Texas Deadly Pole to Pole


Texas

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Transcript


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My name's Steve Backshall.

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And this is Deadly Pole To Pole.

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Ohhh!

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From the top of the world to the bottom.

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Whoa!

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Deadly places.

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Deadly adventures.

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And deadly animals.

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And you're coming with me, every step of the way!

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Argh!

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This is Texas, the Lone Star State, and it's big country.

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If you dropped France right in the middle

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it wouldn't even touch the sides.

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It has grasslands, mountains, deserts,

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all full of deadly potential.

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Texas is over 4,000 miles south

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from our start point in the Arctic Circle.

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And it's massive.

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It's the second largest state in America,

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with enough wild things to make your heart sing.

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'We'll be taking a chance on America's most cunning carnivore.'

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There's something in the trap.

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'And sweating it out with venomous vipers.'

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Wow!

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But we begin in the blackness below,

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'with not one predatory beast...'

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Rope below!

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'..but a mega-swarm.'

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For at least six months of every year,

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Texas is home to a higher concentration of hot-blooded killers

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than any other place on the planet.

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In the dark caverns beneath our feet right now

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there are literally millions of predators just waiting for a feed.

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It's one of the great spectacles in the natural world.

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So our next step has to be into the abyss.

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'By day, the cave entrance is patrolled by cave swallows

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'that nest here.

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'But we're heading beyond the reach of daylight,

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'and into the dank, dark depths,

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'into an underworld filled with a regular creep show of killers.'

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The air in the cave is incredibly toxic

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and filled with dangerous diseases.

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Just a few breaths could be fatal to us.

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We've got to be prepared.

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So we have to cover ourselves up with these suits and wear gas masks.

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It's going to be hot, it's going to be sweaty...

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but at least we'll still be alive.

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Just a few hundred metres into the darkness

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and the horror show has already begun.

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The floor beneath our feet is alive.

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Ah.

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Down here is the slightly more grisly side of life in the cave.

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It's littered with these tiny little skeletons.

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That's been devoured by this lot.

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These are hide beetles, they turn up after a body dies

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and then they just devour it, reduce it to its skeleton.

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It's incredibly gruesome,

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but I guess that's just the dark side of nature here in the cave.

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Look at those, absolutely revolting.

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'As we head further into the cave, it gets hotter and sweatier.

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'Our swarm of predators is close.

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'In order not to disturb them,

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'we need to turn off our lights and switch to night vision.

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'It's enough to give anyone the creeps.

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'The noise is building, piercing shrieks in the blackness.'

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Look at that.

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Absolutely phenomenal.

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'It's the largest congregation of creatures ever seen on Deadly.'

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That is one of the most overwhelming sights you will ever see in nature.

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These are Mexican free-tailed bats.

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There are simply millions of them.

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It looks almost more like a hive of bees

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than it does a group of mammals.

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The air is so thick with their calls.

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Mexican free-tailed bats come here every year to breed.

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And Texas holds the largest colonies on earth.

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The best way to show you the intense conditions

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created by this breeding swarm

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is to use this heat-sensitive camera.

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So here in this cave you can see that black

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is just the normal cave walls.

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And then you can see all of these tiny little glowing embers

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flying through the shot.

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Those are the bats on the wing.

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But the most extraordinary thing is...

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if I move around I get this incredible massive, glowing flame

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in the centre of shot.

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And that is hundreds of thousands, millions of bats

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crawling all over each other.

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And they've created so much body heat there

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that it's almost like one big living radiator.

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But these bats absolutely love it.

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It creates the absolute perfect conditions for them

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to raise their young.

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Look at that.

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These bats and their young thrive down here

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in this hot, toxic environment, but not me.

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'I've had enough.'

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Oh.

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I have never, ever been so relieved to get out of a place.

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But if that was a vile vision of the underworld,

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what happens next is one of the greatest shows on earth.

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As night approaches, these bats emerge to feed

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in a procession of millions.

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They can pour from the cave for hours.

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'And my ropes are hanging right in the middle of it.'

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Ah!

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Wow.

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The bats are just coming hurtling down the line at me.

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Ah! Right into my helmet!

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I have never felt quite so in the line of fire

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as I am right now.

