Reasons to Love

Synopsis

Too many legs? Feathers? Tentacles as arms? Behold, there’s more to nature’s greatest than fluffy cuteness! This fast-paced documentary covers three major topics found over and over again in the natural world: family ties, genius and environmental impact.

We watch as singles or tight-knit family groups care for their offspring, feeding them, showing them how to sandbathe or swim and teaching them how to identify danger. Love is all around when Sri Lankan blue magpie chicks hatch!

Desert mole rats live in clusters underground, with each cluster led by a queen. Just like with ants, the queen’s job is to hold the group together by remaining in the background and producing more and more offspring. But the seemingly idyllic monarchy becomes challenging when the queen dies and fights break out over her succession.

Big or small: frog fathers are caring creatures, keeping their offspring well-fed and, most importantly, wet. Whether you’re a tadpole or a human, there’s plenty of reason to love these slimy creatures for their loving nature!

They are considered dirty animals that wallow in mud for fun – but pigs are actually incredibly smart and are able to solve puzzles and mazes. And the wallowing? It keeps them cool and the pesky flies away.

Slimy cephalopods are intriguingly able to blend into the background suddenly when hiding from predators and rivals or hunting for prey.

Bugs are rarely welcome guests at the evening barbecue, unless they are a special kind: fireflies fascinate us with their mesmerising lights.

Cawing crows show they’re among the world’s best problem solvers when it comes to working with what they have: a beak and, sometimes, a twig. They even have adapted to living in our cities, where they enjoy the high life.

While beavers were once considered pests and hunted mercilessly, we now know that they are nature’s architects, providing water and shelter to many other species by building their famous dams. Birds find safe places to nest in the stagnant water, passing deer stop to drink and the water is filled to the brim with insects and fish.

Nature’s most dangerous birds, cassowaries, play an important role in keeping their environment healthy and green, as do fruit bats. The latter are feared by many, hunted in their thousands and considered nocturnal bloodsuckers – although they are, in fact, vegetarian.

Cleaner wrasse are the cleaning personnel underwater – no one stays dirty or covered in algae when they are about. By carefully watching the wrasse, we find out that sharks are not bloodthirsty hunters that murder everything in their way. Instead, they greatly appreciate the tiny fish that offer them a spa treatment.

In this film, we experience the many reasons to love the feathery, the slimy, and the apparently dangerous – and draw attention to the fact that we might need to rethink our general perception of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the natural world.

A production of Terra Mater Studios