Australia 1 Deadly 60

My name's Steve Backshall.

Wo-o-oo!

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.'

Here on Deadly 60, we have a real sense of the spectacular,

so we've come to Australia, a place with more incredible,

venomous creatures than anywhere else on Earth.

And as it's going to be such an epic programme,

I thought we'd start in an epic place -

right at the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

It doesn't matter where you go in Australia,

you can always find something deadly.

From right in the heart of Sydney, where a toxic terror lurks...

to the desolate desert centre,

where the most venomous snake on Earth lives.

And the forest at Tasmania, where a devil screams in the darkness.

We're travelling the length of the country to prove that Australia

is the lethal capital of the world.

Our mission is way inland in the dead, red, centre,

in search of the most venomous creature we've had on Deadly.

Australia is a very, very big place indeed,

and the vast majority of it is wilderness -

what Australians call the outback.

This is an absolutely superlative place to find venomous creatures,

and one in particular - the most venomous snake on Earth.

It's incredibly difficult to find, very shy,

but I've got quite a good feeling about this.

The animal I'm looking for is the fierce snake,

also known as the inland taipan.

It is THE most venomous snake on Earth, and has enough venom

in one bite to kill 100 people and its prey in seconds.

I've wanted to see one all my life,

but they're one of the most difficult snakes to find.

The location is so specific, it'll take us several days to get there.

It's one of the most harsh environments on Earth,

reaching temperatures of over 50 degrees,

and the snakes are only seen for a few hours in the early morning,

before it gets too hot.

But the fierce snake is not the only desert reptile

that makes a home in this harsh environment.

In front of me on the road now, is...

possibly Australia's best-known reptile.

They're really wonderful animals.

It's a bearded dragon.

So...

he's doing exactly...

what we're hoping that our snake's going to want to do,

and that's coming out using the surface of the road

as a real mechanism for warming up at the start of the day.

You can see the back of the bearded dragon is quite dark.

It can actually change that colour, so, now, early in the morning,

it's much darker, much more capable of soaking up the sun's rays,

and its belly is right down flat getting as much surface area

down on this warm road as it possibly can.

And off he scuttles. I love 'em!

But my heart's set on a far less obvious reptile for the lethal list,

and it's still a few more hours' drive to the dried-out lake

where the fierce snake rules.

Such beautiful country.

Unbelievably red.

It's almost like being on the surface of an alien world.

And this alien world is home to a desert dragon.

There's a monitor lizard, a sand goanna, in this bush here.

Should just be able...to grab him.

Wow!

That is a beautiful animal.

This little dinosaur is known here as the sand goanna.

It's actually a kind of monitor lizard. There you go.

Just look at that tongue.

It's forked, exactly like a snake's tongue,

and draws in sense of the environment around it,

to just figure out what's going on in its world.

Monitor lizards have featured many times on Deadly 60,

and for very good reason -

they are superlative predators, but also opportunists.

They'll scavenge for food that's been killed on the roads out here.

They'll take eggs, birds, frogs, lizards,

absolutely anything they can run down.

They're very quick, great climbers, good at digging...

I mean, this is an animal that does absolutely everything.

I think they're wonderful.

'A marvellous monitor, and things are really hotting up.'

OK.

Wow!

Off like a little bolt of lightning.

Finally, we're on the edge of fierce snake country - miles from anywhere.

Time to find a place to camp.

Perfect! We love it.

Isn't it wonderful the way the wind has sculpted all these ripples

on the surface of the sand?

It's glorious!

This is just such a dream of a place to go searching for wildlife.

'And in crimson and gold sunset light, we set up camp.

'No need for a tent - it only rains a few times a year here.'

Here it goes.

Easy as fire-lighting gets.

In the dancing firelight, the crew bed down for the night,

hoping to sleep soundly in the territory

of the most venomous snake on Earth.

Let's hope none of the local desert deadlies want to join me

in my sleeping bag!

-Night, Steve!

-Good night! Sleep well.

It's about 4:30 in the morning, preposterously early,

and we are in the true outback.

In just a few minutes, the sun's going to come up

over the horizon out there, and when that happens,

one of the most remarkable snakes in the world is going to come out

of the cracks where it's been spending the evening,

and try and find a bit of warmth.

That's only going to last for a couple of hours,

and the place that's going to warm up most quickly

is going to be the road.

So...

this road surface here, at the moment, is quite cool.

Give it half-an-hour or so and that'll be baking.