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There are just squadrons of bats hurtling past me,

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and clouting into me and clouting into the ropes as well.

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This is... Ah!

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HE LAUGHS

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This is the largest aggregation of mammal predators

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found anywhere on the planet.

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There could be 10, possibly even 12 million

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of these wonderful furry hunters heading out on the wing.

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And the amount of insects they will consume in one night

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is simply unfathomable.

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Each bat can eat up to their own body weight every night.

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That's a serious midnight feast.

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It's thought that all the bats from this one cave

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may eat as much as 120 tonnes of insects in one night.

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That's about the same as a passenger jet plane.

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Moths, midges, mosquitoes, can you imagine

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how many of those it must take to make 120 tonnes in one night?

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In terms of sheer spectacle,

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this is one of the greatest predatory forces

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on the entire planet.

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So many bats, tens of millions of them.

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All the bugs round here simply do not stand a chance.

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There is no doubt that Mexican free-tailed bats

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emerging in their millions

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are one of the finest predatory forces on the planet

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and undeniably deadly.

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The largest hot-blooded swarm on earth.

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Eating hundreds of tonnes of insects every night.

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Thriving in a truly toxic environment.

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Mexican free-tailed bats are a flying force to be reckoned with.

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Deadly.

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The bats roost here each year,

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so they're easy to find.

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'But the next animal I'm hoping to track down

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'is far more elusive.'

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I've been out looking for wildlife

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in this part of the world for many years,

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but one of its biggest, most impressive predators

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has managed to elude me -

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the mountain lion.

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Mountain lions are powerfully built big cats,

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also known as cougars, panthers and pumas.

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They're found all across the Americas, but are never common.

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They're mostly active at night, secretive and sly.

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In other words, a wildlife watcher's nightmare.

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Well, this is classic mountain lion habitat.

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These peaks are cut through with ravines and gullies

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and there's loads of cover.

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It's perfect for them to hunt their prey -

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things like jack rabbits

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right through to white-tailed and mule deer.

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With such a massive landscape and a cat that eludes even the eagle-eyed,

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we're going to need some help.

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So we're teaming up with local wildlife biologists

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who set baited traps to safely capture the lions

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so they can radio-collar them and monitor their movements.

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And on the way to check the first trap,

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we spot some beady-eyed scavengers.

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Turkey vultures.

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These are really interesting birds.

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First of all they have an incredible sense of smell

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and that's very unusual amongst birds.

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When you're out tracking predators,

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vultures are one of the first things you look out for.

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These birds have the ability to spot carcasses

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from a great distance by flying up and getting high.

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So the bait has brought in some vultures,

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but has it tempted any other predators?

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So this pig was placed here as bait only yesterday.

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It was completely intact when it was placed here

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and now the majority of the midsection has gone,

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including a lot of the internal organs.

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So something's been here, something's got stuck into this pig,

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and that is a very good start,

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particularly because there's a couple of camera traps

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right up behind us.

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With hidden cameras set and traps baited, all we can do is wait.

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In the meantime, let's meet this cunning cat.

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Mountain lions are pretty hefty,

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but they're light on their feet plotting a silent ambush.

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Prey animals go about their lives

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unaware that a killer's lurking, till it's too late.

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The stealthy stalk ends with a single pounce

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and a fatal, decisive bite.

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This is the skull of an adult mountain lion.

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It's very blunt, very broad.

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At the front of the mouth...

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these, the canine teeth -

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those are the chief killing tool.

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Then at the back of the jaw, these stouter, sheering, slicing teeth

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are called carnassials.

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And those do the job of cutting up meat so it can be eaten.

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These are really impressive.

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Those are the claws of a mountain lion.

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Now they would be kept sheathed inside the paw,

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so that they can be kept sharp.

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And look how curved and pointed that claw is,

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that is a real tearing weapon.

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The next thing is this.

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This is the skull of a wild sheep,

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and it's been eaten by a mountain lion.

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Now almost certainly the killing bite would have come to the throat

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or to the back of the neck,

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but you can see that on this really quite substantial animal,

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which has big horns to defend itself...

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it's been bitten right through the skull by the mountain lion.

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This is an animal of formidable power and strength

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that can take down prey animals many times its own size.

