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"Flight of the Pollinators" is the 32nd episode of Season 1 of Wild Kratts, originally airing on PBS Kids on March 30, 2012.[1] The episode was written and directed by Chris Kratt.
In this episode, a miniaturized Chris gets stuck on a honey bee while trying to get some footage of it. As the rest of the crew tries to find him, Chris learns about the relationship between pollinators and flowers.
Plot[]
The episode begins with a live action segment. The Kratt brothers find bees going from flower to flower in a meadow. Afterwards, they ask their "What if?" question and the show transitions into the cartoon segment.
Chris has just landed on a flower Martin and Aviva are near.
A miniaturized Chris rides his Buzz Bike up from the forest floor, flings himself, and lands on a flower Martin and Aviva (they are normal size) are near. He enters the inside of the flower, and soon after, a honeybee arrives. Martin names it Beast, who starts drinking the flower's nectar. Chris gets some camera footage, but Beast bumps into him and he sticks to her. Beast then takes off. Martin and Aviva chase after Beast, but they get confused and bump into each other. They then return to the Tortuga and tell the rest of the Wild Kratts that they "lost Chris". Martin exits to search for Chris.
Meanwhile, Beast lands on another flower. She deposits pollen grains into a stamen, and in doing so, she bumps Chris onto the stamen as well. Chris is dizzy and his head gets covered in pollen. Chris then dumps a couple of pollen grains into the flower's pistil. Chris is then able to make contact with the Tortuga, allowing them to pinpoint his location. Suddenly, a crab spider pounces on Beast. Beast is able to fly away. The spider then turns its attention to Chris. Martin finds Chris, but just when he is about to catch him falling down from the flower, a hummingbird bumps into Chris and carries him off.
Martin continues his search for Chris. He finds a bush of red, tube-shaped flowers. (He knows that hummingbirds are attracted to the color red.) The hummingbird Chris is on arrives at the same flower. Martin holds out a life-ring for Chris to grab onto, but when the hummingbird nears the flower, an eyelash viper knocks the life-ring away, and consequently, the hummingbird flies away. Chris notices that hummingbirds perch after he nicknames the one he is on Flash. He lets go of Flash by grabbing onto a leaf as Flash flies away. Chris calls Martin, but he falls into a fig gourd.
On the next day, several fig wasps hatch in the fig gourd Chris is in. He hangs onto one as they exit through the hole at the top. Aviva finishes building a giant contraption called the Pollinator Attractor to attract pollinators. She guarantees that the pollinator Chris is with will be attracted to it. She turns the machine on, and a swarm of pollinators, including the wasp Chris is on, arrive, blanketing the machine. Martin overhears Chris's call, and he activates his Bee Creature Power Suit after a bee stings him. Martin grabs Chris in time before his fig wasp enters another fig gourd. While Martin continues his flight, Chris throws pollen onto various pollinators. At the end, the Wild Kratts summarize the relationship between pollinators and flowers while eating figs up in a tree.
The show transitions into the concluding live action segment. The Kratt brothers head to a farm. They follow some bees around, pick yellow zucchini, and after finding a chipmunk eating seeds on a tree, they plant zucchini seeds. Afterwards, they conclude the episode by saying "Keep on creature adventuring; we'll see you on the creature trail!"
Characters[]
Jimmy Z is showing Aviva and Koki young, self-planted plants.
Animals[]
Animation[]
Note: Featured animals are in bold.
- Western Honey Bee: Beast
- Emerald-chinned Hummingbird: Flash
- American Fig Wasp: Figgy
- Kinkajou
- Goldenrod Crab Spider
- Eyelash Viper
Live Action[]
Note: Live action animals are linked to Wikipedia.
- Bumblebee
- Wasp
- Japanese beetle (called Beetle)
- Eastern chipmunk (called Chipmunk)
Trivia[]
- This is the first episode where Chris is naming an animal.
- This is the first episode with a really true graphical error.
Key facts and Creature Moments[]
- Animals can help flowers pollinate by delivering pollen from their stamens down to another flower's pistil. From there, seeds grow.
- Pollinators not only pollinate flowers, but they also drink their nectar, which is one way they they depend on flowers for food.
- Fig wasps pollinate figs by laying eggs inside a fig, the eggs hatch into larvae that mature into adult wasps, chewing through the fig opening and carrying pollen on their bodies to pollinate other fig trees.
- Honeybees use their proboscis to slurp up nectar and then carry pollen rubbed onto their bodies to pollinate other flowers they visit.
- Some predators like crab spiders camouflage themselves amongst flowers to ambush and kill prey like honey bees.
- An eyelash viper hiding amongst flowers to hunt a hummingbird.
References[]
- ↑ "Wild Kratts - Flight of the Pollinators." KET. Retrieved February 10, 2015.