nothing normal about the Congo River,

who begins his journey in Zambia, south Central Africa.

Here, north of Kasanka, the Congo's suckled by Bangweulu,

one of the largest marshes on Earth.

The Bangweulu wetlands cover an area about the size of Connecticut.

Seventeen rivers feed it, but only one drains it.

In Kadende, the local language,

"Bangweulu" means "where the water meets the sky".

Wildlife thrives here.

Just as the Bangweulu feeds the Congo,

fish from these waters feed about 50,000 Zambians.

Locals build fishing camps deep in the swamps,

reachable only by wooden pirogue boats.

Papyrus plants grow thick,

creating a mini marshland jungle 16 feet tall.

In this jungle, the major predator isn't a lion,

but a giant bird...

the shoebill.

He stands four-and-a-half feet tall,

and if his bill were a real shoe, it would be about a man's size four.

But he's really a sneaker.

Waiting for prey, he can stand for hours, motionless as a gargoyle.

Near the floor of the papyrus forest, weavers brood by the water.

The picky chicks assert their independence and want nothing to do with this worm.

A few feet up, in the top-heavy papyrus canopy,

other weavers start families of their own.

The males build their love nests to attract a mate,

and if she likes it, she'll move in and redecorate the nursery.

But every motion starts the cradle rocking...

...until disaster strikes, flinging a little one out of its nest.

The weaver chick, too young to fly, drops in on the shoebill for lunch.

Unfortunately for the weavers,

Bangweulu's shoebills will always be hot on their heels.

Below the surface of the marsh,

the roots of the papyrus jungle reach back in time

to the domain of a creature that first settled here

almost 400 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs.

Like the papyrus plants, the African lungfish spans two worlds.

This fish has gills, but it still needs air every half-hour,

otherwise it'll drown.

Unlike most fish, it has a primitive lung,

and what's more, it can perform a truly breathtaking feat.

When the dry season comes...

and water turns to puddles...

and puddles turn into mud...

the African lungfish finds himself in the thick of it.

That's okay.

The secret to lungfish longevity

starts with a drought-defying burrow in the mud.

About ten inches below the surface, the fish spews mucus.

It solidifies to form a cocoon-like shelter

that traps moisture and lets in air.

The lungfish enters estivation.

While most animals burn fat for energy to keep alive,

the lungfish digests muscle in its tail.

It can survive for months until the season changes...

and salvation comes raining down upon it.

Just a few days of rain changes everything,

plunging Bangweulu underwater again.

As the ground starts to soften...

...the lungfish rise like zombies all over the place.

If need be, they could have waited two years or more.

They climb back to the real world

with help from their modified, finger-like fins...

and hit the water.

Then a quick trip to the surface for a refreshing gulp of air.

But maybe this fellow should have stayed in bed.

The lungfish waited months to breathe again.

Now he awakens to a world of familiar dangers.

Adapted for life in and out of the water, he's built for survival...

but then, so's the shoebill.

Almost before the Congo River has even begun,

the thirsty Bangweulu Swamp sucks up 90% of its water,

keeping it in perpetual second place to the mighty Amazon.

Most of the water flowing into the marshland evaporates,

or gets absorbed by plants.

The 10% that's left leaves the swamps here as a single river, Luapula.

The Congo River wanders like a roving teenager,

traipsing across Africa to find himself.

He makes his way into the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

a country inaccessible to most and dangerous to many.

The river starts at a height of more than 3,000 feet.

It snakes through the acacia trees of the African bushland,

which provide a comfortable habitat for guys like this.

The African rock python...

the biggest snake on the continent, and one of the largest in the world.

Over his 20-year lifespan,

he'll never stop growing, and could reach up to 22 feet.

He lacks venomous fangs,

but the constrictor's deadly embrace does the trick.

He can even sneak up and crush a full-grown monkey caught napping.

But today, no such luck.

If need be, he'll hang out inconspicuously on the tree for hours.

Right now, the action's on the ground,

where helmeted guineafowl scratch for a meal of their own.

This small family mob searches for seeds, worms and insects.

They're also on constant lookout for danger,

ready to squawk at the slightest threat.

One would make a nice snack for the python,

but predator and prey don't seem to notice each other.

Two days later, the snake is still hungry.

He's in the middle of molting, his smooth scales turning flaky,

and until the scales fall from his eyes,

it's as if he's looking through a plastic shopping bag.

He sniffs out a path to the river.

Nothing like a cool bath to soothe dry, flaky skin.

The guineafowl, which never live far from the water,

head there too.

They're hard to miss. The snake could be in luck.

The guineafowl huddle together, a squawking, formidable mob.

The python can probably feel the vibration on the ground,

but his blurred vision keeps him from locking on to just one to call dinner.

The guineafowl aren't defenseless.

If pressed, they'll gang up and attack the snake.

In his current state, he's at a real disadvantage.

The peeling python backs down.

No matter how hungry he might get,