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The cat's own skull shows its lethal arsenal -

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stabbing canines, sheering cheek teeth,

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and its claws are just plain frightening.

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That's why this cat is such a success.

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Though this part of Texas looks green and lush,

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during the daytime it's dry and it's hot,

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so cats don't tend to be very active, instead they're nocturnal.

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So if we want to stand any chance of finding one,

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we need to go out after dark.

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'And cats aren't the only wild things

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'that come out at night.

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'First up, a brown earth snake.

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'And a sizable longhorn beetle.'

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Before we come across a true Deadly icon.

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Oh, yes.

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In this tangled web in front of me,

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one of the most notorious deadly creatures in the world

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is about to make a kill.

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That there is a black widow spider.

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And a small chafer beetle has just flown right into her web.

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She's trussing him up with silk.

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Any second now...

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There she's getting... She's doing it, she's doing it, she's biting.

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The widow spider is armed with a venom

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which is incredibly potent.

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These spiders also have in their venom

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something which turns their prey into a kind of liquid meat soup,

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which she can then suck down.

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It's all pretty grotesque but you can see it's unbelievably efficient.

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They're also one of the spiders that human beings fear most.

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But really the only time that a human being

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has anything to fear is if they accidently put their clothing on

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and there's a black widow inside

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or perhaps put their boots on and a black widow

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is hidden inside their shoes.

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Despite their reputation, these spiders certainly mean us no harm,

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and humans are very rarely hurt.

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Instead their diet's flies, grasshoppers, beetles...

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even each other.

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The black widow name comes from the fact that the females,

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and this is a female here,

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will quite often eat the males after they've mated.

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They have this really sinister, sinister reputation.

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The female of the species is far more deadly than the male.

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They're double the size, and are far more dangerous.

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This is an epic drama in miniature.

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She's pulling out silk from the spinnerets at the end of her abdomen

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and trussing this little beetle up

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so that he can be much easier to manoeuvre.

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And then every once in a while she'll just jump in

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and stab him with her fangs and inject the venom.

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Well, we may not have found a mountain lion

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but this is a sensational bonus.

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The black widow spider,

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one of the most venomous on earth,

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ruthlessly efficient,

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an unbelievable predator and undeniably deadly.

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With its paralysing bite.

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Using silk to shroud their prey.

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And occasionally eating their own husbands.

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Black widow spiders are Texas's miniature murderers.

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Deadly.

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'After only a few hours' sleep,

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'we're on the road again to check the traps and hidden cameras.'

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There's a real sense of anticipation

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because we just don't know what we're going to find.

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There could be a coyote, a bear, a deer.

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Obviously the dream scenario will be to turn up

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and find it filled with a big, angry mountain lion.

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Fingers crossed.

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As we approach our first trap,

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we hear something before we can see it.

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Stop. Stop, stop, stop!

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There's something in the trap.

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It's been sprung. I can see something moving.

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But it's not a mountain lion.

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Quite the opposite.

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In fact this is an animal that would very much be mountain lion prey.

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It's a peccary, it's a kind of wild pig.

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Oh.

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'The peccary's released without harm.'

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And off he goes.

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Well, there's certainly plenty of mountain lion prey around here.

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All we need to do is to find the predator that's feeding on it.

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'There's also an encouraging sign near our second trap.'

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Well, our trap and bait is just shortly up there,

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I can actually smell it right now.

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And there is a super fresh

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coyote track heading away from it.

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So that might well be in our camera traps.

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But I don't see anything bigger.

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Disappointingly, the second trap doesn't hold a lion either

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and the bait seems untouched.

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I wouldn't say it's been noticeably fed on.

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But the cameras have been in place for over a month.

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There could be just about anything on them.

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OK, let's see what we've got.

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So we've got the images from the camera trap loaded into here.

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Let's see what's wandered close to the bait.

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What's going on there? Oh, there's a little rabbit.

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This is taken at night and there's eye shine

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reflecting back from the rabbit as it's running through the shot.

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Oh, OK.

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We have got our first predator.

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It's just in the corner of shot

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and that is a coyote or "coyo-tay."

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I reckon that would have been the coyote that's tracks I saw

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leading up towards the trap but didn't actually go into it.

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And in all likelihood that's come in to get stuck into the bait.

