Southern States Deadly 60

My name's Steve Backshall!

Woo!

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.

This time on Deadly 60,

the team and I are in the Southern states of America.

It's home to some of the most famous wetlands and swamps

found in the whole world.

And where you find swamps, you get birds, bug, frogs and fish,

and they provide food for some of the most important classic predators

on Earth.

So, let's get this show on the road

and head out in search of our first killer critter.

It's a true icon of this part of the world - the American alligator.

Growing up to four metres long

and weighing up to five times as much as me,

these ancient beasts feed on just about anything they can catch -

fish, turtles, snakes, birds and mammals.

Small prey are swallowed whole, but larger prey are dragged underwater,

drowned and then devoured in pieces.

We've come to the Silver Springs in Central Florida to start our search.

The Silver River is about as pristine and perfect a habitat

as you'll find anywhere in the world.

And the fact that there are such wonderful animals

just about everywhere you look just kind of enhances the whole feeling

of the place.

There are an enormous amount of catfish, of gar, of turtles,

of terrapins. And all of those are going to make food for alligators.

The alligators will be much more tricky to see

and even the large ones could be underneath you

and you wouldn't know it until you were within a few feet of them.

So this is going to be quite a challenge.

But it wasn't long before a classic croc shape cruised into view.

Just to the right.

-Oh, yeah, a big one.

-Yeah, that's a big one.

He is impressive, look at that!

'Alligators are clearly very common here and for every one we see,

'there's probably ten we don't.

'We've filmed crocodilians many times on the Deadly 60,

'but one thing we haven't done is joined them in their watery world.

'Most of the time that would simply be too dangerous.

'But with these crystal clear springs,

'it could be the best place on Earth to swim with alligators.'

It all seems a little bit crazy for me to be getting into water

where we know there are loads and loads of alligators.

Well, I'm kind of banking on the clarity of the water.

I really think that we'll be able to see these animals coming

from quite a way away and be able to assess their intentions.

It doesn't mean that my heart isn't going a little bit crazy, though.

I certainly wouldn't attempt this just anywhere.

Alligators do occasionally attack people,

so the whole crew is going to need to be on high alert

if we're going to swim with one safely.

-The tree that's laying in the water.

-Underneath?

-Right in the middle.

A likely contender is lying up close to the bank.

This could be absolutely perfect. We have a good sized gator.

He's probably at least as long as I am tall.

Maybe six foot, perhaps two metres. Just under these branches here.

'Once we're in the water, we'll move in as relaxed and confident a manner as possible

'to avoid scaring the gator away or looking like prey.

'Underwater cameraman Mark and I kit up as quickly as possible.

'We're going to have to watch each other's backs.'

-Keep your eyes on it, guys, and give me some feedback.

-OK.

Good luck.

-It's coming towards you.

-Steve, he's moving.

'He's ever so slowly swimming, but staying close to the bank,

'concealed by vegetation, so we can't see him.'

I imagine from your angle there's a log that's blocking your view.

Cos he's...

Mark, let's get a look over here.

'It seemed croc number one was more scared of us than we were of it.

'But there's plenty more exploring to be done.'

The fish with the elongated snout are gar.

They're predatory animals.

They would themselves, though, make very good food

for a speedy alligator, if it had its wits about it.

Let's move on.

'The return of the alligator is a genuine wildlife success story.

'Once persecuted and hunted,

'they're now really common in the Southern states.

'Almost anywhere in these springs could hide a lurking gator.'

-How are you doing, Mark? You ready?

-Thanks very much.

This looked like a likely spot.

'Underwater was perfect, like an aquatic film set.

'All that was missing was an ancient alligator.'

Gator coming at you.

-Steve, gator!

-Gator.

Gator coming at you.

Quite close to the bank, still.

-He's right there.

-He's still there.

-Still right in the same spot.

He's come up, he's come up.

-He's coming towards you.

-He's, he's... Steve, he's moving.

-Steve!

'While the other gators have kept well away,

'this one noses in for a closer look.'

He's come up, he's come up.

'It's breeding season,

'the time when males start to protect their territory,

'so they can get all the girls.

'It's likely that this gator sees me as a possible challenge.

'He's definitely sizing me up.

'It's important to look as big and confident as possible,

'while not actually issuing a challenge back.

'He swims straight at me, and over my head.'

This is...a mesmerising...

..if slightly chilling experience!