The snakes will come up here to bask

and it's going to be the perfect place to see them.

So, what we're going to do is just hop into the car

and cover some miles.

The warmth radiated from the road will warm up their blood -

cold after the chilly desert night.

This kick-starts the snake's metabolism,

and gives them the energy to start hunting.

However, the second it gets too hot, they'll slither for shade,

and our opportunity will be gone.

The snake we're here looking to find

is an incredibly difficult animal to look for.

They're very elusive, not massively common,

and really only out in the open for a couple of hours a day.

But, they are well worth us searching for,

and it is the most venomous snake on Earth, full stop.

I mean, I've filmed with some incredible snakes over the years.

King cobras, black mambas, boomslangs, bushmasters,

but none of them come even close to this remarkable toxic terror.

To try and find one,

we've got absolutely everything we can possibly have on our side.

We've got two local guides, Kevin and Craig,

who are absolute snake whisperers.

I mean, if these guys can't find an inland taipan, then no-one can.

All we've got to do now is just put in the hours

and keep our eyes on the road.

The sun's still below the horizon, and it's still a bit too cold

for them to be on the roadside, so I decide to head out on foot

and look for evidence of their favourite food - rodents.

Yeah, come and have a look at this.

This is the reason why where we are now

is such perfect habitat for inland taipans.

We're actually on a flood plain here.

It's usually very, very dry, very, very cracked,

and there's lots of small rodent burrows.

And during the daytime, the snake's going to be in there hunting.

And they're absolutely everywhere. The ground is peppered with them.

The sun's up and the ground temperature's rising.

So, the clock is ticking.

We've got everyone out scouring the terrain.

-Good luck, chaps!

-Good stuff.

Yeah, good luck, guys!

And animals that feed on snakes are also up and about.

Aww!

A wedge-tailed eagle.

Coming across in front of us.

Probably the most iconic bird in Australia.

-N-o-o wa-a-ay!

-Wow!

Snakes aren't the only predators round here.

There's a brown right here on the left!

Got a brown snake heading off here.

It is a speckled brown! Look at THAT!

Australia is full of highly venomous snakes,

and perhaps the most feared...

are the brown snakes.

They have extremely toxic venom...

and they are often quite fiery.

But it's actually flattening the entire side of the body

and just showing that to me.

Making himself look larger than he actually is.

And lots of little mock strikes towards me as well.

Now, I know this is quite a small snake,

but it certainly has the ability, the toxic venom,

to do me damage, so I'm just going to keep my distance.

So, on any other morning of snake-searching,

I would be definitely putting this snake on the Deadly 60 list.

But the snake that I'm really looking for is so toxic

that it makes this look like nothing.

So, I think I'm going to say it's an awesome snake,

but for now, the speckled brown is just the start

of what I'm hoping is going to be a classic morning's snake-hunting.

A fierce snake's venom is at least double the toxicity

of any brown snake, but we probably only have minutes left to find one.

How'd you go?

-Starting to come up now, is it?

-The ground's far from hot.

Yeah, we've still got a bit of time.

Yeah.

'We're still feeling optimistic.

'It's not time to give up just yet.'

Stop, stop, there it is!

Well, I don't actually believe what I'm seeing.

We have, at the side of the road, the most venomous snake on Earth.

This...is a fierce snake...

sometimes known as an inland taipan...

drawing itself up into a classic threat position.

Head drawn back into an S-shape.

Making out like it's ready to strike. You can come closer, Graham.

It's OK, it's fixed on me at the moment, not on you.

This is exactly the snake that we've come all this way to find.

You see it's tongue flickering out on the air,

sensing me, sensing whether I'm any threat to it,

but it hasn't yet made any attempt at a strike.

But what is fierce about this snake is its venom.

This has the most toxic venom of any snake on Earth,

and there's a very good reason for that.

It's not, absolutely not, for attacking human beings.

This is a snake that has never, to our knowledge, killed a human being.

What it does have, though, is the ability

to bring down and kill a rat within seconds.

So around here, there are loads of burrows of rats,

and those animals can be very, very fast.

So what the fierce snake needs to do is to bite them,

inject enormous amounts of very, very toxic venom,

and stop them moving, very quickly.

'Drawing the body into an S-shape prepares the snake for a strike,

'like a coiled spring with lethal potential.'

The venom is very complex,

but the main constituent part is what's called a neurotoxin.

SNAKE HISSES

That is a toxin that affects the nervous system,

and it's very, very fast-acting.

