Sri Lanka 2 Deadly 60

My name's Steve Backshall.

Woooo!

And this is my search... for the Deadly 60.

That's not just animals that are deadly to me,

but animals that are deadly in their own world.

My crew and I are travelling the planet.

And you're coming with me!

Every step of the way.

Deadly.

This time on Deadly 60, we're in Sri Lanka,

a paradise island in the middle of the Indian Ocean,

and it's packed full of deadly animals.

Found just off the tip of southern India,

the small island of Sri Lanka, at about half the size of England,

packs a punch well above its size.

'Sri Lanka has already delivered some mighty mammals.

'We've filmed the largest animal ever known to have lived here,

'but this time, we're seaborne on a search for something

'rather smaller, but a real toxic treat.'

Whoa, look at the size of it!

'Last time on land, we tangled with a hefty elephant,

'but now I'm aiming to film a big cat,

'in what has to be the best place on Earth to see leopards.

'But our first target is a crocodile,

'the most common species on the continent.

'It's known as the mugger crocodile,

'which translates as "the water monster".'

They can grow to five metres in length,

and have a broad, stout snout to deliver a bone-crushing bite.

They're an underwater stalker,

the eyes, ears and nostrils situated on the top of the head,

so the body can stay concealed, while they scan for a likely target.

To find one in the daytime would be a real test,

and this stretch of water allows me to demonstrate why that is.

Mugger crocodiles are by far the most common species of crocodile

found in this part of the world, and quite often they are found,

like here, very close to human beings.

However, because there are people around here all the time,

they tend to be quite shy.

There is, though, a way that I can absolutely prove to you

that there are muggers living here.

To do that though, I'm going to have to stop this water.

This is actually an artificial stream.

It's draining a big reservoir that's up there,

and we can shut off the water, and when that happens,

I can show you something quite remarkable

about the lives of mugger crocodiles.

'These silent hunters spend much of their lives hidden in

'murky freshwater ponds and lakes,

'but by draining this stream, I can reveal their hidden world,

'to show you where the crocs are hiding.'

Right, the water level's dropped substantially now.

Let's see what we can find.

OK.

Well, that's a start.

Right there.

That is a mugger crocodile burrow.

And you can this spoil pile here, this large area of sand

that's been dug out by the crocodile and left behind.

Let's see if we can find something a bit bigger than that.

'Considering these crocs can get up to five metres long,

'I'm looking for a burrow fit for a king.'

Oh, wow, that's more like it. Oh, yes!

Now that is a PROPER burrow.

Mugger crocodiles actually build burrows for two purposes.

The first one is for when they have extremes of temperature,

so usually for hibernating if it's very, very hot,

or very, very cold, they'll go deep into these burrows

and it keeps them protected from exposure from the elements.

The other is a so-called guard burrow which is built

for a female to be close to her nest, so she can protect it.

These burrows can go ten metres, 20 metres back into the ground,

and they're dug by both males and females with their powerful feet.

And you can see that this one here is pretty big, actually.

I mean, I reckon I could just about get in that, actually.

Several species of crocodilian dig burrows along the banks

of lakes and rivers.

Underground, the temperature remains stable,

while outside it can be baking hot, or in some locations, freezing cold.

Protected from extremes in temperature,

the mugger croc can easily lie up and rest for months on end.

This could be one of the reasons crocodiles have been so successful.

In lean times, they can lay up and do nothing.

It's enabled them to outlast even the dinosaurs.

'Having found a big burrow,

'I can't resist the temptation to take a peek inside.'

I've got a camera here that records in infrared,

so it can still see in darkness.

Let's see what we can get.

The way it works is that this portion that I'm in now

would all be underwater.

So all of this, when the river level comes up,

will be completely submerged.

But then it comes up into a chamber that has air in it.

So back there somewhere is probably where the crocodile is right now.

It'll wait there during the day if it's too hot,

and then probably come out at night.

'This is a highly populated part of Sri Lanka,

'and during the daytime, the crocs tend to stay hidden.

'At night, though, they should show themselves.

'To give them a little incentive,

'I laid out some chunks of chicken to entice them out into the open.'

(Now that the light's gone, we've set up an infrared camera.

(So this can see even in total darkness,

(by firing out a beam of infrared light which should be invisible

(to the animals and will bounce back off everything we see.

