Your archive
From the archive record
For plants too, sex can be a hot and smelly affair. In most plant-insect partnerships, the pollinator seems to do most of the work by voluntarily transferring pollen from plant to plant in exchange for a meal. But an ancient lineage of plants – the cycads – takes more active steps to ensure its future with a bizarre combination of heat and smells. In the afternoon, they use heat and a toxic stench to drive insects out of male cones only to lure them into female cones in the evening with a more alluring scent. Cycads were around before the time of the dinosaurs and their six-legged puppets are a group of similarly ancient insects called thrips. The thrips make their homes among the single large cone that sits atop the cycad trunk, looking like an enormous pine cone. The thrips prefer the ma
License this footage
Broadcast-quality masters are available from Wilderness Films India.
Keep exploring
highway · industry
An experienced motor mechanic repairs a punctured car tyre using hand tools at a roadside workshop in India. The mechanic follows a step-by-step process to inspect the tyre and work on the puncture using manual equipment.
industry
Rosary Pea (Abrus precatorius), also known as Ratti or Jequirity, with mature hanging seed pods suspended from the vine. The dry pods have naturally split open, revealing the plant's distinctive bright red seeds with black tips.
industry
This archival footage documents the manufacturing of Parx denim jeans inside a large garment factory in India.
industry · architecture
Construction workers manually move a heavy mobile cement mixer up a steep hillside at a construction site in Uttarakhand, India.
industry · architecture
Construction workers carry out building work at an outdoor site in Uttarakhand, India. The footage shows workers lifting and emptying sacks of construction material, shoveling gravel and earth, and preparing materials for ongoing constructi…
industry · architecture
A timelapse records workers casting a reinforced concrete roof slab during the construction of a building.
Uttarakhand·industry · hills
Workers install glass panels and a metal safety railing on a concrete balcony at a construction site in Jabbarkhet, Uttarakhand, India.
industry · highway
A multi-storey World Trade Centre building is under construction at Nauroji Nagar in New Delhi, India. The reinforced concrete structure is surrounded by green safety netting, with tower cranes and construction equipment visible on site.