This snake is in absolutely remarkable condition.

It's about as perfect an example of this species as you will ever see.

I've been catching snakes for most of my life,

and I've seen some of the most impressive in the entire world,

but this, for me, is the most special.

It's an absolutely phenomenal hunter.

Very rare, very difficult to find,

and THE most venomous snake on Earth.

There is no doubt that the fierce snake has to go on the Deadly 60.

You're a very lucky man!

Very lucky man.

That's one of the best-looking wild fierce snakes I've ever seen.

Yeah. Far out.

A rapid strike that will kill its prey in seconds.

The fierce snake takes one of the top spots on the Deadly 60.

'Deadly.'

To show you how diverse Australia is,

I'm heading as far south as you can go - Tasmania.

From red deserts to lush forests,

to see the world's largest carnivorous marsupial.

With it's fiery temper, a bone-crushing bite

and devilish growl, it's unique to Australia.

These nocturnal hunters are elusive,

and due to a mysterious disease, are becoming really rare in the wild,

so I've come to Trowunna Wildlife Park.

Here, the species is protected and active in the day.

so I can show you their foul tempers and fierce bites.

It's the Tasmanian devil.

TASMANIAN DEVIL GROWLS

Inside this pen, we have an all-male group,

and likely to be really quite crazy.

We've also got a chunk of carcass - a wallaby killed on the road -

and that should get some serious action.

Just like in the wild,

the addition of food causes all hell to break loose.

I, for one, am not going to try and take the food off them.

CREATURES GROWL

They're extremely vocal animals, Tassie devils,

and that's how they got their name, the devil, because early settlers

in this part of the world heard their screaming, their wailing,

and thought there was some kind of spirit ghost off in the wilderness.

Actually, it was these guys.

The reason they're so grumpy is all about dominance,

and who gets the best bits of meat.

THEY GROWL

When they get a hold of a good chunk of bone or sinew,

you can really hear the crunching sound as their powerful teeth

just make mincemeat of this.

They've got a very, very strong bite for an animal of this size,

and although they are primarily scavengers

and almost all their food is going to be found dead already,

they are perfectly capable of taking down live prey,

and will do - lizards, frogs, small mammals, birds,

pretty much anything they get the chance to get their teeth into.

Even Graham our cameraman, by the looks of things!

Oh!

-STEVE CHUCKLES

-Watch yourself there, Graham.

And it wasn't just Graham.

Even our small camera took their fancy.

Paul the keeper's just rescuing it for us.

-Well done, Paul. Done any damage to it?

-Doesn't look it.

-Eugh!

It's covered in devil spit.

CREATURE GROWLS

In the wild, fighting for food is about survival of the fittest,

or, in this case, the loudest.

They use their incredible sense of smell to locate prey and carrion

from up to 1,000m away.

Once eating, they give a sniffing sound to warn off other Tassies.

But if the warning's ignored, they launch into a maniacal rage.

THEY GROWL FIERCELY

But what makes these devils such good predators is, in fact,

a strength that belies their size.

This pen is full of fully-grown animals.

You're really pretty strong for such a little creature.

Certainly, once the jaws have a hold of something,

it's quite tough to get them to relinquish their hold.

CARCASS BONES CRUNCH

And that crunching sound as those rear teeth go through bone

-is very, very impressive.

-CREATURE SNIFFS

In fact, for their size,

they have one of the strongest bites in the animal kingdom.

Your really feel their strength, though,

and they brace backwards, planting their front feet down on the ground

and then levering with their whole body weight backwards.

Actually they can generate an enormous amount of force.

The Tassie devil looks really unusual, like the proportions

are all wrong, with an enormous head and tiny little body.

But, that head is so big,

because it's loaded with muscles that power its brutal bite.

Eugh-h-h! Aww, yuck!

I'm getting covered in bits of rotten meat.

CREATURES YELP VICIOUSLY

Wow.

That is a very vocal little scrabble, and that's exactly

where this animal gets its name and its reputation from.

All of a sudden, things just kick off, and when they do,

it's very noisy, and really quite frightening.

BONES CRUNCH

So, those crunchy, munching sounds are the reason

this animal has to go on the Deadly 60.

It can crunch clean-through bone, it has appalling table manners,

and an attitude well above its size.

Tassie devils - deadly.

They can sniff out a carcass from up to a kilometre away.

It's the devilish marsupial of the south -

whirling, screaming, raging, wailing,

mighty-munching Tassie devils.