(And this camera should be able to see everything in front of us.)

'After a few hours of waiting, a burning eye appears.'

(OK, he's out.

(Out of the burrow now.

(Properly into the stream.

(It's now sat right at the entrance to the burrow.

(All that we can see so far is just the eye shine.

(That's all that's exposed above the surface of the water is the eye,

(and it's reflecting back light from our infrared light

(that we've got on top of the camera.

(To begin with, it's going to be very cautious.

(It's going to be very, very careful that nothing out here

(is any danger to it before it emerges.

(And when it does that, I'm really, really hoping it's going to pick up

(the scent of our bait.

(Oh, that was fantastic!

(It just gave a great big blink from the nictitating membrane.

(That's the third eyelid which it uses to cover its eye when it dives.

(You see the eye blinking both from the side, from below and above.

(That's incredible.)

I'm going to get this chunk of meat in on a string.

'Johnny can see through his viewfinder,

'but I don't dare turn on my torch and spook him.

'I have to rely entirely on Johnny to let me know what's happening.'

(Fishing for mugger crocodiles in the middle of the night,

(and I can't see anything at all.

(All I can do is listen.)

(He's just moved up a bit.)

(Just made a full-on pounce at the chicken,

(and is now waiting on the other side of the stream again.)

(He's gone under.)

(Can you...? What can you see?

(Close to the chicken?)

Oh-h! Ooh, going to lose my fingers here.

OK, so he's got a hold of it now. I can feel it.

Just tugging gently on the string.

I don't want to make him feel that he can't take it.

It's very, very odd knowing that I've got a crocodile

on the end of this line and I can't see it.

(I wish I could see what's going on!)

'Although I can't see anything,

'our bait definitely seems to be going down a treat,

'and Johnny gets some fantastic footage on the night camera,

'seeing our crocodile snapping down an easy chicken dinner.'

(This is crazy.)

There he is.

Oh-h, yes!

Fantastic.

What an animal.

With its bulldog appearance, its power, its jaws, that incredible

burning eye shine, the mugger crocodile is definitely on my list.

They can remain hidden in the shallowest waters,

and possess a potent bite force.

The water monster of Sri Lanka - spooky.

Deadly.

'Our next objective is out in the Indian Ocean,

'but we're never off-duty, and this place is so rich with wildlife

'that even urban gardens have animals on offer.'

Just pulled into our driver's house,

and as we were pulling into the driveway,

saw a big old snake heading under here.

'The shape, size and colour match that of the cobra,'

common round here and lethally venomous.

I'm taking great care where I put my hands.

Just give us a shout if you see anything, chaps,

even if it's a tail.

Oh! Hey!

'As it shot past, I could see it wasn't a venomous cobra.'

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

Fantastic!

Well...

Well, it made a break for freedom,

and it's one of the more common snakes

found in this part of the world.

It's a common rat snake,

and they're really rather wonderful animals.

As you can see, it's twisting its whole body to escape my grasp.

And very, very quick indeed.

It's incredibly rapid.

But this is a snake that people genuinely do want to have

in their back garden, because it's not venomous,

it's not going to do any harm whatsoever to people,

but what it does do is feed on the rodents that nobody wants

around their house.

So this will munch down rats, Indian gerbils,

and it could quite easily eat two or three of those in a night.

This snake really demonstrates the problem that snakes face here

in Sri Lanka.

At first sight, there is no way you could tell it apart from a cobra.

So, obviously, if people perceive this as being a dangerous,

highly venomous snake, the first thing they'll do is kill it.

And that would be an absolute tragedy,

because it's not only harmless, but extremely beneficial.

'This is just the beginning of a full-on serpent odyssey.

'We're going to be trawling the seas in search of a slithering

'sub-aquatic subject.'

For our next target animal, we're going fishing,

but the animal we're looking for isn't a fish.

Instead, it's something that preys on what's caught in these nets.

It's one of the most venomous creatures on the planet -

the hook-nosed sea snake.

There are over 60 different types of sea snake,

including some of the most venomous snakes on earth.

Some species can grow up to two metres in length

and use their paddle-like tail to help them swim at speed

through the water, hunting down fish.

Spending most of their lives out at sea, they don't have gills,

so they have to come to the surface to breathe,

but can spend two hours underwater when they need to.

Our hunt is for the most venomous species of them all -

the hook-nosed sea snake.

