"Tropical rainforests are one of the oldest continuous living entities on earth older than many of the stars." "This rainforest has been evolving for 130-million years." "Season after season, century on century, the forest has been shaping the destiny of the creatures it shelters, as they in turn have shaped their forest." "This story of an Asian rainforest is the story of the remarkable relationship between the forest and it's plants and animals." "The dawn chorus of primates is a truly Asian sound." "For Asia has the greatest diversity of primates anywhere on Earth." "The new day begins like the countless millions that have dawned before." "The forest and the myriad creatures within it, stir to the coming of light and warmth." "The rainforest in all its complexity can be seen as a single living organism." "It consumes rain and warmth and exhales oxygen." "The canopy of the rainforest is like the outer skin." "It receives the most sunlight it's the most exposed to wind and rain and it protects the forest beneath." "Rainforests are incredibly rich." "Although they cover only 5% of the earth's surface, they're home to at least half of all the species of plants and animals on Earth." "High in the tree tops, the animals wake hungry." "The Thomas's leaf monkeys spring across the canopy looking for breakfast." "Asia's great red ape - the Orangutan live in the stronger branches midway down the trees." "They too are setting off for breakfast." "Siamang herald the morning with a duet of love." "The calls between male and female are also a proclamation of their territory." "A most fascinating example of the relationship between the forest and it's creatures is that between a group of great red apes and the remote corner of the Sumatran rainforest where they live." "They've been studied for more than 5 years." "Their behaviour offers a glimpse into the past of Orangutan, and a hope for their future." "Each has been given a name." "Andi is a nine year old female." "She's getting used to living on her own after her mother eased her aside to make way for her new baby sister." "Her mother Arni will be devoted to her new infant for 8 ears just as she was to Andi." "Arno, the father of Andi, is the dominant male of this part of the forest, and probably the father of almost all the youngsters in his territory." "Orang-hutan means "people of the forest"." "The Malay have a legend that the Orangutan was so intelligent that it never learnt to speak, fearing that if it did it would be put out to work." "Arno has the demeanour of a gentle giant." "Yet he would have fought fiercely to become the dominant male." "He leads a solitary life, leaving the upbringing of his children entirely to the females." "The simplest relationship that the Orangutan have with the forest is also the most natural." "Gravity ensures that sooner or later, everything they eat or touch falls to the ground." "The forest floor is where everything ends up:" "dead animals, leaves seeds, and droppings." "Fresh Orangutan dung seems to have a life of its own." "Attracted by the smell dung beetles soon begin the recycling process." "The beetles carve up the dung and pat it into balls which are easy to roll away and bury." "They will lay their eggs in the dung." "Eventually it will all be recycled and the nutrients reabsorbed into the trees." "The forest floor is the gut of the forest." "The forest digests its waste in less than an hour." "The leaf litter takes longer to decompose." "But eventually the nutrients are leached out of the leaves and into the soils." "Ants are the most common insects of the rainforest and they too play an important part in the recycling of rainforest nutrients." "These ants are dismembering a hornet to take back to their nest." "Ants and their termite cousins are a vital part of the forest's digestive system." "Termites break down rotting wood and carry it along well-worn forest trails to their nests." "Along these routes they and their precious food are guarded by soldiers." "Although they're tiny, insects are forest heavyweights." "They make up a third of the mass of all the animals in the rainforest." "For creatures higher up the food chain, insects are a valuable source of protein." "Above the termite trail a spider lies in wait, snaring an unsuspecting victim." "As they approach the nest with their load, the termite trail becomes a living conveyor belt." "And despite appearances there is also order in the rainforest canopy." "The leaf-eating monkeys are following well-jumped pathways." "It's mid morning and they criss-cross their territories searching for food." "They catapult into space with the confidence that comes from countless generations of living with the forest." "The Leaf-eating monkeys live in small groups of females with a dominant male." "The size of his group is determined by the forest:" "since the male likes to be able to keep an eye on them all, the thicker the forest, the smaller the group." "All the members of his harem are equal." "There's no top female with first claim to the feeding area." "The Leaf-eating monkeys are free-loaders." "They give little back to the forest." "By taking fresh leaves, they rob trees of their means of absorbing light and energy." "By destroying seeds, they