'Deadly.'

Back in Sydney, the team and I are in Manly Harbour.

BOAT HORN BELLOWS

This may seem odd, but here in the city

is ANOTHER toxic terror - the blue-ringed octopus.

It might be small,

but it has a venom 10,000 times more potent than cyanide.

It's so toxic, that it can paralyse a crab in seconds

and could easily kill a person.

They're tiny and brilliantly camouflaged,

so I've got some extra eyes to help my search - Rob and Nick,

two blue-ringed octopus experts from Manly Sealife Sanctuary.

The blue-ringed octopus occurs in coastal waters,

so I am going to be free-diving to try and find them.

Looking in nooks and crannies, underneath rocks,

places they might hide out during the daytime.

If we do find one, we'll have to handle it more carefully

than we would any venomous snake.

There are cases of people picking up blue-rings,

only to die hours later without even realising they'd been bitten.

-Hang on to this one, I'm sure it'll be all right.

-Great.

Thanks very much.

-Tools of the trade.

-ROB AND NICK LAUGH

It's not quite a machete or a snake-stick, is it?

But the net will keep distance between my fingers

and the blue-ring's lethal venom.

This could be one of the most beautiful animals

we will ever see in the Deadly 60.

And, actually, one of the most venomous too.

So, I really have my fingers crossed about this.

It's quite something that such a miraculous,

multicoloured mini-marvel

lives right by the biggest metropolis in Australia.

I wonder if the city workers know what delights

lurk along their beaches?

There's so much life down here.

From tiny brittle stars to stingrays AND a different species

of octopus, but this one much bigger than our toxic target.

This place is actually absolutely perfect.

Considering that we're right in the middle of the big city,

there's loads and loads of marine life down here,

and also lots of places for blue-ringed octopuses to hide.

There are lots of rocks, chunks of old pipe,

and plenty of the kind of things that they love to feed on -

crabs, worms, small fish. It's perfect.

The blue-ring octopus is not the only creature down here

sporting chemical weaponry.

Just found something really cool!

It's a pufferfish.

They're remarkable animals. Really, really cool fish.

But the most remarkable thing about them is that these animals

have a poison in their skin and in their organs

which is exactly the same as the venom that's injected

by the blue-ringed octopus.

To find a pufferfish here while looking for a blue-ringed octopus

is just crazy!

For the vast majority of their lives, the blue-rings are drably

coloured, merging in with their background, practically invisible.

It takes a keen eye to see, but lurking under a shell,

our first blue-ringed octopus.

Fantastic! The guys have found one.

It's absolutely beautiful.

OK, the idea now is to transfer it into an aquarium

so we can see it up close.

I can't believe it - success!

This is the tiny wonder I've come halfway round the world to find -

the blue-ringed octopus.

The ones found here around Sydney are called blue-lined octopus,

because all running down the surface of the mantle,

you can see great big long neon lines.

Oh, look at that bright, bright colour change. Gorgeous!

But, they're still in the blue-ringed octopus group,

and, to show you how it got its name,

all I need to do is agitate it very slightly.

And you should see the plainly-coloured animal

take on incredible, agitated colours.

Bright, neon-blue circles.

Look at that! Wow!

It's just electric.

These are classic warning colours, and they're obviously used to

intimidate animals that might want to feast on a blue-ringed octopus.

That would be a very, very bad idea,

because this is one of the most toxic creatures on Earth.

The glorious neon-flash colours tell other predators to just swim on by.

It is such a superlative predator.

It has only one hard part to its body.

That's a beak, which is kind of like a tiny, miniature parrot's beak.

And that's located in here, right in the centre of all of those arms.

And that actually has a special venom that's dribbled onto the beak

and can be injected into prey - things like crabs, worms,

even small fish, and it's so potent

that it's going to make them stop moving almost instantaneously.

It's only tiny, but it has a bite that's easily capable

of killing a human being, and has done in the past.

It really is one of the strongest poisons on the planet.

The flamboyant blue-ringed octopus, one of the smallest animals

we've ever had on the Deadly 60, but also, one of THE most venomous.

These camouflaged predators can stalk their prey unnoticed.

Their hard, parrot-like beak is used to bite their prey...

chewing in a paralysing venom that would kill an adult human.

The miniature neon predator that could fit in the palm of your hand.

'Deadly.'

Now, very important, it goes back exactly where we found it.

There it is - whale!

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