Clever Critters Wild & Weird

# Marauding mice and walls of ice

-# And sharks on a golfing spree

-Argh!

# Cicada swarms and Martian storms

-# And fish walking out of the sea

-Really?

# Elks in trees and foaming seas

-# And giant mayfly moths

-Huh?

# 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. #

On today's show, some clever critters.

Dogs on a train.

A crow on a zebra crossing.

And a real-life fish out of water.

What are you doing?

-Inventing.

-Ooh, inventing what?

This.

Behold, the Brain Booster 3,000.

It's designed to rewire my neural system,

exponentially increasing the efficiency of my synaptic pathways.

Eh?

-Makes me more cleverer.

-Oh.

-Yeah.

That reminds me, actually.

I've got some clips about brainy animals for us to watch.

-Are you coming?

-No, I can't.

I've got to find the control interface

because if it's not configured correctly

it could have catastrophic consequences.

-OK.

-Now, where did I PUUUUT it?

-Oh.

-Naaaaah! Naomi.

-That's funny, it's not working.

It's cos it's... Waaah!

Aaaargh!

Waaah!

Aaaaaah!

Oh. Oh, whoops.

Oh, look, I was using the wrong...

Tim?

Oh.

We start with a shaggy dog story from Russia.

The Moscow Metro is one of the busiest underground train

systems in the world, carrying millions of passengers every day.

Don't be ridiculous. There is no such thing as underground trains.

Next you're going to be telling me there's boats that travel underwater.

Do you mean like a submarine?

Oh, yeah, good one. Submarine. Go on, carry on.

But, in amongst the commuters, making their way through

the trains and tunnels are a remarkable group of city slickers.

-Dogs.

-That's not clever.

People take their dogs on the train all the time.

Ah, but these dogs don't have any owners

and yet every morning they join the commute,

queuing for trains and sharing seats with the passengers.

How do they hold the tickets?

I don't think they have tickets, Tim.

Yes, of course. Season passes. Very clever. Very clever.

Expert Suzanne MacDonald has been studying how animals adapt

to city life.

It only makes sense for dogs to do this if they're feral.

If they don't have owners. So it's clear they must be homeless dogs.

I don't think you would see this kind of behaviour in a city

where there aren't large populations of feral dogs.

And Moscow certainly has that.

Around 35,000 stray dogs live on the city streets.

It's a tough life, where competition for food and shelter is fierce.

But how exactly have these stray hounds ended up underground?

Well, they just take the escalator, don't they, like everybody else.

No, I mean why are they doing it?

Oh, I don't know. I'm not an expert. Ask Suzanne.

If you were a dog and you saw a human who'd give you food

and, one day, you followed the human and the human went down into a train

and the human petted you and told you how great you were,

and everybody on the train was nice to you

and then, when you got off the train, you followed the humans,

somebody fed you, you might say

the train is a good place and so you might do that again.

Dogs are very fast learners, so I think could spread

through a population of stray dogs really quickly.

And it isn't just dogs who go looking for food on public

transport either.

Other animals are also riding the rails,

whether it's monkeys in India,

or a pigeon right here in the UK.

OK, but that's still not being clever like us humans, is it?

They're just following food.

I mean, us humans, we are sophisticated, intelligent...

Fetch.

It's not just following food.

The really clever part is that some of the dogs are getting on

and off the train at the same stops at the same times every day.

They're actually using the Metro to make a regular commute to work.

They're coming from a place where they sleep,

which would be on the outskirts of the city.

They probably go where it's quiet at night.

They may go somewhere where they can actually sleep with other dogs

and then in the daytime they would go downtown

where they can hit up tourists for food and look sad-eyed

and get some snacks and, you know, that sort of thing.

So, it's sort of like they go from the suburbs at night

to their day jobs downtown.

-That simply can't be true.

-Why?

Well, how would they know which stop was which?

It's not like they can read a Tube map like me, is it?

It's the other way up, Tim.

You are right, though.

Dogs don't read maps but these stray animals have the same instincts

and senses as wild dogs like wolves,

including a sense of smell 10,000 times better than our own.

So, they can easily identify each individual stop just by smell alone,

which is how they know where to get on and where to get off.

Sniff-sniff. This is easy.

Ooh!

So whatever way you look at it,

you have to say that these rail-riding pooches

really are top dogs.

The District Line at this time going to be absolutely rammoed,

so if I was you I'd get on Central Line,

-then you'll need to change at Oxford Cir...

-What are you doing?

Just giving Fido directions to the shop. He's going to go get our lunch.

But Fido's a goldfish.

Maybe he could go when it's raining.

OK, I'll admit those dogs were pretty clever

but I know an animal that is much smarter.

-Really?

-Mm. Just look at this.

Corvids are a remarkable family of birds that includes ravens,

crows and rooks.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Birds? Birds aren't clever.

Where'd you think the term bird-brain comes from?

Birds may have small brains but it doesn't mean they aren't intelligent.

Here, have a nut.

Open it up, then.

I can't. I haven't got anything to open it with.

Tough nut to crack, eh? Tough nut.

Well, that's not a problem for the corvids.

Just look at these extraordinary crows in Japan.

Nuts are one of the favourite nibbles but, just like you,

they don't have a useful nut cracking tool to hand. Or wing.

So instead, they've figured out an ingenious method of breaking

and entering.

They simply drop the nut on a nearby road

and let the traffic do the work for them.

I'd say that's crows one and Naomi nil.

Yeah, but they won't be so smart

when they get run over picking it up, will they?

Actually, our clever crows have already thought of that.

Because they're not dropping them on just any old section of road.

No, these brainy birds are dropping the nuts onto a pedestrian crossing.

-No way!

-Yes way.

When the green man lights up they simply hop in

and take their well-earned snack.

Incredible.

Right, try this.

-Oh.

-Two nil.

Here you go, here you go.

Well that's not going to work, is it? It's too soft. Look.

No, no, no, no.

I want you to think what a crow could do with this.

Well, they don't make sandwiches, do they?

Better than that. Look and learn.

This time we're off to Israel,

where Oren Hassen was out feeding the hooded crows in his local park.

Nothing special about that, but instead of eating the bread,

just look at what this crow went and did.

What?

Yes, it would seem that this crow is using the bread as bait

to catch food.

In effect, it was fishing in exactly the same way that us humans do.

How has figured that out?

Well, many birds will dunk dry bread into water to soften it up a bit

before they eat it.

I'm not doing it for me.

So it's possible a crow was dunking bread

when it accidentally ended up with a fish in its mouth

and that crow realised that the fish was a far better meal than bread.

But this behaviour also raises the intriguing question

of whether crows are capable of deferred gratification.

Deferred gratification? What's that?

Well, it's the ability to resist one reward in favour of a better reward.

-For example, if I was to say to you...

-Aw!

Ah, ah, ah. If I was to say to you, leave this plate of marshmallows

alone for just five minutes

and then I'll give you two plates of marshmallows.

Obviously, you're going to wait for the better reward, aren't you?

For the crows, they have to resist the temptation of eating

the bread for the bigger reward of the fish.

It may not sound like much, but being able to think ahead like this

is something very few animals are smart enough to do.

Oh, you ate the marshmallows, didn't you?

Birds catching fish might be pretty clever

but what about a fish that can catch a bird?

Ha-ha. Don't be daft. Fish can't fly.

Flying fish.

-Apart from those.

-Not as smart as you think, are you, Tim?

For our final bizarre happening we're off to the picturesque

towns and river banks of southern Europe,

where the waters hide a shocking secret.

When pigeons come to drink and bathe at the river's edge,

they really are dicing with death.

A predator is watching their every move.

What do you say to that, Tim?

I'd say that was anomalistic

and idiosyncratic behaviour from that ebullient piscine creature.

Tim, are you just reading out long words from the dictionary

to try and prove that you are smart?

I repudiate any charge of circum...locution.

So what kind of freakish fish would do something so unnatural?

Closer inspection reveals a monstrous head

with long protruding feelers.

It's a colossal kind of catfish.

Well, that explains it.

What does?

Catfish.

Well, cats love eating birds, don't they?

-You do know what a catfish is, don't you?

-Yeah.

But maybe there is someone watching the show that doesn't know what

a catfish is, then perhaps someone should explain.

How about freshwater fish expert Jeremy Wade.

People tend to think of European catfish as being fairly

sluggish creatures, snuffling around on the bottom,

eating things like worms, crustaceans and muscles.

Normally they live in quite muddy water.

That's why they got those feelers stretched out in front of them.

They have their eyes set towards the top of their head.

They're very aware of what's going on above them.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I already knew all of that.

-Oh, right, shall I stop it, then?

-No, don't stop it, no. It's rude.

Once he's started, let him finish.

They're very opportunistic so they will feed on small fish

but also water birds.

Things like ducks that are swimming or floating on the surface

but I've not heard of them taking pigeons before.

-Hang on a minute. He's an expert and even he's never heard of it?

-I know.

These crafty catfish have invented a whole new hunting technique.

The catfish are approaching very stealthily.

They're coming in very close to the water's edge.

The prey is not going to come to the fish.

The fish has to go to the prey, which in this case involves

launching itself on land, making a lunge, a grab.

Fido. Come on, Fido. Fido. Come on, jump. Up, up, up. Up, up, up, Fido.

Jump.

Of course, this is a dangerous tactic for a fish.

If it were to end up marooned on dry land,

the catfish would soon suffocate

but, for these highly adaptable creatures, the prospect

of a high-protein pigeon supper appears to be worth the risk.

And by making themselves literally a fish out of water,

I reckon they definitely deserve to be called clever critters.

Aw, you know, all this talk of food, it's making me hungry.

-Shall we stop now and get some lunch?

-Yeah, OK.

-All right. Good deal.

Tell you what, you go get the fish

-and I'll go and get the pigeon.

-Oh.

See you in a bit, yeah?

# 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

# Wild and weird. #