Home / Series / Expedition Guyana / Aired Order / Season 1 / Episode 2

The team pushes further into the jungle wilderness, searching for the unusual and endangered animals that live there. Not all the animals coming into the camp are welcome. Dr George McGavin is stung by a scorpion and there is a poisonous centipede in the women's hammocks. The Guyanese forest is not a place for the squeamish. George finds the world's largest tarantula – the Goliath bird-eating spider – living in a hole near camp. Steve Backshall joins Dr Phil Willink on the first fish survey of the Upper Essequibo River. Phil is one of the team of scientists cataloguing this remarkably unspoilt forest's natural riches. Their first catch is black piranha, the largest of all the piranha species, then giant Banana catfish and (living in its gills and feeding off its blood) the parasitic vampire catfish (or candiru) – notorious for its ability to lodge inside the human body as well. Strangest of all is a sabre-toothed fish (truly a creature of nightmares), but most exciting for Phil is a much smaller fish that has never been found by scientists before. Guyana's rainforest stretches over the border into Venezuela and meets a range of table-top mountains. Steve attempts to be the first to climb a formidable mountain to explore its unknown habitat. On all sides there is a 350 metre vertical wall of rock that has resisted any attempt by climbers. On the rock face, Steve and the climbing team make camp 115 metres above the ground on tiny collapsible nylon ledges. Gordon and George penetrate deeper into the jungle, with the aim of reaching the headwaters of a river rumoured to have a wide abundance of giant animals that show little fear of people. But first, they have to find their way round a ferocious set of rapids.

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  • Runtime 50 minutes
  • Network BBC One
  • Created January 22, 2015 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified January 22, 2015 by
    Administrator admin