The sights, smells, and sounds of the deep jungle; a giant moth with a foot-long tonque, an oversized tarantula that feast on chickens, and a band of chimpanzees capable of murder are just some of the headline acts viewers can look forward to in the upcoming PBS "Nature" mini-series

"Deep Jungle" would not have been possible without the help of an enormous number of people. Some are well-respected scientists and researchers like Cipolletta, and some are not. A local Brazilian knew everything there was to know about nut-cracking monkeys long before the scientists did. Moreover, during a hunting sequence with the Byaka, Allen made fast friends with an ex-truck driver from New York City who had been living with the pygmies for more than 10 years. Still, the experts in the field proved invaluable, particularly when they came equipped with Superman-like abilities. Take canopy researcher Roman Dial, who performs his job 229 feet above ground--at the top of the tall rain forest trees. Using a cross-bow, Roman can move from tree to tree--staying up for days at a time. The subject of his research is not the wildlife, but the trees themselves. He believes they are the key to a better understanding of how the jungle works. Step one was to make a map of this new world, which he created using a laser beam, and a global positioning system linked to a computer to measure the volume of the jungle's trees and to plot the spaces between them. His technique turns complex vegetation into the first ever 3D-jungle map, which can take us on a virtual tour through the canopy. One of the most unusual experts we consulted during filming was Martin Nicholas, aka the real "Spider-Man." By day, Nicholas sells water treatment systems. In his spare time he is a tropical spider enthusiast. Using the "spider-cam," Nicholas set out to track down the legend of a chicken-eating spider with legs as thick as a man's finger--which he believes is some kind of unrecorded species of tarantula. While there are 800 known kinds of tarantulas, even the biggest only eat insects and small amphibians. So, while the idea of spiders dragging chickens round the backyards of Peru sounded absurd, it was enough to spur an enthusiast like Nichols--along with our cameras--halfway across the globe.

Perhaps the single most important members of the crew were the local trackers. Their expertise came in particularly handy in the rain forests of central Africa, where even the largest of all animals is famous for its ability to appear for a moment, and then melt back into the dense tangle of leaves. About all we do know about forest elephants is that there are hundreds of thousands of them. However, what they do in the forest, or where they go, largely remains a mystery. Until now. Thanks to Byaka pygmies, who once guided ivory hunters into the jungle by the boatload, biologist Steve Blake of the Wildlife Conservation Society managed to locate the elephants, who run away the moment they are spotted. To get Blake and team vet Mike Kock close to the giant jungle beasts without getting them killed by a 5,500-pound, charging elephant was a job that fell to a tracker named Mambelume, who turned out to be pretty handy with a tranquilizer gun. In the end, "Nature" captured the crew on an important, pioneering mission to place tracking collars on the elusive forest elephant. The 30-pound collars act like a mobile phone attached to a GPS. Twice a day, they beam the elephants' location via satellite to the Internet where the animals' journey will be plotted every day for two years. In time, we will solve the mystery of where the elephants go in the forests of the Congo.