Conflicts of Nature

Episodes

Conflicts in a Pond

This is the unusual story of a little-known insect : the water beetle. Having spent the winter beneath the ice, the water beetle which can walk, swim, and fly, stirs with the first signs of spring. Its habitat : a small pond. Its neighbors : dragonflies, frogs and newts. Its daily life : survival. Between two skirmishes, it gives birth to some twenty larvae of varying kinds...only the most voracious will make it to adulthood before the pond dries out.

Conflicts in a River

At the foot of Uganda's roaring Murchison falls live two eternal enemies: the monitor and the Nile crocodile. Despite the crocodile's reign of terror within the river, the stealthy monitor is master of the banks where it steals and devours their vulnerable eggs. The first days of the young Nile crocodile are a series of nightmares : if it survives the monitor's attacks, it must avoid the swooping attacks of perch and eagles. Once adult, it becomes the undisputed master of the river and seeks to devour its erstwhile enemies one by one.

Conflicts in the Jungle

In the Amazon jungle of French Guyana, a young jaguar is preparing to become master of the forest. His reign over the territory, however, is contested by creatures fiercer than he. These six-legged beasts are none other than the fearsome warrior ants. Over several days we will follow the nomadic pursuits of this ant colony who will eventually cross paths with the young jaguar in his life-learning adventures. These ants uproot their home every single day, travelling by night in groups one-million strong. With an instinct for solidarity, they work as a cohesive group. Despite their unity, we will witness the subtle struggle for power between the Queen and a pretender. Little by little, we begin to understand these peculiar ants who, like the jaguar, do not go unnoticed by the other inhabitants of the forest.

Conflicts around a Tree

The plains of the Masaï Mara in Kenya, a dominant male, twenty submissive females, two warring brothers, a tree of forbidden fruit, a snake : this is the olive baboon version of Genesis. Effortlessly combining scientific rigor, objectivity and humor, this documentary spends eight months around a "dormitory-tree" in the intimacy of a troop of baboons caught up in hierarchical conflicts. They have to put up with anything : floods, rivalries, alliances, parasites, and even cheetah attacks. Only a unified troop could possibly overcome these ordeals...