Animal Magic Wild & Weird

# Marauding mice and balls of ice and sharks on a golfing spree

# Cicada swarms and Martian storms

-# And fish walking out of the sea

-Really?

-# Elks in trees and foaming seas and giant mayfly mobs...

-Argh!

# Zombie snails and friendly whales

-# And completely frozen frogs

-You what?

# They're wild and weird, wild and weird

# Really, really wild and really, really weird

# They're wild and weird, wild and weird

# They're really, really wild

# They're really, really wild and weird. #

It's all things magical on today's show,

including an amazing escaping octopus...

-He's going for it.

-No way.

I'm telling you, right now.

A stoat that hypnotises its prey...

And a classic Now You See It, Now You Don't -

it's the disappearing lake illusion.

MUSIC CONTINUES

Are you sure you know what you're doing?

Naomi, it's all under control. OK?

Right, just pop your head in there.

You've definitely done this before?

-Yeah, yeah, I did it on my nan.

-OK.

-She was a great sport.

What do you mean, "was"?

OK. There we go.

Step one, head in. OK.

Er, step two is carrots.

They go in there, just...

OK.

Step three, let's not worry about that. Step four...

-What was step three?

-..insert blade above victim's head.

-Victim?

-Volunteer's head.

OK, step five.

DRUM ROLL And now for the piece de resistance.

Oh.

Sorry, whoa, sorry,

you're just putting me off a little bit and I've really got to...

Sorry.

OK.

Just close your eyes.

-Argh!

-Oh!

-It actually worked.

-I feel...

-You OK?

I'm better than the carrots.

You know, there is a much easier way for you to show me magic, Tim.

-Is there?

-Yeah,

just take a look at this first contender from the natural world.

-Oh, Tim?

-Yeah?

-Could you get me out of this thing?

-Oh...

Where's the manual?

This deep sea conjurer comes from Alaska, North America.

In August 2010, a fishing party reeled in

more than they had bargained for.

A huge 2.5m octopus was a surprising enough catch

but what it did next had people staring in disbelief.

-He's going for it.

-No way.

I'm telling you, right now.

Going for what?

To everyone's amazement,

it began to escape through a tiny gap in the boat.

Yeah, there's his nose,

-he's just all the way through it now.

-Except for...

-Oh, just the top.

-Just his nose, yeah.

There he goes. Wow, wow.

The escape artist in question is in fact a giant Pacific octopus.

Octopus expert James Wood has been studying

these slippery underwater magicians.

Sharks eat them, marine mammals like dolphins and seals eat them,

some marine birds eat them, but if you can't find something,

it's pretty hard to eat it. Their primary defence is camouflage.

And the king of camouflage is the aptly named mimic octopus.

This animal can take on the colour of nearly any setting it finds

and remarkably, also copies the shape of other sea creatures.

It can impersonate anything, from a flatfish to a sea snake

in order to protect itself but if an octopus can't dazzle its predators

with illusions, it does have another trick up its eight sleeves.

-Oh, very clever.

-Thank you.

It resorts to plan B.

MUSIC: She Said by Plan B

# She said, "I love you more than words can say"... #

No,

I don't mean music from popular singer-songwriter Plan B...

-Oh.

-..I mean an actual plan B -

escape.

-Oh, I can do escape.

-Yeah, give us some escape music, please.

-Yeah.

MUSIC: Main Title (The Great Escape) by Elmer Bernstein

And this is where not having a hard outer shell or skeleton

is the secret to its success. James, take over.

Octopuses are the most intelligent of all of the invertebrates.

They have a brain to body weight ratio that is higher

than some groups of vertebrates like fish and birds.

And that very intelligence means it can assess its environment

in a matter of seconds, and in the case of our boat-confined octopus,

spot a hole and make its escape.

You have to agree, a master illusionist.

MUSIC CONTINUES

Hey, speaking of which - that reminds me, time for a bit of hypnotism.

-Oh.

-Look into my eyes, no, my hands.

No, my eyes. Ooh...

You feeling sleepy?

-No.

-Oh, er...

I know.

FRANTIC MUSIC

How about now?

-I feel a bit sick actually.

-Oh, do you? Strange,

it worked for this next animal.

Up in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, local resident Brian Allinson

filmed these stoats going crazy in his back garden.

I noticed outside the window this display on the lawn

when the stoat was tearing round. I couldn't believe my eyes.

One day that I shan't forget occurred about September-time.

The swallows were gathering on the telephone wires up here

and all of a sudden, the stoat appeared on the lawn

and started his usual routine, but then the swallows started

to take an interest in the proceedings

and they proceeded to buzz at the stoat.

It was like an aerial bombardment. The stoat responded,

I think it thought it was some sort of a game.

The stoat was jumping up two feet in the air and this went on for,

oh, I should think for 10, 15 minutes.

So where does hypnotism fit into all this merriment?

Ah, let me explain.

This madcap stoat behaviour isn't exclusively reserved

for Brian's back garden.

In fact, stoats have been busting some groovy moves

all over the country.

But it's not just for fun -

there's a deadly mission in mind.

It's believed that this unusual form of dancing might be used

to confuse and hypnotise its prey,

perfectly illustrated here by these hi-tech special effects.