'This lagoon is a haven for fishermen,

'but sometimes when they haul up their nets,

'they find a highly toxic sea snake tangled inside.

'We're paying them all a visit, in the hope of finding one.

'After five hours at sea, we get lucky.'

Just had a shout from this boat here. Seems they've got something.

I think I can see it hanging over the edge of the boat.

Is that it? Yes, it is!

Whoa, look at the size of it! It's huge!

Agh!

'Bumpy seas are not the ideal place to tangle with one of the world's

'most venomous snakes.' Yeah, yeah, yeah!

OK, yeah, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it.

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!

This would have to be one of the most unusual-looking snakes

I have ever seen.

You can really see how this snake gets its name.

It genuinely has a hooked nose.

The scale, at the end of the upper jaw, points downwards,

and then the two halves of the lower jaw

are very clearly split, so you get this incredible pincer-like

arrangement which is perfect for catching hold of slippery fish.

The fangs are at the front of the mouth on the top jaw.

They're short, they're stout, they're downward-pointing

and they don't move, they're not hinged like the fangs of a viper.

So it stabs those into its food, injecting a neurotoxic venom.

That is a venom that affects the nervous system, the heart

and the respiratory system as well of the fish that it's feeding on.

And this has one of the most potent toxins found in any venom

of any snake on Earth. And it has to be that way,

because the things that it's feeding on are very quick.

What it needs to do is to stop them struggling very quickly.

There are fish in these waters that have spines, some of them venomous.

They can actually put up an awful lot of fight.

But if they've had venom pumped into them and they die very quickly,

that means much, much less danger for the sea snake.

Looking at the underside of this snake,

it's got this great, big, long groove running down the belly.

Their skin is really slack running over the top of it.

This means that this snake could take in very large fish prey

and swell to bring them in.

Most sea snakes really are no potential danger to human beings.

They're not at all aggressive, they have very, very small mouths,

small fangs and it's difficult for them to land a bite,

even if they wanted to.

That's not really the case with the hook-nosed sea snake.

It's one of the very few that can actually land a potentially

fatal bite on a human being. The hook-nosed sea snake -

it can hold its breath for a couple of hours,

and it has a venom that could stop a fish moving in a matter of seconds.

It's kind of ugly, but I reckon it's full-on deadly.

The hook-nosed sea snake has me hooked, and is seriously...

Deadly.

'Sri Lanka may be the best place in the world to see this next animal,

'and it's a real feline favourite.'

We've come to Yala National Park.

It's the most famous national park in Sri Lanka

and one of the most beautiful,

and we're here to find Sri Lanka's largest cat, the leopard.

These leopards are the largest found anywhere on Earth,

which means the legendary leopard bite and pounce

is even more effective.

Leopard use stealth and camo colours to creep within metres of their mark

before making a decisive leap.

In most of Asia, leopards are out-competed by tigers,

but Sri Lanka has no tigers.

This makes leopards top cat.

They're bigger, bolder, more brazen,

and they're Sri Lanka's number one predator.

Here in Yala National Park, there's probably a higher density

of leopards than anywhere else on Earth. But that said,

this is still a leopard, so finding them isn't going to be easy.

'Which means we have to be as canny as the big cats themselves.'

One of the best ways of actually trying to find a predator

is to use the eyes and the ears of the other animals in the forest,

because they're looking out for these animals at all times.

'It's not long before we get our first lead.'

Stop, stop, stop!

DEER CALLS

That call there is the alarm call of a spotted deer

which is always given in response to a predator,

and round here, that is a leopard.

OK, let's go, let's go.

'In this dense undergrowth, a leopard could be a few metres away

'and we wouldn't see it.

'And when we finally find the spotted deer,

'they're no longer alarm-calling.'

Spotted deer are the most common deer found in this part of the world

and one of the main constituents of the leopard's diet.

This small herd behind me now has quite a small fawn with them,

which explains why they're quite skittish.

Why they're instantly keen to keep moving away from us.

Always on the lookout for the presence of leopard.

But our strapping felines will also take more sturdy prey.

These are wild water buffalo.

They're a really big, large, stocky animal,

and they have the broadest horns of any cow around the world.

It's quite a menacing beast, and they're fully capable

of forming into groups to protect themselves against predators.

But believe it or not, there have been instances of leopards

actually taking down fully-grown water buffalo.

