Simpsons The XXX Parody (Simpsons: The XXX Parody)

Imagine a world where temperatures rise to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Where there's no escape from sun, wind and dust.

Imagine a world with almost no food or water.

These are the conditions in

one third of the lands of our planet.

To live here demands the most extraordinary survival strategies.

This is the oldest desert in the world.

The Namib in south-west Africa.

It's been dry for 55 million years.

Life here for a hunter is as hard as it gets.

A pride of lions.

One of the very few that endures this desert's scorching temperatures

and lack of water.

Hunting here presents special problems.

A herd of oryx, the only prey within 20 miles.

Out here, there is no cover for an ambush.

It'll have to be a straight chase.

They have failed

and each failed hunt brings the lions closer to starvation.

To find enough to eat,

the pride continually searches an area the size of Switzerland.

Three days and 100 miles later, and still no kill.

These are desperate times.

A dry riverbed on the edge of their territory.

The only animals here are giraffe,

but these one-tonne giants could kill a lion with a single kick.

Lions seldom tackle such formidable prey...

...but this pride can't go on much longer without food.

The whole pride must work together as a team if they're to succeed.

Two lionesses lead the chase.

Others race to cut off possible escape routes.

The giraffe has the speed and stamina to outrun the pride...

...but it's being chased into a trap.

Up ahead, the lead female waits.

It's now up to her.

Most lion hunts end in failure.

But no lions fail more often than those that live in the desert.

Once again, the pride must continue their search.

It does, sometimes, rain in the desert.

Here, in the American West, storms can strike with devastating force.

After ten months of drought,

millions of tonnes of water are dumped on the land in under an hour.

Over millions of years,

sand and gravel carried by the rampaging floods

have carved channels through the solid rock.

Slot canyons, 150 feet deep.

In some places, these canyons have widened

until the land between them is sculpted into tablelands

and isolated pinnacles,

some of the most dramatic landscapes on the planet.

The rain may be long gone...

...but there is water here...

...locked away within the tissues of specialist desert plants.

Cacti are unique to American deserts.

They all hoard water,

storing it in swollen stems

and protecting it behind a barricade of spines.

They're so successful that they dominate these deserts.

But this forest of spikes can cause

problems for the animals that live here.

A Harrisxxx hawk.

It has developed special techniques for hunting amongst the cacti.

Ground squirrels.

Prey.

At the first sign of danger they bolt for the safety of the thorns.

But the hawks have a tactic to flush them out.

These are the only birds of prey that hunt in packs.

Flying in formation, they try to drive their quarry into the open.

But this squirrel is staying put.

So now the hawks continue the hunt...

...on foot.

They're closing in from all sides.

Soon, all escape routes are cut off.

The squirrel is trapped.

The spines that cover almost every plant in this desert

can provide protection and shelter for many animals.

So, why should these spikes be hung with corpses?

What kind of creature could be responsible

for creating such a gruesome scene?

There's a mysterious killer at work in this desert.

It's a butcherbird.

This little songbird uses the spines as a butcher uses his hook...

to hold its prey as it dismembers it.

And with chicks to feed, he also uses the spines as a larder.

He's been stocking it for weeks.

Hanging his prey out of the reach of scavengers on the ground

ensures that his newly hatched young will never go hungry.

An ingenious solution to making the good times last in the desert...

...if a little macabre.

Some deserts are so arid,

they appear totally devoid of all vegetation.

Yet even these landscapes can be transformed in a matter of days.

The deserts of Peru are amongst the driest in the world,

but just add a little water and plants that have lain dormant

for months will burst into life.

And when a desert suddenly turns green,

even the most seemingly desolate can become a land of opportunity.

No creature exploits the greening of a desert more quickly

or more dramatically than a locust.

Madagascar's arid south-west

has received its highest rainfall in years.

Now, an army is on the march,

attracted by the smell of newly sprouting grass.

Locusts are normally solitary creatures,

but when food becomes suddenly plentiful they come together

into an unstoppable force that devours everything in its path.

But this devastation is about to get a lot worse.

The locusts now transform into winged adults,

and with conditions as good as this,

they do so three times faster than normal.

Now they are at their most voracious...

and with wings, they can take to the skies.

Once airborne, the locusts can travel over 60 miles a day

in their search for new feeding grounds.

A super swarm of this scale may only appear once in a decade.

This one extends over 200 square miles

and contains several billion individuals.

Between them, they will devour 40,000 tonnes of food in a day.

Nothing can strip a land of its vegetation with such speed

and thoroughness as a plague of locusts.

When the food eventually runs out, the whole army will die...

but not before it's devastated the land.

With no plants to bind them,

thin soils soon turn to dust and blow away.

Now, these barren lands are left to the mercy of the elements.

Scorched by the sun and scoured by windblown sand,

desert rock is shaped into strange, otherworldly landscapes.

These rocky deserts may have a beguiling beauty,

but when they become this barren, very little life can endure.

For many animals, the only way to survive the most hostile times

is to keep moving.

In the Kalahari, brief rains have given way to the dry season.

Food and water are becoming increasingly scarce.

For these zebra, it's time to leave.

They're setting off on

the longest overland migration made by any mammal in Africa,

marching towards the scent of distant rains.

As drought intensifies,

desert-living elephants must also undertake long journeys

in search of water.

The older females can remember where,

even in times of extreme drought, there may still be water

and sometimes lead the herd to a water hole they may not have visited

for decades.

These zebra are almost at the end of their journey.

This is what they've been heading for...

...a rare water hole.

In deserts, most water holes are short lived.

They appear after rains,

but then vanish almost as quickly as they came.

Animals have come here from many miles around.

Yet this can be a dangerous place in which to linger.

60 miles away, in the heart of the desert,

sandgrouse chicks are hatching.

It's safer for them to be here.

But being so distant from water is a gamble.

With only their mother to shield them from the sun,

if they get nothing to drink, they will be dead within hours.

Their only hope is their father.

Every morning he makes the 120-mile round trip

to get water for the family.

Grouse from all over the desert visit this oasis,

arriving together in large flocks,

and that is important.

There's safety in numbers.

The male snatches a drink,

but he also needs to collect water for his chicks.

Using specially adapted breast feathers,

he can soak up water like a sponge.

But it takes time, and he is in danger.

Goshawk.

Sandgrouse here are their main prey.

Again and again, the male sandgrouse risk their lives

in order to collect water for their chicks.

This is why sandgrouse nest so far from water holes.

At last, he's soaked up as much as he can.

Carrying a quarter of his body weight in water,

he can now set off on the long journey home.

He's back, and just in time.

He can give the chicks their first ever drink.

But he will have to undertake this perilous journey every day

for the next two months until his chicks can finally make the flight

to the water hole for themselves.

It's July in the deserts of Nevada in the western United States.

The hottest time of the year.

Bands of wild horses, mustang,

are converging on one of the last remaining water holes for miles.

Now, water not only offers them the chance to drink,

it can also bring power.

If a stallion can control access to water,

he will have secured mating rights to the entire herd.

So stallions try to dominate these pools,

fighting off rivals who venture too close.

A stranger.

He's travelled ten miles to be here

because the pools where he's come from have already dried up.

With him come his females.

If he can't provide them with water, they will leave him

for the white stallion who already dominates this pool.

So, he will have to fight.