'Clearly deciding I'm not a fitting rival,

'the gator drops from the surface and down to the bottom.

'He could lie here motionless for hours. Not moving a muscle,

'the heart rate has slowed to practically nothing.

'It's one of the crocodile's great natural advantages.

'I can see it looking at me through that glassy, nictitating membrane,

'the third eyelid which allows it to see underwater,

'as well as the teeth spilling out of its stout, forceful snout

'that probably delivers the most powerful bite on the continent.'

Alligators are without doubt on the Deadly 60.

Ungainly on land, these ancient beasts transform once underwater.

They're opportunistic ambush predators that eat almost anything.

With their powerful jaws, they seize their prey with a killer bite.

Dramatic, enigmatic and definitely...

On Deadly 60, we've always made a concerted effort to encompass

the whole natural world. We've had deadly insects...

..arachnids...

..reptiles...

-mammals...

-TIGER ROARS

..fish...

and birds.

Coming crashing into land!

But there's one group of living things that we've largely ignored.

Plants. And Florida is the perfect place to set that straight.

Plants may not seem an obvious choice for the list,

but these ones are quite exceptional.

They eat meat.

These sinister shrubs employ a range of ingenious methods

to capture their prey.

From enticing with sweet nectar to ensnaring, drowning or entombing.

It's the stuff of horror stories.

They may not chase their prey, but they're still perfect predators.

And our first one is right here.

This is a pitcher plant.

Essentially what this is is a modified leaf.

It's sealed down here and the inside, down here,

will have a certain amount of fluid in it.

Right up here, around the lip,

are secretions that are very, very sweet-smelling

and will attract insects, but it's also quite slippery.

And when they get up here, wandering around, looking for a tasty meal,

they'll slip right down inside and drop into the pitfall trap,

where their bodies are actually digested and eaten by the plant.

These are our next carnivorous wonder.

They're called sundews.

They're covered with what looks like dew.

That attracts in insects, which get stuck there.

You can see there's a black fly there, little midge here.

There are lots of species of sundew,

and they all secrete enzymes which break the animal down

so they can digest it. And that helps to supplement

the nutrients that it'll get out of the soil.

Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow!

I'm very, very careful where I kneel,

because our champion carnivorous plant is kind of everywhere here.

It's a Venus fly trap.

So, this is kind of the plant equivalent of a bear trap.

Inside there is an insect that at the moment

is currently being digested.

This is just incredible. It's almost unparalleled in the plant world.

A plant that can snap shut.

That can move with actual surprising speed.

What's even more extraordinary

is that these plants can actually count.

There are tiny hairs lining the inside of the trap

and as an insect wanders through them,

it can If it trigger one hair once, no problem at all.

If it triggers two simultaneously, the trap will shut.

And once it's closed, there is no way that insect is getting away.

So, imagine my stick is a little fly, it wanders in...

-HE GASPS

-Did you see how quick that was?

That's incredible.

The Venus fly trap.

Not only can it hunt its food, it can also count.

And for those reasons, it's on the list.

A plant that can count.

They lure in insects then snap shut, imprisoning them.

Prey is then dissolved with digestive acids, and absorbed.

These meat-eating marvels are going on the list.

The next creature that I'm hoping to find is, individually,

one of the smallest we've ever considered for the Deadly 60.

And they're hard to love,

firstly because they're not supposed to be here at all.

It's the fire ant.

Native to South America, they were accidentally introduced to North America,

and now there are more HERE than there are THERE.

They're voracious insects, with a particularly painful sting.

Individually they may not look threatening,

but they don't operate alone.

Working together, they're a formidable force.

Fire ants really love to build their nests

in the kind of disturbed habitat

that you get alongside forest roads like this.

So, all we're looking out for is a little mound which is hiding

possibly as many as half a million little nuisances.

That's one right there.

Looks pretty good.

That is a very distinctive fire ant nest.

You can't really see much ant activity,

most of that's going on underground at the moment.

It's still early in the morning. But pretty soon, they're going to go off foraging.

They'll be getting all sorts of food, from sun plant matter

to dead and dying animals. Now, what I need to do now

is get some ants out.

OK, so as always on Deadly 60, I get stung so you don't have to.

I'm just going to gently disturb the fire ants' nest.

And almost instantly, look at that.

There are thousands of ants pouring out everywhere.

These are all females and they possess

a really rather unpleasant sting.