make it harder for trees to reproduce." "The trees tolerate these charming bandits." "But they fight back by introducing toxins into the maturing leaves which spoil the taste." "Below the leaf-monkeys' in the mid branches," "Orangutan play a much more constructive role." "They mostly eat fruit." "Because they are big, they need to be big eaters." "Fruiting trees are scattered throughout the forest." "Each animal has a 3-dimensional map in its brain and knows where and when fruit will ripen and how to get there." "As they move from one tree to the next, eating as they go, the Orangutan disperse the seeds of many species a major role in the growth of the forest." "Orangutan range throughout the Sumatran hill forests, but when fruit is plentiful they gather in their greatest numbers in the low-lying swamp forest." "It's here that their relationships with each other and the forest are being studied." "This male is nearing his prime." "Perhaps one day he will challenge Arno to be the dominant male." "But until he's sure he'll win, he stays well clear." "The forest has adapted to the size of these Orangutan by producing many of their favourite fruits close to the trunk where they're easily reached." "This male will return to this tree again and again throughout the 50 or so years of his life, one of the longest relationships anywhere between a tree and an animal." "The closest bond in the animal world is between a female Orangutan and her infant." "This intensive mothering is the bond that shapes the infant's life." "The mother is the source of food, shelter, transport and the vital lessons for life." "She will pass on all her knowledge of the forest and its fruiting without which the infant could not survive." "Part of the knowledge that Arni passed on to Andi was a way of using a tool to solve a problem." "Behaviour that has been seen in the wild only in this swamp forest." "One of the delicacies the Orangutan enjoy are the seeds of the chamangan fruit." "As the fruit ripens the shells split to reveal the seeds inside." "The problem for the Orangutan is the sharp hairs painful to touch which protect the seeds." "Sometime in the past one of them worked out how to overcome the plant's defences." "Now Andi has learnt to put the stick in her mouth and use it to pry out the seeds." "The seeds either drop into her mouth or her hands." "The hairs flutter to the ground." "Millions of years ago our own ancestors first learned to use tools." "We don't know whether Orangutan learnt to do this only recently or whether they've been doing it for centuries or millennia." "What is certain is that this behaviour has never been recorded in any other group of Orangutan." "We once believed that our ability to use tools separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom." "Perhaps Andi is showing us that Orangutan are even closer to us than we imagined." "With the two prerequisites for life:" "sunshine and water abundant, rainforests are one of the most favourable environments for plant growth on earth." "A square kilometer of rainforest can have as many as 10,000 species this is the Realm of the Red Ape." "In the tropics there are two seasons, the wet and the dry." "Plants flower and fruit according to their own cycle." "The Rainforests at the north of Sumatran lie close to the Equator and receive almost equalized daylight and darkness." "Yet for each individual tree the amount of light it receives depends on its place in the forest." "The forest floor sees sunlight only at midday, the mid branches receives about 8 hours, the tree tops see light from sunrise to sunset." "During the day the leaves of the canopy are in almost constant sunlight." "The mid branches however, receive only filtered light" "and at midday, when the sun is directly above the trees, the forest floor receives only dappled light as passing sun specks." "It is this limited supply of light that restricts growth on the forest floor." "This pattern of light is interrupted only when a tree dies and falls, creating a gap in the canopy which there is a race to fill." "Creepers wind their way round other plants to haul themselves upwards while saplings stretch towards the light." "Very soon the canopy is complete." "The race is over, the winner takes all and the losers adjust to their rations of sunlight." "Crucial to the relationship between the animals and the forest is their understanding of the seasonal cycles of different species." "The animals always know where and when their favourite leaves and fruits are ripening." "While some trees are in spring-like abundance others will be shedding leaves, as if it's autumn." "Some seeds parachute away to germinate on the ground, others are carried on water." "The seeds may germinate many kilometeres from the parent tree." "So although the trees can't move, they can travel." "In the dry season, the forest produces fewer leaves and seeds, so there's less food for everyone." "If there's a stream in their territory, the leaf-eating monkeys supplement their diet with algae." "They come down from the trees like travelers to an oasis." "There's enough algae in the stream for several groups from overlapping territories to share." "While they're up in their element, the canopy, the monkeys