- Ooh, ooh, look at this, I see something up here, yes!
Glow worms, the entire ceiling is covered.
There are so many worms it's like looking at the stars.
(jungle music)
This is an advertisement for DreamWorks Animation.
There are few places on this planet
more magical than the island country of New Zealand.
Its coastlines are pristine, edged with crashing waves
and volcanic black sand.
Its interior is visually stunning
and seems as if it were painted
with an artist's free flowing brush
as its rolling hills naturally dip and disappear
into winding valleys that have been carved
over millions of years by the ever flowing rivers
and magnificent waterfalls.
So I think it's pretty clear to see why
the Brave Wilderness team targeted this location
as the perfect hidden island backdrop
for a project centered around the newest
How To Train Your Dragon film.
This trilogy is one of my all time favorites.
Set mainly on a remote island within
the Viking village of Berk and it centers around the idea
of humans living, eventually befriending
and ultimately thriving alongside dragons.
And while it's fair to admit that we did choose
New Zealand based on its visual and thematic similarities
to Berk, it's actually the home of real live dragons.
See that?
It's a Tuatara, a reptile that has been on our planet
for over 225 million years, but we're gonna save that
for another episode.
Today the team and I are in Waitomo and we well be going
beyond the beauty of the island's exterior
to travel deep into its underbelly
as we search for one of its most primitive,
yet brilliantly bioluminescing creatures, the glow worm.
All right guys, this is it, our official point of decent.
It's time to enter the hidden world of glow worms.
Flashlights on, here we go.
In the latest Dragon installment, the Hidden World,
we learn that there is a secret underground safe haven
where dragons can live and fly freely.
As the audience, we are introduced to this hidden world
when Hiccup and Astrid are searching
for the Night Fury dragon known as Toothless.
If you have no idea who or what I'm talking about,
then I definitely recommend you go back
and watch these movies.
Trust me, you will thank me later.
Anyways, Hiccup and Astrid enter into a cave system
that is filled with a magical glow of bioluminescence
and that is where our mission in the real world begins.
Can we find the glow of bioluminescence in nature?
Let's find out what's behind door number one.
Wow,look at that.
- [Mario] How far down does that go?
- This is cool, it's an entire spiralway that goes
all the way down to the bottom
as we start our entry into the cave system.
With flashlight beams illuminating the way,
we slowly began to descend into the darkness.
And while I wish I could've flown in on a dragon,
the entry on foot into the Waitomo cave system
is still pretty epic in its own right.
Nearly 150 feet below the surface,
you find yourself at a single rock
that is continuously splattered with dripping water.
Traditional Maori culture suggests that before entering
the caves, you cleanse your hands so as to not bring in
any negative energy into the underworld.
Another series of steel doors are prompted open
leading you through a cylindrical passageway
that finally empties you into a hidden world
that is unlike anything you have ever imagined.
(intense music)
As we slowly navigated the tunnels,
our light beams brought to life an endless maze
of Dragon looking structures.
It was in that very moment I was able to visualize
a comparison between this living world
and the hidden world of fantasy
that was so brilliantly displayed
in the franchise's most recent film.
Look at this, this is like a sheet
that just works its way down the side of the cave.
- Check that out. - Look at this one.
Looks like the wing of a dragon.
- Sure does. - You have to wonder.
Did the filmmakers get inspiration
from images like this within the caves?
That looks just like the wing of a dragon,
and in the case of A Hidden World,
it would be the Light Fury that has a wing just like that.
White, a little bit of cream colored
and it doesn't bioluminesce, but it still looks pretty cool.
At this point, it was impossible to tell
how far beneath the Earth's surface we had traveled.
It felt like miles.
In our minds it was light years,
but in actuality, it was at the most a few hundred yards.
The sheer expansiveness of the caverns
was absolutely humbling.
The natural designs of the mineral formations
were mathematically impossible to comprehend.
Especially when your brain tried to process the idea
that each and every shape took hundreds,
if not thousands of years to form.
