Guam might look like a chill island paradise, but it's got a wild secret. This place got totally overrun by sneaky invaders — we’re talking millions of tiny, creepy creatures. They slithered in, took over, and messed up the whole vibe. Ecologists? Yeah, they’ve been scrambling ever since, trying to fix the chaos. There was even this one time at a laid-back island cookout — whole pig roasting, good vibes all around — until the uninvited guests showed up. Let’s just say, the party didn’t end with dessert. Credit:
Bugs_and_Biology / Reddit
SciTech Daily / YouTube
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0:
Todiramphus cinnamominus: By desmorider, snowmanradio, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19110739
Guam rail national aviary: By lwolfartist - https://flic.kr/p/2nX6os9, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133495046
20040530-APHIS-LSC-0005: By U.S. Department of Agriculture, https://flic.kr/p/mHaAay
GuamRail02: By Greg Hume, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15405194
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Argyrodes: By Robert Webster / xpda, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67695922
Vadehavscentret: By Hjart, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129405784
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Brown tree snake: By Pavel Kirillov - https://flic.kr/p/dMbxtN, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46853510
Todirhamphus cinnamominus: By Ryan Somma - https://flic.kr/p/6sgSva, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6907398
Brown tree snake: By Pavel Kirillov - https://flic.kr/p/dMbvTy, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46853534
CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0:
Boiga irregularis: By Noah Kirkland - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/401995801, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=156712341
Argyrodes argyrodes: By Simon - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/137849832, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136685770
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Bugs_and_Biology / Reddit
SciTech Daily / YouTube
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0:
Todiramphus cinnamominus: By desmorider, snowmanradio, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19110739
Guam rail national aviary: By lwolfartist - https://flic.kr/p/2nX6os9, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133495046
20040530-APHIS-LSC-0005: By U.S. Department of Agriculture, https://flic.kr/p/mHaAay
GuamRail02: By Greg Hume, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15405194
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0:
Argyrodes: By Robert Webster / xpda, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67695922
Vadehavscentret: By Hjart, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129405784
CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0:
Brown tree snake: By Pavel Kirillov - https://flic.kr/p/dMbxtN, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46853510
Todirhamphus cinnamominus: By Ryan Somma - https://flic.kr/p/6sgSva, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6907398
Brown tree snake: By Pavel Kirillov - https://flic.kr/p/dMbvTy, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46853534
CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0:
Boiga irregularis: By Noah Kirkland - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/401995801, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=156712341
Argyrodes argyrodes: By Simon - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/137849832, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136685770
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
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https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
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For more videos and articles visit:
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00Guam is not like any other island.
00:04It should be, from the looks of it, a peaceful green paradise in the vast blue of the Pacific.
00:10But something happened here that changed this place forever.
00:15Guam was invaded by awful little creatures.
00:18Millions of them.
00:19Ecologists can't catch a break in this place.
00:22One time, they had a cool island get-together.
00:25People roasted a whole pig over a fire, laughing and talking.
00:28But when everyone stepped away for just a moment, something else decided to crash the party.
00:35When they returned, they saw it.
00:37A thick snake wrapped around the roast pig.
00:41Its eyes shimmered under the fading firelight, scales reflecting the embers.
00:46It was eating, swallowing the chunks of pork oil.
00:51A brown tree snake.
00:53This creature wasn't supposed to be here in the first place.
00:56It's an invasive species.
00:58It crept onto a cargo ship back in the 1940s.
01:02And in the years that followed, it couldn't stop bothering the island's true inhabitants, the birds.
01:08Guam was once a paradise of chirping, singing life.
01:12Its forests were home to 12 species of birds.
01:15So the air was always filled with beautiful whistles and calls.
01:18That is, until the snakes came.
01:21They slithered through the trees, finding nests, devouring eggs, and wiping out entire generations before they could even hatch.
01:30And in just 40 years, the jungle fell silent.
01:33Out of the 12 bird species, 10 are completely extinct.
01:38The last two are barely clinging on.
01:41The Guam kingfisher is a funny bird with a cute long beak.
01:45It was only saved by a last-minute effort to capture a few survivors.
01:49It went extinct in the wild.
01:51But ecologists managed to keep them in zoos for decades.
01:55And thankfully, there is great news.
01:58This year, things have improved for these guys.
02:01And now scientists released a handful of them in the jungles, about 3,600 miles away.
02:07Another barely-saved species is a Guam rail, also called Cocoa by the locals.
02:15The poor thing can't even fly.
02:17A ground bird, completely defenseless.
02:21Thankfully, people relocated these guys on other islands and helped them make it.
02:26But the true horror of the brown tree snake wasn't just its hunger.
02:30It was its stubbornness.
02:32Now, most predators only eat what they need.
02:36But brown tree snakes?
02:37They stop at nothing.
02:39These guys have zero chill.
02:41They'll go for animals that are too big for them to swallow.
02:44They'll try to eat random stuff, like trash.
02:47And if they realize that they literally took a bigger chunk than they could bite,
02:52they'll just leave the leftovers to rot.
02:55It's horrifying.
02:56When researchers were trying to understand why the birds were disappearing suddenly,
03:01they gave them tiny radio transmitters to track their movements.
03:04But every time scientists went to check on tagged birds,
03:08they kept finding the tracking signals inside the snakes or in bodies left by the snakes.
