Fabulous Insects

The biomass of ants and humans in the world is about the same. Next to mankind, ants are probably the most adaptable creatures on the planet. Why are ants so numerous in the world and therefore so successful; and have been so successful for 100 million years, long before the T-Rex appeared on Earth? What is it that makes them the most common animals in the world? Is it their highly social way of life or is it their enormous adaptability to a wide variety of habitats? Do they owe their success to a kind of swarm intelligence? Can we learn anything from ants?

No other group of animals on earth is so diverse: beetles come in a wide variety of "models", from miniature versions a quarter of a millimetre in size to large versions seventeen centimetres long. Beetles are extremely successful: they live on land and in water. In winter and summer. From the high mountains to the seashores. Beetles eat plants, fungi, dead wood, carrion, dung and even other beetles. Many of them are predatory and prey on anything they can overpower. Beetles have superpowers. The strongest insect in the world is the bull beetle. It can lift more than a thousand times its own body weight. Step by step, the film answers the question of what makes beetles so successful.