are safe from almost all predators." "But on the ground, they are vulnerable." "Females with older infants leave them in the trees." "For as long as the leaf monkeys remain on the river, the male keeps a nervous watch." "There are still some Sumatran tigers on the prowl." "Unaware there's a tiger about, females with infants that are too young to leave in the trees, bring them down with them to the water." "Sometimes even the most caring mothers become forgetful." "However high his hopes, the tiger's chances of a meal are remote." "As soon as he hears the leaf-monkeys' alarm call, he moves on." "He has to kill only 2 or 3 times a week, and he knows when the monkeys are beyond reach." "The mouse deer is the world's smallest hoofed animal." "It has no protection against the tiger except its alertness." "lts huge eyes are placed where it can best detect any movement, its ears are alert to any dangerous sound." "Despite its name, the mouse deer is a species somewhere between a pig and a deer." "Indeed, the Malays have a legend that the mouse deer is a forest spirit so clever that it can outwit the tiger." "High in the trees," "Orangutan are safe from most predators." "The biggest threat to this mother and her baby may be the unwanted attentions of a male." "If he can get close enough, he will stop at nothing to mate." "And both mother and child could be hurt." "To keep out of harm's way, she moves to the thinner branches where she knows he can't follow." "But the would-be suitor was probably more at risk." "For in this part of the forest Arno remains dominant." "His presence is usually enough to keep other males at bay." "There is still a few elephants in the Asian Rainforest." "By knocking down trees they help disperse seeds and let in light." "But the forest influences them too." "The dense vegetation forces them to lead more solitary lives than their cousins in Africa." "Even for elephants the forest has its no go areas." "Some plants grow spines which discourage even the largest animals." "Other plants enlist the services of insects in their defence." "These ants help protect the wild raspberry by deterring leaf-eating caterpillars." "Once they've driven the caterpillar off, the ants claim their reward." "They milk a colony of aphids for the sugary secretion they produce from the sap of the raspberry." "Perhaps the most crucial relationship of all is the role insects play in enabling the forest to reproduce." "By offering irresistible nectar these plants entice ants to travel from flower to flower, transferring the vital pollen." "Throughout the forest, the same system of service and reward applies." "Different plants flower at different times, attracting different pollinators." "This flower attracts sweat bees." "Pollination is the service the sweat bees provide." "Their reward is nectar, which they carry back to their nest." "From the nectar the bees make honey as food for their larvae." "Even the most singular of species follows the rules of service and reward." "This bud will become the rainforest's largest and perhaps rarest flower the rafflesia which has no leaves or stem and draws its sustenance from the vine on which it lives." "The Rafflesia takes 4 or 5 years to flower and is pollinated mainly by flies which it attracts with the stench of rotting meat." "It can reproduce easily only if another rafflesia is flowering within a fly's range." "Once the flies have done their work the Rafflesia dies." "Like everything else on the forest floor, it is absorbed and recycled." "Butterflies emerge to reproduce." "Most butterfly species seek nectar from flowering plants." "As they feed, transferring pollen from flower to flower they make it possible for the plants to reproduce." "Once they find a mate and lay their eggs, their work is done." "At midday the forest slows." "High in the trees, the leaf-monkeys pause after a morning of intensive feeding." "They descend to a shady siesta spot to rest and fully digest the mornings leaves." "The young will play." "With no hint of danger, the male can afford a catnap." "The females become so drowsy that one mother dozes." "While the Thomas's leaf monkeys come down into the mid branches for their siesta, the Siamang take their time out at the top." "Playing serves a purpose for the young apes." "This is how they learn how far they can leap, what weight a branch can carry, and what risks they can take." "The learning never ends." "Beneath the Siamang in the mid branches, the Orangutan also pause." "Female Orangutan may have no more than three young in their lifetime, so each one is precious." "Between this mother and her infant there is something almost human." "In the dry season, the rains are less frequent, and usually arrive in the afternoon." "Regular downpours are essential for life in the forest." "The Orangutan find shelter where they can." "The canopy of the forest breaks the force of the rain, and stops it from washing the topsoil away." "Many trees have leaves which channel the rain to where it's needed most their roots." "Some plants have an umbrella to keep the rain out." "After only a few hours the sun returns, the heat builds up, and water is sucked up by the roots, and then flows up through the trunk into the leaves, where it