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Let's see if there's anything even more.

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HE GASPS

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Oh, my goodness.

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I don't believe it. I don't believe it!

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We've got a mountain lion.

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There's a mountain lion just walked straight into the shot.

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That's incredible.

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And it's just wandered in broad daylight

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right down this trail here.

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Wow.

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Even though we haven't managed to find mountain lions here in Texas,

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we know they're here.

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They're here but they manage to not be seen

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and that I guess is a big part of what makes them deadly.

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Muted colours that blend into its environment.

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Silent stealth to get close to their target.

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And the power to take down prey up to five times their weight.

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Mountain lions, elusive, and still unfinished business.

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Deadly.

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Another ambush assassin now, but the cold-blooded kind.

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This is beautiful woodland habitat and we're going to be watching

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where we put our feet,

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because apparently it's perfect for snakes.

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And one is especially notorious.

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An arrow-headed viper, that's a toxic terror.

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Especially if you're a rodent.

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They inject venom to paralyse their victims,

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then swallow them whole.

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They're also guilty of more bites to people

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than any other venomous snake in the States.

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'And talking of deadly things that bite and sting...'

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Oh, my goodness.

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And this shows why you have to be so careful where you put your fingers.

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I had them just a hair's breadth away

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from about three or four striped bark scorpions.

0:20:390:20:41

There are hundreds of them.

0:20:430:20:44

'It's a veritable who's who of venom round here.

0:20:460:20:49

'But what we really want is...'

0:20:490:20:51

Snake!

0:20:520:20:53

Ah.

0:20:570:20:58

First snake find of the day. He's only very wee.

0:20:580:21:01

This is a rough earth snake,

0:21:010:21:03

and although it's not the animal we're looking for

0:21:030:21:06

it's a very good start.

0:21:060:21:07

It means that snakes are up, about, they're here.

0:21:070:21:11

'After a big day's snake search,

0:21:150:21:17

'the effort pays off.'

0:21:170:21:18

Well spotted, Mark.

0:21:190:21:20

Beautiful.

0:21:220:21:23

We have our first copperhead.

0:21:250:21:27

If I try and point with a stick to where it is...

0:21:270:21:30

That there is the end of the nose

0:21:310:21:35

and the body is coiled around just in that area there.

0:21:350:21:40

This is still quite a small snake,

0:21:400:21:42

but the camouflage is just incredible.

0:21:420:21:45

The light brown, the dark brown blotches,

0:21:450:21:47

they match so perfectly

0:21:470:21:49

with all of these different-coloured dead leaves on the ground.

0:21:490:21:52

Let's see if we can just lift it gently up.

0:21:520:21:55

Oi, oi, oi.

0:21:580:21:59

Oh.

0:22:000:22:01

And this is why copperheads account for about a quarter

0:22:010:22:04

of venomous snake bites here in America.

0:22:040:22:07

They lie very still and they don't rattle their tail,

0:22:070:22:10

like a rattlesnake does,

0:22:100:22:11

to warn away intruders, instead they strike.

0:22:110:22:14

And when they strike they inject venom

0:22:140:22:17

and that can be incredibly painful.

0:22:170:22:19

So it's something I very much want to avoid.

0:22:190:22:21

Oh!

0:22:220:22:24

'It's a start, but let's face it,

0:22:240:22:26

'it's a bit...well, small.

0:22:260:22:29

'I reckon our odds will improve after dark.'

0:22:290:22:31

And I'm really excited about searching through here at night.

0:22:350:22:38

These rocks offer endless places for animals to hide and to hunt.

0:22:380:22:43

It is perfect for spiders, scorpions and, of course, snakes.

0:22:430:22:47

This canyon really feels like the kind of place

0:22:540:22:56

where you could find a snake at any second.

0:22:560:22:59

Kind of wish that was possible,

0:22:590:23:01

it would make my job an awful lot easier.

0:23:010:23:03

See that?

0:23:110:23:12

Beautiful big copperhead out in the open.

0:23:140:23:18

On the move.

0:23:200:23:21

It's quite unusual to see a copperhead

0:23:220:23:26

out in the open as active as this.

0:23:260:23:29

Normally they tend to just sit still and wait by a game path,

0:23:290:23:33

waiting for something to come close by that they can feed on.