The venom is surprisingly strong for an animal of this size.

But believe it or not, I'm going to show you how it works.

Let's get some up on my fingers.

Ow!

Argh... Right. Frame up as quickly as you can, Richard,

cos that hurts like heck!

-Ah...

-Try and stay still.

-Obviously the reason they're called fire ants

is because the sting hurts like fire.

It's an incredible burning sensation

and the ant is essentially getting its mandibles, its mouth parts

stuck into my skin, then injecting its venom with its abdomen.

And they'll actually move around the spot where they've bitten

and sting many, many, many times.

An ant that is absolutely tiny, almost microscopic,

is capable of scaring away an animal that's many, many times larger.

Insects, reptiles, even people can be undone

by the multiple stings of this cooperative army.

Most do the sensible thing and get out the way.

It's a very efficient way of getting rid of a threat.

Efficient and incredibly painful.

-Have you got it yet, Rich?

-Yeah, we've got it.

Ahhh, you little... Oh!

Owwww! 'And that venom really works.'

Obviously I think we'd all now like to go and leave this nest alone,

but there's one more thing that I want to do before we go.

Fire ants are not just good at protecting themselves,

they're also superb foragers,

and they can strip small, dead animals that are near to the nest

to the bone in a matter of hours.

So, we actually found a small dead frog nearby to here yesterday

and what we're going to do is leave it close to the nest,

and leave a camera filming it,

and try and see quite how quickly these fire ants can demolish it.

Ant societies are run through co-operation and collaboration,

allowing them to accomplish great things.

Looking at a fire ant nest at the surface,

it kind of looks a bit crude. I mean, it's just a mound of sand.

But going on down there is an unbelievably intricate ant society.

It's very, very hard to see, though.

If I was to dig down with a spade, the whole thing would just collapse.

But I have got a plan,

and it involves what's bubbling in this bin.

Molten metal.

Ant expert Walter has been studying fire ants for years

by making casts of the nests.

So what'll happen now is that the metal will start to solidify

and it'll form a perfect cast of the burrows.

And it should show us the unbelievably complex world of the ant underground.

After only a few minutes,

the metal cools down and we can start digging.

Oh, sorry!

Whoa, that was hot work.

We're starting to uncover a real masterpiece.

A little bit more chipping, some water to cool it down

and the cast is really beginning to take shape.

So we've finally revealed the twisted, contorted

and really rather spectacular sculpture that is a kind of

inside-out version of the fire ant city.

And there's just a fantastic array

of different chambers all over the place

and obviously these are a great place for the ants to live,

it's a place for the queens to lay the eggs

and for the young to be raised. All of that created by ants

whose heads are no bigger than a full stop.

OK, let's go and see how our time lapse is getting on.

Now we can speed up what we've filmed and see ants in action.

Right, we are ready to roll, let's have a look.

So there's our frog.

And just frenetic activity.

it's kind of being sucked dry from the inside-out.

Some of these workers are coming in and they're taking the moist parts

of the body from underneath the skin

and just reducing it to a skeleton and taut, stretched skin

over the top of it.

That is absolutely grotesque.

From a frog...

..to mummified remnants. Incredible.

And that's why the fire ant has got to go on my list.

With a burning sting they can employ over and over again,

working as a tenacious team

to collectively strip a carcass within hours.

Complex, co-ordinated, prolific and...

It's a little after nightfall and we're on the trail

of a surprisingly numerous but nonetheless almost never-seen

North American predator. It's the bobcat.

They're classic wild cats, stealthy with big eyes, pointed canine teeth

and bags of attitude.

Using camouflage and cunning, these fierce feline stalks their prey

then ambush it with a burst of speed,

delivering a death blow with a leaping pounce

that can cover three metres.

They can take down prey that's much bigger than they are

and are known to tackle as many as 40 different species of animal.

To stand any chance of seeing one,

we're enlisting some deadly technology.

Local wildlife biologists have fitted radio collars

to some of the resident bobcats.

Our antenna should help us to zero in on their location.

And once we get close, we've got one more trick up our sleeve.

Thanks for that, Jim. This is a thermal imaging camera.

They were originally designed by the military

and they see in a completely different way to other cameras.

What this actually does is picks up warmth.

So, at the moment you can see Richard my cameraman.

Thanks, Richard.

Simon the sound man.

