National Geographic: The Savage Garden Page #2

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The winner of this battle may gain

the other's territory.

The loser may end up as lunch.

They move faster

than Aunt Mildred dealing blackjack.

It's extreme wrestling on a tiny scale

Time out while they play

to the grandstands.

Now back to the action.

No one knows if shrews

are immune to their own venom.

But if they're not,

they really shouldn't be doing this.

A battle can last over half an hour,

but my little shrew settles this

one quickly with a well-placed nip.

No turf will change hands today.

And both scurry back to their homes.

I used to do

battle in the garden myself.

I felt it was my territory,

and I had to defend it.

Sure I had big weapons.

But I was starting to

worry about the little things.

Something was bothering me.

I couldn't put my finger on it.

Lucky for me.

Black widows were living in my shed.

The male is outweighed

He approaches,

tapping carefully to woo her

and to avoid her lethal bite.

If we could understand

his vibes of love, it would go like,

Please baby, please baby,

please don't kill me!

So far, so good.

She lets him insert sperm by hand.

I mean, by palp.

Part of the limb may snap off

to be left inside.

Ah love, For this glorious moment,

he's ready to give an arm and a leg.

Now the female lays her eggs.

She secures over

Not one to put all

her eggs in one basket,

she'll eventually spin about five.

In only two weeks,

a thousand new spiderlings

will invade my yard.

Black widows may have

colonized my shed...

but I was more worried

about what was going on outside.

I was prepared to fight the good fight

with chemical warfare.

As I was saying,

I had no idea the enemy

was living in my armory.

It was bad enough outside.

My stems were being sucked!

My leaves lacerated!

My petals perforated!

It was more than a man could bear!

Who could blame me

if I practiced tough love?

Smells like... victory.

But I was no winner.

My insecticide, long expired,

had all the kick of a Shirley Temple:

And just as well, because the mantis

loves to munch on the munchers

I was trying to murder.

The way things were going,

I didn't have a prayer

of taming the savage garden.

I used to call 'em as I saw 'em.

When I saw 'em, if I knew

what they were called.

Trouble is, some of these

pesky little critters

were neither fish nor fowl.

Like the daddy-longlegs in my shed.

They're familiar and strange

at the same time.

But what are they?

Think it's a spider?

No.

Insect?

No.

They're called Opiliones

from the Latin meaning "aphid sucker."

Yeah!

Aphids are perfect suckers, really,

when it comes to my rose stems.

And a lot more than one is born

every minute at least in my backyard.

In fact, aphids can reproduce

without having sex!

There's one of nature's lousier ideas.

Daddy-longlegs

has arrived for the hunt!

Make that mommy-longlegs.

She has legs up to here!

Each is slender as a thread

and works partly by hydraulics.

She even hears, tastes,

and smells using her legs.

Reminds me of... never mind.

I now know there's a lot

to admire in this creature.

She has pretty good manners.

She chews her food before eating it,

granted, outside her mouth.

She sucks up the juices

through a flexible tube.

She also flosses after every meal.

I prefer unwaxed mint, myself.

Why are daddy-longlegs' legs long?

To keep their plump bodies

high above predators.

If that's not enough,

two legs put out a nasty smell

to discourage hunters.

But trust me:

If you can smell them,

you're too close.

The smelly legs also

have built-in seismographs.

And she's keeping her legs peeled

for approaching enemies.

Like the tiger beetle.

A killing machine.

An orthodontist's nightmare.

The beetle attacks

and grabs a leg.

It's a tug-of-war.

And then built for quick release

the leg pops off.

Special muscles close off the stump.

The tiger beetle, no genius,

hangs on to its prize.

The daddy-longlegs hobbles off.

But at least she's still alive

and kicking.

In the middle of all the mayhem,

beauty still flourished in my garden.

I never could train my vines

Where flowers grow, bees abound.

In a naughty little quid pro quo,

bees handle the flowers' sex life

in exchange for a drizzle of nectar.

The life of a worker bee is measured

in distance not days.

It's like a

frequent-flyer program in reverse:

fly 500 miles, and then you die.

Now, I've been in a "B" movie or two,

so I used to think I had a

way with these critters.

But then came the fateful moment

when I realized that all of the

garden was not under my spell.

One day a bee came up to me

and stopped to pay her respects.

But this cheeky bug

was testing the boundaries.

It was a small infraction,

but it threw me.

If she could question authority,

what else was going

on in my little Eden?

Well, plenty.

I'd only seen

the tip of the iceberg... lettuce.

No creature was safe,

not even the little upstart of a bee.

She was being watched by many eyes.

Eight to be exact.

They all belong to a jumping spider.

It never hurts to have eyes in the

back of your head...

even if they're only good

for seeing movement.

To see what is moving,

the spider must turn to face her prey.

She's caught sight of the bee.

Two large front eyes track the prey.

She can't move her eyes as we do.

But she can swing her retinas back

and forth inside her head.

It's like holding your eyes still

and then trying to look around

by moving your brain.

Don't try this at home!

There:
you can see the eyes lighten

and darken as the spider looks around.

Being among the smartest of spiders,

she doesn't head straight for her prey.

Instead, she approaches deviously.

She's an accomplished stalker.

Like a slasher film victim,

the bee is unaware of danger.

Good luck for the spider:

the bee flies even closer.

The spider creeps up.

The spider is now within range.

Meanwhile, the bee laps up nectar

with her remarkable tongue.

It's long and hairy,

like mine the morning

after a guacamole festival.

The spider must judge

the bee's exact distance.

Just one false move

and the spider will suffer a sting,

lose her meal... and perhaps her life.

The spider definitely

got the jump on the bee.

Poor bee:
she had a good

Earthworms as big as fire hoses.

Bald eagles snatching up

babies from strollers.

Woolly mammoths

taking down a Seven Eleven.

Well, you will not be seeing

anything like that in this film.

But you will be seeing the hard cold

truth about the garden.

To me, my garden was

filled with sneaky,

willful creatures that seemed to enjoy

getting my dandruff up.

And worst of all,

they didn't respect me.

So I didn't respect them until

I learned to pay attention...

close attention.

Now that's harder to do than you think

Now some people can have their eyes

wide open and see nothing.

Other people can have their eyes

closed and watch reruns of Bonanza,

but that's not a problem

I want to discuss right now.

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