released back into the atmosphere." "Beneath the canopy, the humidity is high and relatively constant." "As a result the forest floor is constantly moist and many creatures have evolved in this damp environment." "Leeches depend on moisture, and Asia is one of the few places where they've adapted to live outside pools of water or slowly-running streams." "Leeches are hermaphrodites:" "each is both male and female." "Mating involves both partners passing sperm to fertilize each other's eggs." "The mating begins when they attach their suckers to each other, and sway their bodies until they can establish closer contact." "Once the pair have aligned their sexual organs, they mate." "Each of them can now go on its way with its own fertilized eggs." "The adults can survive without water for only a few days." "But even if they perish, their eggs will remain as a survival capsule for their species until the rains come again." "Eons of rain have fallen on the forest, much of the goodness has been washed away." "Some plants have adapted to the poor soils by becoming predators." "Asia is home to the world's greatest diversity of carnivorous pitcher plants which entice their victims by exuding the sweet smell of nectar." "This is service and reward with a twist." "lnsects are drawn to the trap by the promise of a reward." "But they slip and then die." "Instead it is the plant that gets the reward - energy." "Almost everything that falls inside the pitcher plant drowns and is digested." "Yet even in a graveyard there is life." "Somehow, mosquito larvae thrive in the pitcher's digestive juices." "The pitcher plant is a gut within the gut of the forest." "lts deep in a remote corner of Northern Sumatra, that the unique relationship between the great red ape and the rainforest is being studied." "In one of the few remaining patches of lowland swamp forest" "Orangutan gather in greater numbers than have ever been seen elsewhere." "They reveal secrets of how their ancestors may have lived before their habitat was lost." "They come because the lowland swamp forest is richer." "Trees here produce more fruit than those in the hill forests." "They also benefit from the constant wetness of the forest floor." "Many of the insects that would normally live in nests in the ground make their homes instead in the trees, where they become an easy source of extra protein for the Orangutan." "Asia's largest primates congregate in the swamp forest for as long as the fruiting season lasts." "This is where Andi grew up." "She learned the forest from her mother." "She and her companions know where food is and how to get it." "Andi remembers the sweat bee's nest and she also remembers the lessons she learnt from her mother." "She knows how to get the honey that is beyond the reach of her searching finger." "As she did with the chamangan in this same forest, she uses a tool." "It's just a twig, broken and shaped to length." "But by using this simple tool" "Andi and a few of her relatives are in a fellowship of their own." "This is behaviour they have learnt and remembered." "Andi's new sister will learn the same lessons." "It may be the birth of a new Orangutan culture, or the revival of an ancient one." "Why Orangutan use tools here and possibly nowhere else remains something of a mystery." "When she's finished the honey," "Andi will use her knowledge of the forest to travel to another tree." "The sweat bees return instinctively to repair their nest." "Orangutan choose different food at different times." "After she's had enough honey" "Andi always nibbles a leaf perhaps to balance her diet." "When the time comes for Andi to pass on what she's been taught, the learning will be easier and the knowledge may spread faster because of the different way these Orangutan live." "We used to think that they were almost always solitary animals, with the only bond between a mother and child, or when small groups gathered briefly around a fruiting fig tree." "That may be true elsewhere but not in this part of northern Sumatra." "They return to the swamp forest season after season, to socialise and learn with the same individuals." "Adults and juveniles recognise each other and choose their companions carefully." "If they were human, we would call them friends." "Young Orangutan here in the lowlands have the chance to play with each other far more frequently than their cousins in the hill-forests." "But they may not be able to pass on what they've learned here to new generations." "Already hunting and the destruction of their habitat have made Orangutan an endangered species." "Although they may be sociable during the day at night the Orangutan keep to themselves." "Adults nest alone." "At the end of each day, fresh branches furnish a new nest." "Each night a new nest each night a new tree." "For this infant its mother is its world." "Even as he makes his nest" "Arno shapes the forest that still shapes him." "As he settles for the night he gives his long call proclaiming his territory and his being." "Arno's long call declares the importance of his species and his culture." "It's a call to those who have power to save his realm in this corner of the Sumatran rainforest and with it, Asia's great red ape and their unique way of life."