03:14Oh, and now these snakes have nothing to eat.
03:17Millions of them.
03:18You'd think they'd just give up.
03:20But nope.
03:21They decided to change their diet.
03:24Rats, lizards, garbage, each other.
03:27Yep, these guys aren't picky.
03:29What's even crazier is that it was just the beginning.
03:34Birds aren't just there to sing pretty songs.
03:36They eat things, like bugs, and help keep nature in balance.
03:40And when they disappear, you can tell because something starts taking their place.
03:46Spiders.
03:47Guam's spider population absolutely exploded.
03:51The place is drowning in silky webs and creepy little legs.
03:57Especially the banana spiders.
03:59Giant golden-bellied creatures that build sprawling webs bigger than anything seen on other islands.
04:06Or the huntsman spiders, the size of a human hand.
04:09Like the name hints, they chase their prey down the island, skittering across the jungle floor, and use fangs to inject venom quickly.
04:19Tiny Argyle Road spiders are also lurking among them.
04:23These are sneaky little thieves that steal food from their much bigger neighbors.
04:28Sometimes, they even eat those neighbors.
04:31And finally, the tent-webbed spiders, whose webs are like entire cities.
04:36They create a single mass of silk, where dozens, sometimes hundreds, of spiders live together.
04:43Some ecologists call them condo webs, like some multi-level apartment complexes.
04:49These condo webs stretch from the ground all the way up to the jungle canopy.
04:54So the forest starts looking like a Halloween party.
04:57You can rap into these things like a mummy.
05:00It became so common that hikers started carrying spider sticks.
05:04Long branches used to sweep away the webs before they got caught in their faces and clothes.
05:10Recently, in 2012, they finally decided to count all these guys.
05:15Well, you'd never guess it.
05:17From 500 to 730 million eight-legged creatures in the jungle.
05:22The island has 40 times more of them than other places nearby.
05:27Like islands of Rhoda.
05:29Tinian and Saipan combined.
05:31And that's a low estimate, because some webs are not within an arm's reach.
05:36And these guys keep evolving, too.
05:40The banana spiders usually weave something called a stabilimentum.
05:44It's a zigzag pattern of thick white silk woven through the web.
05:48Though scientists aren't entirely sure why they do it.
05:52Maybe it strengthens the web or makes them look bigger or scarier.
05:55The strongest theory is that it warns birds.
06:00The bright, thick pattern tells them not to fly around here because they'll ruin everything.
06:05Oh, but on Guam, you don't have to worry about the birds at all.
06:09So now, they stop decorating their webs entirely.
06:13The worst part is that no one really knows how to fix this.
06:17To protect one of the species called the Micronesian starling, ecologists built nest boxes.
06:23Safe enclosed spaces where the birds could raise their chicks.
06:27To make sure snakes couldn't reach them, they installed smooth metal poles beneath called baffles.
06:34The idea was simple.
06:35The poles were too wide, too slippery.
06:38The snakes wouldn't be able to climb them.
06:40Well, that was the hope.
06:41These brown tree snakes decided to lasso the poles instead of climbing them.
06:47One snake, thin as a rope, wrapped itself completely around the metal cylinder, coiling into a loop.
06:52Then it began shimmying up the pole.
06:56Scientists only discovered this in 2021.
06:58They've never seen a snake pull this one before.
07:01They literally refused to leave the birds alone.
07:05Humans have tried everything.
07:07Trapping them, building barriers, scouring the forest with flashlights at night.
07:11Setting up fences.
07:13But nothing is worth, so far.
07:16There are just way too many of those guys, and they're all too smart.
07:20Now, just so you know, the U.S. spends nearly 4 million dollars every year trying to control this disaster.
07:27But the only real success is a single tiny patch of land at Anderson Air Force Base.
07:33Scientists managed to drive down the snake population there using bait.
07:37But the truth is slowly sinking in.
07:41The snakes aren't leaving.
07:42Humans can send rockets to space, but this?
07:45Well, this is too much.
07:47That also means that Guam Island will start looking entirely different soon.
07:52Guam's forests always felt mysterious and kind of creepy, even without the invaders.
07:57There's no soil, no soft place to step.
07:59Instead, it's all jagged, broken limestone.
08:03Everything is full of razor-sharp rock left behind by an ancient coral reef.
08:08It was being pushed up over millions of years.
08:12Trees force their roots into the cracks.
08:15Everything is packed with twisting and curling plants.
08:18Breadfruit trees.
08:20Prehistoric-looking cycads.
08:22Spiky pandanus trees.
08:24And just as a cherry on top, a typhoon comes ripping through every few years, tearing it
08:30all apart.
08:31Luckily, plants usually grow back fiercely.
08:34Now, walking there is insane.
08:37It feels like walking in the sea, though instead of balancing on waves, you're trying not to
08:41trip and gas your shins open on the sharp rocks beneath you.
08:45You have to think through every step.
08:48But now, things are gonna get so much worse.
08:5070% of Guam's trees relied on birds to carry their seeds, spreading them far and wide.
08:57So, without the help of birds, the trees drop their fruit directly to the ground, where it
09:02sits and rots.
09:03So nothing grows.
09:05Well, perhaps the invaders' rule over Guam may last forever.
09:09And soon, this place won't be friendly to tourists at all.
09:12It may become one of the worst places on Earth, if it isn't already.
09:17That's it for today.
09:21So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
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