Graveyard Desert

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“Graveyard Desert”
The Future Is Wild episode
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 12
Written by	Victoria Coules
Original airdate	–
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "The Global Ocean" "The Tentacled Forest"

Graveyard Desert is the twelfth episode in the documentary series The Future Is Wild. It is set in a rainshadow desert on the eastern side of Earth's only continent, 200,000,000 years into the future. Wedged between this desert and the Global Ocean is a series of very tall mountain ranges (which are comparable to the Andes in today's world) which are tall enough to block even the most powerful storms. At this point in the future, there are no mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians. There are very few fish. The episode focuses on four species:

• Bumblebeetle - a species of beetle that has been pushed to the edge of specialisation. They spend their lives searching for dead flish which are a good food source for their young.
• Desert Hopper - a bizzare rabbit-sized cone snail that hops about on one muscular foot. They tend to bury themselves during the heat of the day and only come out at the cool of the night.
• Deathbottle - a carnivorous plant, that has traps to feed on the Desert Hoppers.
• Ocean Flish (shown dead,animal from previous episode).

The desert has little food so the animals here must make use of what they can find. During violent ocean storms, some ocean flish are thrown over the mountains and land in the dry desert where they die. Adult bumblebeetles spend their entire lives searching for these dead ocean flish so they can lay their larva in them. This episode talks how the deathbottle, a carnivorous plant that eats desert hoppers, breeds.