0:23:330:23:36

But it just blends in so beautifully with the leaf litter.

0:23:370:23:41

There he goes. Look at that.

0:23:440:23:45

Just in there.

0:23:500:23:52

Yeah, I see him.

0:23:520:23:53

You come over to me? Come over to me.

0:23:560:23:58

This is an incredibly beautiful snake,

0:24:010:24:04

tongue flickering out on the air, tasting the world around it.

0:24:040:24:08

It's at the moment at its most active,

0:24:090:24:11

this is the time when copperheads are really looking for food.

0:24:110:24:16

Round here it could well be hunting for frogs,

0:24:160:24:18

you can hear the frogs making sounds in the darkness.

0:24:180:24:22

But for copperheads normally

0:24:220:24:23

their prey is made up of small mammals.

0:24:230:24:25

They kill them with a venom that's injected from hinged fangs

0:24:250:24:28

at the front of the upper jaw.

0:24:280:24:30

And they have a lightning-fast strike.

0:24:300:24:33

But to film that lightning-fast strike,

0:24:360:24:39

I'm going to need daylight and a fancy bit of Deadly kit.

0:24:390:24:42

I have in this box a good-sized copperhead

0:24:470:24:50

which was found in the local area just a couple of days ago.

0:24:500:24:53

It's the perfect size to show you a copperhead striking.

0:24:530:24:56

Down here we have a special camera

0:24:560:24:59

which can see in super slow motion.

0:24:590:25:01

'The only way to see a strike that happens in a heartbeat.'

0:25:030:25:07

So, Mark, can you watch Luke's back if at all possible?

0:25:070:25:10

'Copperheads react to movement.'

0:25:120:25:13

Ready?

0:25:150:25:16

You see that?

0:25:160:25:18

The flicking of my foot should get the snake to strike.

0:25:180:25:21

'Well, the snake certainly struck, but did we have any luck?'

0:25:250:25:29

'Played back 16 times slower than real life,

0:25:320:25:34

'you can see the action unfold.'

0:25:340:25:36

Oh, wow!

0:25:390:25:40

That was really incredibly impressive.

0:25:420:25:45

It would have stabbed those fangs into the body of the prey animal,

0:25:480:25:52

injected venom and then it releases, it sits back,

0:25:520:25:55

waits until it dies and then comes in to finish off the job.

0:25:550:25:58

This is exquisite.

0:26:010:26:02

But there is one last thing that I want to show you

0:26:030:26:05

about the copperhead.

0:26:050:26:06

Like all vipers...

0:26:100:26:12

..the copperhead has two hinged fangs.

0:26:130:26:16

They are absolutely exquisitely thin, pointed,

0:26:170:26:22

and they'll easily break through the skin and the fur

0:26:220:26:25

of a small mammal.

0:26:250:26:26

And that yellowish goo

0:26:270:26:30

that's accumulating on my stick...

0:26:300:26:32

is venom.

0:26:320:26:33

A venom that can bring down a decent-sized mouse

0:26:330:26:36

which the snake is then going to eat in one single mouthful.

0:26:360:26:39

Isn't that extraordinary?!

0:26:410:26:42

As many as a quarter of all venomous snake bites in the US

0:26:440:26:47

come from this snake,

0:26:470:26:48

but that's not why I'm suggesting it's deadly.

0:26:480:26:50

It's certainly not an animal that means human beings any harm.

0:26:500:26:54

I reckon it's deadly because it's fast, it's beautiful

0:26:540:26:57

and if you were a mouse

0:26:570:26:58

it would be the most lethal creature on the planet.

0:26:580:27:00

The copperhead, deadly.

0:27:010:27:03

An ambush attacker.

0:27:070:27:08

Hollow, hypodermic needle fangs.

0:27:090:27:11

Arrow-shaped head, launched like a missile.

0:27:120:27:14

Copperheads - potent killers of the southern states.

0:27:170:27:19

Deadly.

0:27:210:27:22

Rope below!

0:27:250:27:26

'Join me next time as I continue my journey.'

0:27:260:27:28

It got my pole!

0:27:280:27:30

'On Deadly Pole To Pole.'

0:27:300:27:31

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:27:350:27:38

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