Truth be told, it was difficult to do anything
other than marvel at the magnitude of it all.
We really were traveling through a hidden world.
Trusting our instincts, we traveled deeper into the unknown
until finally, we saw a faint glimmer
upon the cavern ceiling.
This was it, we had reached the realm of glow worms.
Ooh, ooh, look at this, I see something up here.
Turn the lights down a little bit.
- [Mario] Okay, I'll turn my lights off.
Here, let me flip to infrared red, hang on.
- Yes, glow worms, glow worms, they're everywhere!
Look at this, the entire ceiling is covered.
There are so many worms it's like looking at the stars.
Okay, let's do this because we have some worms
right in front of us here that are just the little tiny dots
but you're gonna have to go back to normal lights
to actually see what the worm itself looks like.
- All right, I'm back. - Okay.
So, there it is, that is a glow worm.
You see all these little spindly things hanging down?
Those are actually little mucous webs like fishing lines
that they use to catch their prey and just behind
the webbing, that slimy looking little creature
is the glow worm.
Okay so the first thing we probably should note
about glow worms is they're not actually worms at all.
They're actually the larva of a fungus gnat.
Okay, this is a very unique creature
with a very unique life cycle.
What you're looking at here is the second phase of its life.
They start as eggs, they turn into worms,
then they form into a pupa, eventually hatch
and turn into a gnat, so like I said,
in a sense it's not really a worm at all.
They're actually closer to, I guess you'd compare it
to like a maggot, something that starts out
in a worm type form and then turns
into something with wings.
But they have a very limited life cycle.
Only about a year in time between egg
and turning into a fly, that is
just such a bizarre looking little creature.
And what's so unique about this is the fact
that it bioluminesces, right?
So it's only a very small part of the worm
that actually glows, you may be asking yourself,
well what is bioluminescence?
The bioluminescence is actually a chemical reaction
that is happening within the worm's body.
Specialized enzymes and molecules mix with oxygen
creating energy that cause the worms to glow.
Now that glow specifically is helping
to draw in the worm's prey.
Any small insects that are flying around in this ecosystem
are drawn to that light, they get stuck in the sticky webs
and then the worm reels them in and has its meal.
Now when it comes to creatures that we could get up close
for the cameras that bioluminesce,
there are thousands of species deep beneath the ocean waves,
but these glow worms are one of the few terrestrial species
that we can actually get this close to.
Now under the bright lights like this,
these worms just kind of look like sticky boogers,
but I know what you really wanna see
is that bioluminescent glow.
Now to capture that, we need complete darkness.
We're gonna use some special techniques
with our cameras to capture that.
So let's turn down the lights, set that up
and see what sort of epic shots we can get.
- [Mario] Let's do it.
- Capturing the true splendor of glow worms
is much more difficult and time consuming
then one might think.
In the process to get the following shots
will take us multiple cameras and in total,
nearly 36 hours of recording time.
But we managed to pull off some pretty cool shots.
So without further ado, here is our most epic
glow worm moments.
(intense music)
Well how cool is that?
Exploring the hidden world of glow worms
to capture the wonder of bioluminescence on camera.
I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild.
We'll see you on the next adventure.
For over a century, the Waitomo caves and the bizarre
glowing worms have been capturing the awe and amazement
of adventure seekers.
When it comes to hidden worlds, this elaborate system
of ancient underground caverns is a place
unlike anything the Brave Wilderness team
and I have ever explored.
And while the lure of dragons may only truly exist
in the movies, it certainly wasn't hard to imagine
being perched upon the back of a winged beast,
zipping and zagging through
this underground world of wonder.
If you love dragons and adventure, make sure to check out
How To Train Your Dragon, The Hidden World.
Look for it on Blu-Ray, DVD and digital.
And don't forget to check out the bonus features
including a couple hosted by yours truly
where we go on an exciting journey behind the scenes
to learn how the filmmakers used real world animals
to inspire and bring to life the fantasy world of dragons.
(jungle music)