Underwater Oddities Wild & Weird

# W-w-wormy fish-killers

# Cold-water caterpillars Super-clever brainless slime

# Yeuch!

# Bunny rabbit swarms, raging storms and pigs that swim at dinner time!

# Tornadoes of fire

# Starfish going haywire

# Algae balls from space!

# What?!

# Prairie dogs that chat

# Birds going splat and fish slapping in your face!

# They're wild and weird Wild and weird

# Really really wild and really really weird

# They're wild and weird Wild and weird

# Really really wild and really really wild and weird. #

Coming up on today's show, some aquatic oddballs.

A slippery slick with a life of its own.

A sea monster in the shallows.

Look at the size of the thing!

And the underwater world that's halfway up a mountain.

-Morning. What's up?

-Not much. Just chilling, reading the newspaper.

Going to have some toast. Oh, by the way, I've changed the treehouse

-into a submarine.

-What?!

-Yeah.

Cool, huh? I thought it'd be

an amazing way to see some weird underwater wildlife.

Well, why didn't you just watch some on the telly?

Yeah, in retrospect, that would have been a lot easier, wouldn't it?

Shall I show you a strange sea tale

-from California then?

-Oh, yeah.

-Yeah.

MUSIC: Theme from Jaws

GULPING SOUND

-What was that?

-Ah, nothing. I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm sure it's fine.

So, it was stereotypical sunny, San Diego type of day.

The sun was out, water was clear, tourists everywhere

enjoying the beautiful weather we normally have.

'But local resident Erika began to notice

'not everything was perfect in paradise.'

There was just something really unusual going on

as we looked out and just saw this black blob in the water.

What do you make of that then, Tim? Tim?

-What are you doing?

-I was just getting you breakfast.

Don't worry. Nothing ever happens in the first minute of the story.

It's not like California's been invaded by a big alien blob, is it?

-Oh, California's been invaded by a big alien blob, hasn't it?

-Yep.

The huge black mass

stretched for hundreds of metres along the shoreline.

Erika immediately feared a passing tanker had sprung a leak,

-spilling out its precious cargo of...

-Blackberry jam?

-No, oil, Tim, oil.

-No, I was just asking if you wanted blackberry jam

-on your toast?

-Oh, yes, please.

There we go. It's the good stuff.

But, if it was an oil slick, it was behaving rather oddly.

We didn't see any oil residue on the sand

which we definitely should have seen.

Erika headed to the pier to get a better look

and immediately noticed something fishy.

-What was that, then?

-It was fishy.

-I know that. I'm asking, why was it fishy?

-Because it was made of fish.

Oh.

Once we were able to look down, we realised, oh, my gosh, this is just

the huge school of fish.

-Don't be silly. Fish don't go to school.

-No, that's the collective

noun for a group of fish. Didn't you learn anything at school?

Don't be silly. Why would I learn anything at a massive group of fish?

From below the waves, it was clear to see the giant black blob was

actually made up of millions upon millions of sleek, silvery fish.

-Anchovies?

-No, I'll just stick to blackberry jam,

-thanks.

-No, those fish are anchovies.

-Oh.

Marine biologist Dave Checkley was also on the beach that day.

It was quite phenomenal. I've seen pictures of schools like this

but I've never gotten in the water with them. It was like diving

into a large dark blob and having it separate

as you went inside of it and create a cavity.

It had a life of its own, you might say.

For a shoal of this size to be so close to shore was

truly strange because anchovies are part of a

group of fish called obligate shoalers.

-HE MUMBLES:

-Obligate shoalers? That's a bit of a mouthful.

-Pardon.

Obligate shoalers. That is a bit of a mouthful.

Obligate shoalers usually live in deep waters far out to sea.

But it wasn't just the anchovies making an unexpected appearance.

A little further up the coast,

another beach had been invaded by a swarm of red tuna crabs.

The whole beach is covered with them!

Talk about an all you can eat seafood buffet.

So, what was driving all these deep sea residents inshore?

Something really weird is happening

off the coast of California at the moment.

Scientist Helen Scales thinks she knows why.

So, we've detected this anomaly out in the ocean.

It's water that's about four degrees warmer than it should be.

It's enormous. It's thousands of miles across.

It began off the coast of California and it's moved inland.

It's invaded the beaches all along the coast.

Whoa, warm water. Fantastic!

Yeah, but what about all the animals that are

super sensitive to changes in ocean temperatures?

Well, it's like I said. Warm water.

Fantastically distressing for all those animals and stuff.

