The Colorful, Shapeshifting Wonder of the Amazon's Praying Mantises | Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat | TED

45,563 views

2022-09-09 ・ TED


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The Colorful, Shapeshifting Wonder of the Amazon's Praying Mantises | Leo Lanna and Lvcas Fiat | TED

45,563 views ・ 2022-09-09

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:04
Leo Lanna: "The Amazon is the center of the world."
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Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum shared this quote,
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and I deeply believe it.
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And now we're taking you there.
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A journey into an alien universe.
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It is the heart of our planet,
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where the core of our biodiversity thrives
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with countless eccentric and mysterious life forms
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waiting to be discovered.
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But here's the twist.
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We're actually taking you into the Amazon rainforest at night.
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00:32
Lvcas Fiat: When night’s veil covers earth,
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rainforest becomes a new dimension
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where our spectacular and ephemeral reality arises.
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It is when darkness falls
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that this imperiled kingdom flourishes with life beyond our imagination.
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I am with Leo, alone on a trail at a national reserve.
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It is pitch dark.
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In the deep silence,
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we can hear a chorus of tree frogs and the footsteps of tapirs.
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01:00
The decayed leaves and branches crunch under our feet.
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It is hot and humid,
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and the shimmering stars watch us through the dense canopy.
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When we turn on our flashlights, there is life all around us.
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LL: Every single night, as soon as the rainforest is covered by darkness,
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a new world emerges, bursting with life.
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Fantastic animals that are real,
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extremely alive and endangered.
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Boa snakes and kinkajous, opossums and tarantulas,
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salamanders and moths.
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Animals that one might see once in a lifetime,
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as every night, the ancient and endless forest life changes.
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I'm a scientist, Lvcas is an artist.
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And we've been working together for six years.
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Our expeditions take us and our partners into the wild.
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And within this alien world of tropical rainforests,
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we’re here to show you the creature that we’ve fallen completely in love with:
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the praying mantis.
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Silent and scentless.
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Powerful and patient sage.
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Our guide on this journey through the darkness.
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02:10
LF: So why the praying mantis?
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02:12
(Laughs)
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Well, praying mantes dazzle us with their huge eyes,
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their tweezer-like legs,
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their hypnotizing swagger.
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Many of you might be afraid of insects.
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We used to be afraid too.
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But as we learned more about these tiny, mighty beings,
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our fear turned into passion.
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The search for the praying mantis became a gateway
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into a labyrinth of wonders
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in which every corner had something new to discover
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and get inspired.
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These are portraits of a variety of praying mantis
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specifically from the rainforest of Brazil.
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Which one do you identify with the most?
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(Laughter)
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Each of them could easily be a character in a sci-fi novel.
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Faces of the people from an exotic planet.
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03:00
But we share our planet with these creatures.
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There are over 2,500 species of praying mantises;
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ten percent of them are in Brazil,
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the most biodiverse country in the world.
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And we expect at least 300 more species to be discovered there.
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03:16
LL: Within their micro-world,
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they are fierce predators,
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hunting down any creature they can grasp, from mosquitoes to cicadas.
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And even, though rarely, vertebrates,
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such as frogs and birds.
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They can eat anything, from soft and yummy flies
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to armor-plated beetles.
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They can even eat and process poisonous caterpillars without harming themselves.
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And last year,
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we just published the first ever account of a praying mantis feeding on plant sap.
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A vegetarian mantis?
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Well, when walking this alien world, questions arise more often than answers.
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Speaking of poison, they have none in their bodies.
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So they rely on the physical strength of their spiky legs, called raptorials,
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and their swift moves to catch their prey.
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Their vision is highly accurate,
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precisely detecting depth through a unique 3D vision system
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in the animal kingdom, which reacts to movement.
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Their eyes synch or adapt to the light,
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changing color between day and night.
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But we're still unsure how good their night vision is,
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despite seeing them actively roam around in darkness.
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LF: Most of them are masters of camouflage,
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an ancient art meaningful on the native habitats.
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This colorful male vanishes on the grassy fields where he lives.
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Can you spot a praying mantis on these pictures?
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Yes? No?
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Well, actually, these photos are exclusively of praying mantises.
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The first looks like a dry leaf,
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the second like a stick,
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and the third like lichen.
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Their shapes range from fresh green leaves, mosses, branches,
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to everything in between.
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We are blown away by how evolution led these incredible predators to blend