Hopefully the radio telemetry will get us close,

and then this should get us a really good view of our bobcat.

Bobcats have keen senses,

so it's important to move slowly and quietly.

-WHISPERS:

-It seems like she's just down here,

so we're going to turn all our lights off

and wander down as quietly and discreetly as we possibly can,

see if we can get a shot. So, lights off, everyone.

Using the thermal imaging camera,

we can see warm-blooded animals moving in the dark.

This, plus the radio tracking equipment, should give us the edge.

Nooo!

I've got my first glowing gremlin in the dark,

which is unmistakably feline.

It's our bobcat.

She's just turning her head at the moment,

keeping a very, very close eye on me.

Can't be any more than about ten or maybe fifteen metres ahead of me.

She's being very, very alert.

Certainly completely aware of us and everything we're doing.

No matter how cautiously we move, the cat is just one step ahead.

They're so sly

that they're just managing to be elusive for this evening.

I think our best chance actually of seeing this cat in all its majesty

is to come back tomorrow,

because Jim here has a very special plan for us.

Jim and his assistant are hoping to fit a collar to another cat.

So they've laid out around 20 bobcat traps overnight.

If they've managed to capture one, we're going to help

with the collaring process.

Fingers crossed that this top cat has been prowling these dunes.

This is a fairly old and dusty bobcat scat.

It's full of mammal hair

and that is a very decisive image

of what this cat's been feeding on,

because those are the incisors of a rat.

Good sized rodents are going to be a really good portion of the diet

of the bobcats here amongst the dunes.

Right, time to check the traps.

We've got one right here.

No more than a few metres in front of us,

and you can barely see the trap,

but there is the very distinctive, very beautiful face

of a bobcat...

staring back at us from the shadows.

Great stuff, Jim. Right, what's our next move?

So, we're going to go in and...

'The scientists need to give the cat a sedative injection

'that will put it to sleep.

'Then they'll be able to do their work and fit the collar.'

BOBCAT SNARLS

'He's feisty and fierce. He may look a bit like a domestic cat,

'but you can see there's no resemblance in attitude. He's truly wild.

'The sedative is in. We just have to give it some time to take effect.

'In the meantime,

'the scientists take down details and prepare the equipment

'before we head back in.'

Well, he is good and asleep.

So...

This cat is essentially in exactly the same condition

that you or I would be in if we had an operation and were given

a general anaesthetic.

Once it's given the drug to wake it up, it will be none the wiser,

maybe a little bit groggy.

But this is a unique opportunity to see this cat up close.

This is what gives it its common name, the bobcat.

The tail is very, very short and isn't going to get in the way

while it's charging through all of this scrubby vegetation.

So, I guess it's probably about three times the size

of a domestic cat, and a domestic cat by itself

is a pretty formidable predator.

They're capable of taking down mostly rabbits and hares

would be a lot of their diet, plus rodents.

RODENTS SQUEAK

But they can take down deer fawns and even fully-grown adults

if they're not especially big.

Like all cats, from your village tabby to a Bengal tiger,

he's built for the kill.

OK, that's just the nerves twitching. He's fine.

'The claws are sheathed to keep them sharp.

'They lend traction when climbing or can tear through hide

'or catch a hold of prey. But the killing blow is delivered by these.'

Like all felines, it does have remarkable teeth.

These canines are long, thin, sharp,

fabulous for delivering a killer bite,

and then meat will be chewed down with these stouter carnassials

or cheek teeth back here towards the rear of the mouth,

where there's more pressure can be exerted.

It really is a formidable set of gnashers.

'No rabbit or rat is safe from the bobcat's bite.

'Once the collar's on, he's given an injection to bring him round

'and ten minutes later, he's ready to go.

'They're famed for their impressive speed, so I've got a speed gun

'to try and measure how fast he goes when he leaves the cage.'

You good, Simon? OK, Jim.

STEVE SNICKERS

Well, I didn't really need the speed gun!

THEY LAUGH

They do that a lot!

Um... He was kind of relaxed, it has to be said.

But I guess at least that shows that this cat has confidence.

He's got attitude, he's got swagger

and he's on the Deadly 60.

These stealthy, camouflaged cats are hardly ever spotted.

They're capable of sizzling speed

and can cover three metres in a pounce.

And they can bring down prey much larger than THEY are.

These fierce, fleeting felines are on the list.

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

Wow! Fantastic.

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