A hornet sting is agony, but for now its distracted, intent on cutting away a piece of grasshopper, small enough to carry back home. Success! The white feather hardly slows the hornet, and more importantly, it can be seen. Now the hunter is the hunte...
The Jinuo people are incredibly knowledgeable about their forests, and claim to have uses for most of the plants that they find there. They have names for them all, those good for eating, and some which even have strong medicinal qualities. By workin...
Bamboo's tough reputation is such that another bamboo specialist was known by the Chinese as the iron-eating animal. The giant panda is famous for its exclusive diet. Giant pandas are thought to have originated in Southwest China millions of years ag...
Ailaoshan is of the Hani tribe from the mountain village of Mengsong. Roasted, the tender shoots he gathers will make a tasty dish. The Hani have many uses for the different bamboos they grow and find in the forest around. Though flexible enough to b...
Though incredibly strong, bamboos have hollow stems, a perfect shelter for any creatures which can find a way in. This entrance hole was made by a beetle, but its being used by a very different animal--a bamboo bat, the size of a bumblebee, its one o...
Four months of daily rainstorms sustain luxuriant vegetation. The arrival of the monsoon awakens one of the forest's most extraordinary moisture-loving inhabitants. The crocodile newt is one of the most unusual of the many amphibian species found her...
The mystery is that these forests are growing well outside the tropics. By rights, none of this jungle or its animals should be here. These are bear macaques. They're found only in tropical and subtropical jungle. With a tiny home range of just a few...
On the far side of the great Nujiang gorge, the plant hunters made a remarkable discovery. Far from the tropics, they seemed to be entering a steamy, vibrant tropical jungle--the forest of Gaoligongshan. The flora here is unlike anywhere else in the...
In glorious color, he recorded the plant life he found on special photographic glass plates. Sending thousands of specimens back to the West, the plant hunters changed the gardens of the world forever. Rocks success was born of a massive effort, for...
But it does share the giant panda's taste for bamboo. Southwest China's red pandas are known for their very strong facial markings, which distinguish them from red pandas found anywhere else in the Himalayas. Like the monkeys, they were isolated in t...
The Dai now live in the borders of tropical Vietnam and Laos, but their legends tell of how their ancestors came here by following the rivers from mountain lands in the cold far north. Lying at the far eastern end of the Himalayas, the Hengduan Mount...
Beneath billowing clouds in Chinas far southwestern Yunnan Province lies a place of mystery and legend. Of mighty rivers and some of the oldest jungles in the world, here hidden valleys nurture strange and unique creatures, and colorful tribal cultur...
Smart ecology like this is what enables China to be largely self-sufficient in food even today. Back in the village, Yang has his own smokehouse, where he preserves his fish ready for market. Longshan carp have unusually soft scales and a very delica...
The Chinese moccasin is an ambush predator with a deadly bite. This is one of China's largest and most feared venomous snakes. But the monkeys have lived alongside these dangerous serpents for thousands of years. They use this specific alarm call to...
But the visitors are not what they seem. Zhe Shuzheng and her son live nearby. Zhe has been caring for her local alligators for over 20 years, so she had a fair idea when the eggs were likely to hatch. Back home, she's built a pond, surrounded by net...