Ooh, I'm definitely feeling sleepy now.

MUSIC: He Sure Could Hypnotize by The Clovers

# He sure could hypnotise, uh-huh-huh... #

All of these magical antics allow them to get close enough

to their prey and then in one fatal flash of fur, it's game over.

All that's left is to carry your dinner,

which can weigh ten times your own weight, back to your den.

# Oh, look at that brother, alakazoo

# Oh, he could make you do anything he wanted you to... #

-Good trick.

-Mmm.

You know, I've got another trick to show you.

Oh, what is it this time?

Only a trick that magicians have been working on for centuries -

disappearing.

Well, there's the door. Feel free.

-No, I'm talking about disappearing in front of your very eyes...

-Ooh.

..using just this cloth, I will magically transport away.

-Go on, then.

-You see me, now you don't.

You see me, now you don't.

Wow, how did you do that?

It's not like you're hiding behind the sofa or anything, is it?

Anyway, hurry back.

It is time for our next trick from the natural world -

the disappearing lake illusion.

That sounds amazing. Let's see.

Well, hang about - how did you do...?

For this illusion, we're heading to America's Sunshine State - Florida.

This is Lake Jackson, a pristine six square mile freshwater lake

teeming with wildlife.

It WAS home to dozens of species of bird,

even American alligators swam in its crystal clear waters.

"Was"? "Swam"?

Why the past tense?

Remember I said it was a disappearing lake?

-Yeah.

-Well, now you see it...

..now you don't.

Now, that's a vanishing trick.

That is very good. Go on, tell me how they did that

-and I'll tell you how I did my vanishing trick.

-Oh, no.

A good magician never reveals his secrets.

In the case of the lake though,

larger natural forces were at work.

Oh, goblins? No?

In 1999, Florida was hit by a terrible drought.

Michael Hill from the Wildlife & Fish Commission

records water levels in the region

and his gauge was giving him some extraordinary readings.

I monitor the water levels pretty often, every few days,

and there is one particular day in early September,

I saw it go down a couple of feet in one day

and I came back and it had gone down another two feet.

The lake was disappearing faster than anyone could have predicted

and it was beyond anything you'd expect to see from a drought.

For the creatures of the lake, the situation was becoming critical

and with nowhere else to go,

some of these desperate animals went for any water they could find.

Are you videotaping it?

I am videotaping everything right now.

Let me go down to the water

and look at the alligator in our pool...

that Daddy is about to lasso.

OK, you guys, sit.

You fall in there and I'll kill you.

Oh, motherly love.

Oh, my... All right, kids -

back this way.

How cool was that?

Er...

That's not very cool if you live next door.

Yeah, I've heard of throwing slugs and snails over the fence,

but a gator!

That's on a different level.

Meanwhile, back at the lake,

the last of the water was rapidly draining away

-and guess what they found?

-A giant plug.

No, a giant hole where a giant plug should have been.

-Funny you say that...

-Oh!

There was indeed a gaping hole in the bottom of the lake.

So, mystery of the disappearing lake solved, then.

Except -

where did the hole come from?

Any ideas, magic man?

I'm getting a vision...

A vision of a human man...

that's tall and he's wearing a blue top, I think a polo shirt...

What, like this guy on the TV right now?

Oh, wow. Yeah, that's him.

Harley Means has spent his life studying the area.

Beneath us here, at some depth, is limestone

and this limestone is very porous and full of cavities.

Through geologic time, these cavities can become enlarged

due to acids in ground water

and at some point when the conditions are appropriate,

you can have a collapse.

Yeah, you see, now at this point in the proceedings,

a decent magician like moi would restore that lake

-to its former glory.

-Oh, yeah?

How would you do that?

Well, I'd just simply utter the magic words,

Okeeheepkee.

Yeah.

I'll let water expert Tyler McMillan explain.

The legend has it that the original Native American name

of this lake is Okeeheepkee, which means "disappearing waters".

Obviously if the natives were calling it that

many hundreds of years ago, this event has been going on

many, many times over the centuries.

Meaning that if it had drained away before,

surely this could mean that it might refill again?

Correct.

Florida's drought finally broke in 2001.

Mud and debris washed by rainwater re-plugged the sinkhole

and the water level started to rise.

Insects buzzed, fish grew large with an abundance of new food,

encouraging once-familiar bird species to return -

Lake Jackson was reborn.

Hallelujah. That was good.

Right, time for me to do a trick on you. Get down there...

-What?

-..and look here, a lovely red and green box.

-Er...

-I'm just going to put my hand through here to show you

-it is empty.

-OK.

-Happy with that?

-Not really.

-Right, just stick that on your head like that.

-OK.

-OK, are you nice and comfortable?

-Not really, no.

-OK.

-What's this called?

It's called the Head Twister of Doom.

The Head Twister of what?!

Yeah, it'll be fine. I'll just say the magic words...

Okee-teep-kee.

-They're not magic words.

-Ready? Here we go.

Ooh!

-Ooh, how does that feel?

-Ow!

Oh, I've never had so much fun.

See you next time.

Argh... Bye!

# Wild and weird, wild and weird

# Really, really wild and really, really weird

# They're wild and weird, wild and weird

# They're really, really wild

# They're really, really wild and weird. #