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00:53:01
Sigourney Weaver, David Attenborough
30
And when stalactite meets stalagmite
And when stalactite meets stalagmite
Peregrine falcons and bat hawks are the jetfighter of the bird world.
so the Maya relied on the cenote - the flooded entrances to the water-filled caves.
troglodyte, animals that never emerge from the caves or see daylight.
when caver dug through several meters of loose rock
Like bats they use echolocation to navigate.
The cockroaches feed on the guano
These in turn become food for giant cave centipede,
Hydrogen sulphide gas bubbles up from oil deposits in the earth's crust.
but they could never have known that these flooded passageway
The rocky outcrop of New Zealand's Poor Knight Islands are riddled with sea caves
so although this rocky escarpment in the United States
If the water seep though the ceiling quickly,
the gatherer climb into the highest reaches of the cave
Its surface is covered by a thick carpet of cockroach,
the stream of bats form a doughnut-shaped ring.
This hundred meter high mound is made entirely of bat droppings -
is actually colore white with sulphuric acid.
The bats roost high on the walls and ceilings
that almost defied belief.
A bottleneck funnel these exiting bats into dense concentrations
When the first explorers descend,
This water is loaded with dissolve limestone
The rocky outcrops of New Zealand's Poor Knight Islands are riddle with sea caves
so these species must have been isolate for a very long time.
Limestone is compose of minerals derived from marine shells and corals,
the water absorb carbon dioxide from the soil
and slowly consuming the catch - alive.
Limestone is composed of minerals derive from marine shells and corals,
Good hunting will end as the light fade
By ensnaring the insects that hatch in this cave,
troglodytes, animals that never emerge from the caves or see daylight.
seems to be restrict to just two small caves.
The light literally shine out of its backside.
like these 5-meter cones, frost with the most delicate crystals.
Bizarrely, there are crabs here, too,
Insects seem irresistibly drawn towards the source
Underwater caving is notoriously dangerous.
making it mildly acidic.
The only water Lechuguilla has are these wonderfully still clear pools.
However, human beings are seldom the first
But sometimes the formations in a cave stop growing altogether.
Surprisingly, they are the basis of a food chain
These strange stalactite-like formations are known, rather appropriately, as snotites,
that one would not expect it to contain any life whatsoever.
The light literally shines out of its backside.
As the explorers went deeper into the cave,
it's surely the most bizarre cave chamber in the world.
With virtually no safety equipment
The strikes seem to be largely hit-and-miss,
and slowly consuming the catch - alive.
This hundred meter high mound is made entirely of bat droppings -
To the snakes the bats are apparently glowing
Bats are not the only commuters in these Bornean caves.
In these conditions a diver could easily become disorientated
but in the pitch black the swiftlets manage unerringly to locate their individual nesting sites,
vast shoals of demoiselle fish return to the caves,
And the Belizean white crab is another creature
the water takes on a new, more erosive power.
is actually colored white with sulphuric acid.
But one cave is so inhospitable
Each drop leaves behind only a miniscule amount of calcite,
A staggering 3 million wrinkle-lipped bats live here.
Here, live some of the strang and least-known animals on the planet.
The shee size of Deer Cave
but still nobody yet knows the true extend of this subterranean waterworld.
That ghostly blue light is the result of a chemical reaction
Poisonous gases rise to fatal levels so quickly
making it mildly acidic.
They're totally dependant on the digested remains of food
an inner world where only the most adventurous dare to go.