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into the natural environment.
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And if they feel threatened, they can play dead.
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Or display colors like a peacock
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all within an extremely light body.
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Large males like this,
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eight centimeters long, can weigh just one gram.
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Others are even smaller.
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The more permanent changes they go through are just as awesome.
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Like other insects, they grow through molts,
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changing their skin.
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And when adults, developing wings, depending on their species.
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LL: Since the very beginning of "Projecto Mantis" six years ago,
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we've taken care of every mantis we've collected for research.
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They live in our homes with us.
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Our family and friends think of them as pets.
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This unusual, no-kill protocol, allows us to understand about their life cycles,
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behavior, and, perhaps more importantly,
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to connect them to people around us.
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Back home, there are over 40 mantises waiting for us,
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and some will live for over two years.
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This year we just discovered a new species.
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This tiny green mantis has a translucent body
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and intrigues us
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because it was found only through our non-lethal lights trap
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which attract winged males.
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We believe it lives high up in the canopy,
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out of our sight.
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And despite the advances of technology
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allowing humanity to explore the deep sea,
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outer space, the metaverse now,
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we still lack efficient tools to research and survey
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the highest parts of Amazonia,
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which is exactly where scientists expect to find the greatest biodiversity
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in the rainforests.
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On our last expedition,
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we tried night drone flights, without success.
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The creative uses of technology are part of our contemporary science,
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and we keep chasing ideas
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that could lead us to explore the unreachable treetops
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and understand more and more about mantises in the wild.
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LF: The closer you look,
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the more beautiful complexity you will find,
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like this amazing row of praying mantis wings.
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And there’s the Brazilian dragon mantis;
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the flower bud mantis; the unicorn.
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But of course, rainforest isn't just a fantasy wonderland.
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"What if you are afraid of the dark?"
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you might be wondering.
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Well, the answer is the same among explorers.
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Out there,
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surrounded by all kinds of creatures,
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the only thing we fear
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is mankind.
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And when we are back home,
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we fear that the next time we visit the rainforest again,
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it will be further destroyed.
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LL: Rainforests are delicate and endangered ecosystems
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critical to the stability of our planet.
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Most of its life remains unknown.
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And just during this single talk,
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we've lost about 15 hectares of rainforest in the Amazon of Brazil
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to deforestation.
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That's bigger than 20 football fields.
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Every 10 minutes,
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countless praying mantises gone.
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No matter how magical darkness is,
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when it covers the Amazon tonight,
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these areas will be empty.
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A silent mourning that few will hear.
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We are documenting species that may not exist in future generations.
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We’re just beginning to learn about them,
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and we are sharing our discoveries
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so that we can increase their chances of survival.
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Last October,
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we led our National Geographic-funded expedition
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"Amazon from dusk to dawn,"
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with a team of amazing scientists and storytellers
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eager to find new ways of exploring the night.
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And here,
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for the first time,
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you're going to see what happens when we expose praying mantises
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to pure ultraviolet light.
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LF: They all shine it back to us,
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in colors we could have never even dreamed of.
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A brilliant blue is some species,
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a soft and warming orange in others,
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and then all at once, on this beautiful hooded mantis.
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These colors are real,
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technology allowed us to see them with our naked eyes.
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A visible and magical fluorescence.
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Even the dead leaf mantis was certainly sparkling like liquid fire.
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And to our delight,
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the whole jungle reverberated in unimaginable colors.
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What are they trying to communicate?
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Which other secrets are we missing?
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And yet again,
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rainforest at night shows us how little we understand about its beauty.
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With hundreds of hours of nocturnal dives,
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our expeditions are filled with wonders in the rainforest zootopia.
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We are hoping these discoveries will kick off this new era
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where science, arts, technology will bloom again
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in favor of nature.
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The age of exploration on planet Earth is far from over.
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And in the nights of the rainforest, it is just beginning.
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(Both) Thank you.
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(Applause and cheers)
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