And leopards are opportunists.

Nothing furred or feathered is safe.

A good deal of their prey is made up of things like this - peafowl.

And a peacock like this has a very obvious handicap

to being caught by a leopard - that massive tail.

Now, the tail serves a function, really, basically,

of saying to the females,

"Look at me, check me out, look how hot I am."

But also, there's one other function as well,

because this is almost like a deliberate handicap.

He's kind of saying, "Think how strong and tough and hard I must be

"if I can survive, carrying this lot around with me."

At the same time, it does make it much easier prey for a leopard.

'We scour the roads, always keeping an eye on the sand,

'in the hope of spotting signs a leopard's passed this way.'

Although one of the best places to see leopards,

there are only around 30 or so in the whole of the park.

LEOPARD GROWLS

Like most cats, they're usually solitary,

with the exception of mothers and their young.

'Finally, something tantalising catches my eye.

'A story in the sand.'

Does that look like a female to you?

Down in the tracks.

There's a line of leopard footprints running down the side

of the road here. They're big and broad, so it's from an adult male,

but the really interesting thing is that we've got very, very fresh

jeep tracks from this morning and the prints are on top of them.

This has been left really, really recently,

like, within the last few minutes.

So a leopard has been walking in that direction

and that is obviously where we have to go.

'The plot thickens.

'We head in the general direction of our leopard,

'hoping it hasn't vanished into the scrub.

'There's something moving in the undergrowth,

'but we can't quite get a glimpse.

'Is it our spotted champion?'

Just here, this is going to be good. This is going to be good!

And a little more, little more, little more, little more.

OK, now stop and look that way.

We have two leopards in dense undergrowth,

to the side of the vehicle. They're wandering along this way.

I'm hoping that they're just going to come out into the open

and show themselves.

And it looks like they're coming now.

OK, spin around.

'And then, for a second, one emerges.'

It looks to me like we have a mother and a reasonably well-developed cub,

just strolling around in the dense undergrowth behind us.

At this distance, it's not easy to tell if they're male or female,

and they're certainly not massively active.

I mean, this isn't an animal that's thinking about hunting.

But we're just getting tantalising glimpses, which really shows how

they just blend in seamlessly with their background.

'This perfect camouflage aids the leopard's hunting strategy.'

Leopards won't indulge in an all-out chase like a cheetah will.

What they need to do is creep up on their prey and get to within no more

than perhaps five metres before they pounce,

and then when they do, they deliver a killing bite to the throat

or to the back of the neck.

Well, we've had a tiny fleeting glimpse,

but a fleeting glimpse that to me sums up everything that's lethal

about the leopard.

Stealth, cunning and cryptic colouration.

There's no doubt the Sri Lankan leopard's going to go on my list,

but before I do that, I'd like to get a slightly better look

at this incredible predator.

'As long as the sun's up, I'm determined to keep looking.

'Seeing a leopard out in the open would be the perfect end

'to our big cat-spotting day.'

Whoa! Our driver's suddenly put the pedal right down

and is going crazy fast, which I think means that he might have had

a call from someone saying they've seen a leopard.

'Bouncing over potholed roads, it's all we can do to hang on

'to our equipment and make sure we're not beaten black and blue.'

Stop, stop!

(Yes, yes!

(S-s-sh!

(We've got a female leopard sat in perfect view,

(right on top of a rock just above us.)

It really is a formidable animal.

Even from here, you can see how big the paws are.

They kind of look like they're too big for the legs.

And those can be used as a powerful tool for clouting smaller prey.

I mean, whacking a peacock or a rabbit or something

with one of those paws is easily enough to kill it outright.

But the paws are just half the story.

Just got a yawn and a really nice look at those big canine teeth.

As long as my thumb, sharply-pointed

and driven in with sturdy jaw muscles,

these are the leopard's bit of killer kit.

Had a bit of a stretch.

And now standing up,

and off it goes.

What a fantastic encounter.

Sri Lankan leopard.

Cunning, and perfectly concealed cat.

Utterly beautiful, totally deadly.

This camouflaged predator sneaks up on prey unnoticed,

then pounces, overpowering prey...

..and suffocating with a bite to the throat.

The Sri Lankan leopard - spotted and certainly...

Deadly.

Join me next time as I continue my search for the Deadly 60.

This is extraordinary!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd