The Love Show Wild & Weird

# Marauding mice and walls 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... #

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. #

Love is in the air on today's show including

a strange sound that's bewitched a town...

Neh!

..A swarm of mayflies on an intensive speed date...

..And the kissing bug which loves nothing more than kissing us.

Do you know what?

You really do have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.

Tim, I don't know what to say...

And those eyelashes

get me every time.

And as for those

floppy ears and waggy tail,

well...

Oh. Oh, I see.

Oh, I thought...

No, no. Do you want a biscuit?

Yeah, I suppose it's some consolation.

-No, that one's for the...

-What?

-Oh...

-Oh.

You know, when it comes to love,

I like to be serenaded with a beautiful song.

It's funny you say that.

Have a look at this.

This is Sausalito on America's West Coast,

an exclusive neighbourhood of houseboats

kissed by the gently lapping waves of San Francisco Bay.

Could there be a more romantic location to find true love?

Are you feeling all right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just go with it, go with it.

Because when darkness falls,

the lover's serenade of a real American beauty strikes up.

Here's a sneak preview from the local residents.

Neh!

Meh!

Mmm...

If you've ever had a sound system with a hum in it, it's that sound.

Eh-eh!

It sounds like a low-flying flock of B52s. It's a low hum.

LOW HUM

TIM HUMS

They don't sound very happy.

No, they don't, no.

TIM HUMS

Have you got any idea what's making that noise, then?

TIM HUMS

You?

OK, that was me then.

Yeah, granted. However, the locals have their own theories.

LOW HUM

Secret navy communication systems, telephone systems run amok,

pacemakers going off at the same time from old people's homes.

No, I mean, you can imagine just about anything.

We would put our hands around the light poles,

and they would be vibrating with this sound.

And that's why I was convinced it was electrical.

It had to be electrical.

LOW HUM

RATTLE

No.

BUZZ

No.

WHOOSH

All right, all right! Whoa, whoa, whoa!

No! I give up.

Don't worry, the state of California sent in the experts.

ELECTRICAL HUM

After spending a year and a lot of money analysing sound waves

and testing a range of completely bonkers theories,

the experts were spent.

So in a last-ditch attempt to find an answer,

they called in biologist Professor John McCosker.

Cue eyebrow raise.

I received a call from the head

of the Noise Abatement Bureau in Marin County.

The Noise Abatement Bureau?

-IN AMERICAN ACCENT:

-N-A-B! You got a problem with sound? We'll abate it.

Step away from the microphone!

-OK, OK.

-He-hey!

Yeah, good.

Meanwhile, back to the call that John received.

Whoo-hoo!

He said, "You know, I can't believe I'm even wasting my time asking

"you this question but is it possible that a fish could make

"so much noise it would keep people awake?"

No way!

It's not a fish, is it?

So I said, "Sure, play the sound over the phone."

He did, and I said, "Oh, yeah, that's Porichthys notatus,

the batrachoidid, it's a midshipman, they make noise.

It's also called a humming fish."

That is bonkers!

I don't believe it!

I thought this could not be a fish, they have to be out of their minds!

She doesn't believe it either! It is not a fish!

It's a fish! It's a fish!

However unbelievable it might be, this is the culprit,

the humble humming toadfish.

RHYTHMIC HUMMING

Let's have a look at a dead one in a jar.

Doesn't look like much, but it could make enough noise

to keep us awake all night.

It spends most of its life living buried in the sand,

buried in the mud.

Mm, not that attractive, so in order to attract a mate,

it has to display, and in so doing, it displays vocally.

A lot of fishes make noise and most of them

use either the grinding of their teeth...

GRINDING

-Eugh, stop it, stop it!

-My ears!

No!

..or they use their gas bladder or swim bladder.

You'd better believe it now, Naomi.

This fishy beauty uses its swim bladder,

normally used to control buoyancy,

as an amazing instrument to woo the ladies.

Toadfish spend the majority of their life in the ocean.

They enter the bay

at the beginning of summer

and get into the shallow waters so that they can make their nest,

usually against large rocks, large wooden structures,

or against the edge of a houseboat hull.

The water is very murky, it's dark,

and they start trying to attract a female.

That such a small fish is able to generate such an enormous sound

and create such a giant ruckus as a result. I mean, how wonderful!

That's what nature can do.

It's an amazing fish.

Well, maybe not that one.

It's not the only one, you know.

-Really?

-Hm.

Here's my pick of the pops, top five fishy tunes!

Grunting his way in at number five, it's our friend the humming toadfish.

This sound is a sure-fire way to see off potential rivals.

RHYTHMIC HUMMING

At number four, the unmistakable chirruping

of a sergeant major fish defending its territory.

GRUNTING

New in at three!

That is the sound of the famous pufferfish,

the little fish with a big defence.

CRUNCHING

And at number two, that is the song of the cod,

an oceanic pop star who's definitely had his chips!

GRUNTING

But at number one, it's Mr Love Machine again,

keeping the neighbours awake all night,

the one and only humming toadfish.

LOW HUM

Ha-ha-ha!

Finished?

Er, yeah, have actually. Do you want these?

-No.

-No?

Moving on.

There are some love stories that are the stuff

-of nightmares!

-What?

This gas station is being attacked by...

-Some kind of bugs.

-Something.

And that lady won't even get out of her car.

It's like it's snowing.

Here, in Lake Erie, a swarm of...

Hang on, hang on, hang on!

Did you say Lake Erie?

Yep.

Ha! Well, what do you expect?

If you call the place Lake Erie,

weird stuff's going to happen, isn't it?

No sympathy for these people.

Like I was saying, here in Lake Erie,

a swarm of literally billions of mayflies descended on the town.

Every surface, every inch of the air was filled with winged insects.

That is really creepy.

Who's that?

Greg Stewart, a local resident who witnessed it first-hand.

They were all over the wall of the city,

and I didn't know if I should even get out of my car.

It was that bad.

Don't get out the car, that's my advice!

And as I got out, they started crunching under my feet.

Aw, he got out the car. Don't worry about my advice.

Then, within days,

they spontaneously started to die in their billions.

The drifts of dead bodies got so deep

that the local authorities had to

use snow ploughs to unblock the roads.

And as they started to break down, they left another treat too.

It smelled of motor oil and vomit.

OK.

-That's that bit.

-Eugh!

Here you go.

Oh!

What, there's not a little bit of you

that's intrigued to know what that combo smells like?

-Not in the slightest.

-No?

That's a shame.

We need an expert.

It's Don.

What's done?

No, Don. Look.

He knows everything about the Lake Erie mayflies.

Well, the big swarms are really a result

of the life history pattern of Western Lake Erie mayflies.

They live in the mud for about two years, and they grow and they moult.

About the middle of May, the first of June,

they all come out of the water at one time.

After about two days, there's a swarm, a swirling swarm

like a little funnel cloud that's formed by the mayflies.

So where does love fit into all of this then, Naomi?

Well, the females are searching the swarm for a fella.

OK.

And once they've hooked up,

she heads back to the lake to lay her eggs.

OK, and the male?

Oh, he dies.

Sorry. Sorry, sorry. He dies?

Yep. And when the female's laid her eggs, she dies too.

What?

Hang on a minute, hang on.

Right, so you spend two years of your life

moping around a muddy lake as a grub...

-Larva.

-Yeah, same thing.

Then you finally get old enough to flee the family nest.

-In this case, a lake.

-Yeah.

Then you meet the girl of your dreams and you go on this whirlwind,

insane speed dating session, and then he dies?

Yep.

What, and everyone's OK with this, are they?

Except the clean-up crew.

Getting rid of a million dead lovers is a hands-on job.

Oh, nice to see they're using a giant millipede to do it.

That's a hose, Tim.

Oh, OK.

That seems like a lot of hard work to me.

No-one said love was easy, Tim.

It is when the kissing bug's concerned!

The kissing bug? That sounds adorable!

Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!

In the backstreets of South America, millions of dark forms

lurk in the shadows, waiting till nightfall to emerge.

These are kissing bugs,

and if there's one thing they like kissing more than

anything in the world,

it's us.

Something tells me this isn't going to be very nice, and given that,

who is he, and why has he got one of those things on his arm?

That's Dr Matt Yao from the London School of Tropical Medicine.

They're really quite nasty bugs.

If they're hungry, you can actually see them.

They'll be attracted to the heat of my finger,

so they're quite vicious and hungry.

And similarly, if I breathe on them, they become very agitated,

and that's the carbon dioxide from my breath.

And if I breathe a bit more...

Again, you can see them probing through the net.

Ooh! Hey, I'm just going to try something, Naomi.

Works every time!

So these bugs are attracted to warmth and carbon dioxide

and feed on the blood of larger animals like us humans.

They sink their needle-like mouth parts into their victim's flesh

and draw long and hard on their blood, whilst we sleep away,

blissfully unaware.

Well, that doesn't explain their name.

Over to the doc.

One of the reasons why they are called kissing bugs

is it's just that they tend to come out at night,

when the lights are off,

and your face tends to be the most exposed area.

So they can crawl all over the face,

but generally kiss around the mouth area or around the facial areas.

That is disgusting!

That's not even the half of it.

Prepare yourself! Have a look at this.

So if you've got a family and they're being fed on every night,

particularly the children can actually become anaemic.

Which basically means you haven't got enough blood in your body

and that leaves you feeling pale and weak.

But they have another, darker legacy.

You see, whilst kissing you on the cheek, they might well leave you with

the life-threatening Chagas disease, a condition caused by a tiny parasite

carried by the kissing bugs that can eventually lead to heart failure.

Doc, take over.

When they take a blood meal, they defecate.

BOTH: EUGH!

And you can scratch it into the bite wound or you can rub your eyes

or put your fingers to your mouth, and that's how you become infected.

Ooh!

Yeah. You know we've actually got some of these, don't you?

What? In here?

Yeah! The doc send them over, little bad boys. I mean...

GLASS SMASHES

BUZZING

BOTH: ARGH!