Monster Bug Wars

Narrator: ln a bug's world, life is always in the balance.

There are so many ways to die.

Around every corner, super-strength assassins...

They are just incredibly fast with enormous force.

Narrator: ...bizarre weapons...

They have absolutely insatiable appetite.

Narrator: ...and ruthless personalities.

They are incredibly effective predators.

Narrator: Every day these battles are waged,

hidden from human eyes,

in the secret world of Monster Bug Wars.

The rainforest --

rich, beautiful, frightening.

Monsters live here,

hiding in the darkest, dankest corners.

They're the stuff of nightmares.

When a giant rainforest mantis

confronts a spiny leaf insect,

it's a monster battle.

lt's one of the rainforest's most bizarre citizens...

...a creature so strange, it could be from another world.

ln the bug world, spiny leaf insects are giants,

growing up to five inches long.

They're not only big, they're ugly.

Spiny leaf insect wants to avoid a fight.

lts first defense is the fact that it looks like a leaf.

lf a predator does get past the camouflage

and detect a spiny leaf insect,

it'll then rely on its behavior to try to scare off a predator

by making itself look big and mean and horrible,

like some sort of alien predator from another planet.

Narrator: Nature often saves scariness for the vegetarians.

You see, they need to deter their predators

rather than fight them.

Although it looks like some kind of battle bot,

the creature isn't naturally aggressive.

lts heavy armor and razor spikes are for defense --

an almost impenetrable shield.

And if a predator does try to take a bite,

it'll get a mouthful of those spikes.

The spiny leaf insect also keeps a secret weapon.

Dr. Fry: lf threatened,

the spiny leaf insect will resort to chemical warfare.

lt has glands that'll squirt out

this colorless, but extremely stinky, liquid

that'll deter most predators.

Narrator: A stinking, ugly, spiky giant

should be left alone,

but in the rainforest,

there's one creature who's not so easily deterred.

lt's an evolutionary success story --

the giant rainforest mantis,

a strong-arm assassin and stealthy ninja

rolled into one.

Mantis need to eat all the time, so they're very hungry.

They're looking for prey all the time.

They're on duty all day long.

Turns out that they're one of the top rainforest predators.

Narrator: lt's the T. Rex of the bug world.

With a powerful stance and lethal forearms,

spikes, and lightning-fast grappling hooks

ensure nothing escapes.

Dr. Rayor: The strike could happen anywhere

from .030 to .050 of a second.

So this is like 1 /20 of a blink of an eye.

Mantids engage in aggressive mimicry,

and what this means

is they camouflage themselves so their prey doesn't see them.

Matching in with the vegetation --

in this case, our giant rainforest mantid

is a nice green.

lt blends in.

Prey items that are walking by,

they just don't see the mantid until it's simply too late.

Narrator: This hapless grasshopper never stood a chance.

There's one more thing about the giant rainforest mantis.

lt eats its victims alive.

Dr. Rayor: They're pretty good at orienting their bites

toward the head of whatever they've captured,

and essentially once you've taken the head off of anything,

it stops struggling much more rapidly.

Narrator: The best defense against the mantis

is to avoid it at all costs.

But that's not always easy.

This spiny leaf insect is out looking for a leafy meal...

Unaware it's venturing

into giant rainforest mantis territory.

Dr. Fry: The spiny leaf insect is a browser.

lt's a vegetarian.

Think of it basically as the cow of the insect world.

Just spends most of the day hanging out in the tree,

chewing on the leaves, minding its own business.

Narrator: The leaf insect has attracted the attention of the mantis.

And when these two giants of the rainforest come face-to-face...

Neither backs down.

The mantis is the natural aggressor.

lt's sizing up the monster before it.

Dr. Rayor: No predator wants to be injured by its prey.

lf it's going to attack,

it needs to make a trade-off, basically.

lf it attacks something,

is it going to successfully kill it

and not get injured itself?

Narrator: The giant rainforest mantis has weighed the options.

lt's only a matter of choosing the moment to strike.

But with faith in its heavy armor,

the spiny leaf insect pushes gamely forward.

The mantis' powerful jaws start slicing through its victim.

The heavy armor is holding.

The spiny leaf insect deploys its chemical weaponry.

Dr. Fry: ln a fight, the spiny leaf insect

is going to rely on its armor to hold out

long enough for it to get away.

But it's not very fast.

lt will, however, keep spraying the chemicals,

but unless a predator gets a perfect shot

and gets deterred by that,

it's only a matter of time until it's dinner.

Narrator: The spiny leaf insect has to break free soon

before it's devoured.

Breaching the armor,

the more the mantis eats, the less its victim can fight.

lt's a race through the first course.

Mantis mouthparts work overtime as cutlery.

Mandibles slice and dice, while feelers fork it in.

Another life ends in the rainforest.

What the mantis can't eat, others will.

The giant mantis is happy to share now -- it's full.

And there's a mess to clean up.

ln the miniature world of monster bugs,

life-spans can last just weeks,

perhaps days, even hours.

Death lies around every corner,

and strength is no protection.

What happens when a powerful bull ant

comes face-to-face with a redback spider?

Only one will live another day.

ln the ant world, life is all about the colony.

Ants work as a team -- all for one and one for all.

But for this species, going solo is allowed.

lt's even encouraged.

This is the bull ant.

Growing up to 1 inch long,

it's one of the world's largest...

Big enough to fend for itself.

lts huge jaws are fearsome enough.

They lock like a vice, inescapable.

But it's the other end you really need to worry about.

This lethal stinger delivers venom in multiple doses.

Dr. Fry: The bull ant sting

is one of the most painful things in the world,

and unlike a bee, they can sting over and over and over again.

Narrator: For the bull ant,

the world is a chaotic landscape of sights and smells,

so it needs hyperactive antennae and bulging eyes.

But the bull ant has something else.

Twin claws on every foot

give it the powers of an action hero with attitude.

The bull ant is the pit bull of the insect world.

He's aggressive, fearless, and will take on any opponent,

even those much larger than himself.

Narrator: To the uninitiated,

the bull ant can be mistaken as vain.

lt looks like it's constantly grooming,

but it's actually cleaning its sensors for battle.

lt has to be on guard

every moment it's away from the colony.

There's no backup if it runs into trouble.

And this is trouble --

the deadly redback spider.

From the black widow family,

she's renowned for her super-to xic venom

and lightning speed.

But the redback has something else for the unwary --

a super-engineered web.

lt has a number of lines going down

that are just covered with globs of glue

so that if something walks into these lines,

they tend to break the lines.

And at that point, the spider comes down and nabs the prey.

Narrator: She specializes in tailor-made straitjackets.

With lightning speed,

she spins a suffocating silk suit that's only worn once.

The way the redback gets the silk out of the spinnerets

is on the fourth leg, it has a comb,

and it combs the silk out of its spinnerets.

Spider silk is considered to be stronger than steel.

lt's considered to be the strongest biopolymer known.

Narrator: Few creatures leave a redback's web.

And the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Narrator: This bull ant still hasn't found dinner for its colony.

lt forages deeper into a log...

...unaware of the deadly trap ahead.

Although the redback is venomous,

actually, her most important weapon is her web,

and her web is like kevlar dripping with superglue.

Narrator: One false step is enough.

The redback races to weave a deadly suit.

But she has to be quick.

lf those jaws get her, or that stinger,