TV series Animal Homes: Natural Born Engineers (2015) - episode 3: animal cities

A home is a safe and secure structure that protects us from the things we cannot control, like the weather and intruders. To most, a home’s essential purpose is to provide a stable and safe location for raising a family. Animals build homes for very similar reasons to our own – but they have been doing it for much longer. Their homes are built with great complexity, usually with found materials, but sometimes with materials made from their own bodies. While we marvel at the perfect orb of a spider’s web or the soft lichen-covered cup of a hummingbird’s nest, we realise that these structures frequently exceed the capacities of human engineered materials. Animal home building is all around us – and yet is often overlooked as an intriguing aspect of the natural world and animal behaviour. This three-part series peers deep into the lives of animal homebuilders across the globe in a variety of habitats, to explore the fascinating world of animal architecture and home life. Ecologist Chris Morgan is hosting the show and acts, in part, as our animal real estate agent, evaluating animal homes, their material, location, neighbourhood and aesthetics. With the help of CGI and graphical overlays we highlight engineering principles of animal homes, while Chris Morgan tries to construct a nest in a specially created warehouse setting. We investigate how skillful and diverse animal engineering and architecture can be, and explore the intriguing behaviours and social interactions that take place in and around animal homes.