By changing the temperature of the water beyond what it should be

at this time of year, it's shifting the whole food web in the oceans.

And it's this shift that

forced the anchovies and the tuna crabs inshore.

It's still a big mystery as to why we've got this

huge area of warm water off the coast and scientists

are trying to figure it out.

And while the mystery remains unsolved, it's a safe

bet that the residents of California can expect

to see more weirdness in the waves sometime soon.

-Hey, do you know what's weird?

-What?

I've got another story of an unexpected animal that

-washed up on the coast of California.

-No way?

Way. And this one is a real-life sea monster.

It's a sea serpent, it's a monster that you dream

of as a little kid.

My God, look at the size of the thing!

-That is enormous.

-It's so big!

Nobody is wanting to really touch it, so...

No, nobody has any idea what it is.

I've been in the water for 15 years,

I've never seen anything close to this.

-That is unbelievable.

-I know. A real-life sea serpent.

No, he's been in the water for almost 15 years.

What is he, a Merman?

Close. He's one of a team of marine biologists

working at the Catalina Island Marine Institute.

And when the body of one of these legendary sea serpents just happened

to wash up right on their doorstep, it caused a lot of excitement.

One of our female staff members

saw it on the bottom and she kind of dragged it into the beach.

We all ran over there to help her lift it out of the water.

It had a slender body, very narrow.

This plume that came back, almost like what you see

-on a rooster.

-It looked huge.

I mean, it had to have been 18 feet long.

We couldn't believe we were so lucky that it happened here.

What a better place for it to have washed up at a

marine scientist institute full of fish nerds.

Did she say fish?

Ah, you're thinking because she used the term fish in her description

that that is in fact a clue to the

identity of the mysterious monster.

Actually, I was thinking I could really eat some fish and chips.

Well, it turns out this colossal creature was indeed a fish,

an oarfish to be precise. They're the world's largest bony fish and

you'll be very lucky if you ever catch a glimpse of one.

You and I have very different definitions of the word lucky.

These giant fish rarely venture anywhere near land,

which is why they are so unfamiliar and create such commotion.

This is huge. Even the locals don't even know what this is.

That is the craziest looking fish I have ever seen.

In shallow water, they appear clumsy and ungainly,

but in the deep ocean, their natural habitat,

they are transformed into something beautiful.

You and I have very different definitions of the word beautiful.

It is a very weird fish.

Who's that?

Rick Feeney from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles county.

Is he a fish nerd too?

Oh, yeah. He's an uber fish nerd.

-Oh.

-He's like the king of fish nerds.

-Is he?

-Yeah.

Rick knows more about oarfish than pretty much anyone else.

We don't know why they do the things they do, we don't know

about their behaviour, why they even exist.

Which, as it turns out, isn't a whole lot.

-So what do we know?

-Well, this.

We know that in the deep ocean,

these giant fish tend to swim upright,

which might explain why they seem so awkward in the shallows.

But why do they come inshore?

Rick has some theories.

We used to think that storms drove them in or they were chased in by

sharks, but that's probably not the case.

They could be sick, they could be starving.

Did he say starving?

Are you thinking about fish and chips again?

The truth is that no-one really knows for sure what

drives the oarfish to the shore but their appearance does at least

answer one question.

As they come into shore, they start swimming like a snake.

They have this red crest that breaks the surface, so it sort of

looks like a serpent swimming on the surface of the water.

It appears the mythical sea serpents of ancient law

are probably nothing more than an elongated deep-sea fish.

There you go. Oh.

Naomi?

Sorry, I popped to the chippy.

Got myself oarfish and chips.

Oh, that was good!

How about an underwater tale now that doesn't involve

the California coast?

OK. I've got one set in the Austrian Alps.

Ooh, hang on, hang on. How can you have an underwater tale

-up a mountain?

-Like this.

YODELLING

The Alps - home of epic mountains,

quaint villages, flowery meadows...

MOO!

Whoa, what's that?

-It's a cow.

-Oh.

And home also to the Emerald Lake -

a very weird bit of water.

Looks pretty normal to me.

It does from up here.

But if you plunge beneath the surface, things start to look a

little bit strange.

Here's diver Mark Hanauer.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

Ah, he's speaking French.

Do you want me to translate?

-Oh, yeah, can you?

-Yeah, OK.

He said...

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

Ah, was that German?

Yeah, sorry, I can only translate French into German.

-Oh.

-Shall we just get someone to dub over him in

-an outrageous French accent?

-Good idea.

-EXAGGERATED FRENCH ACCENT:

-I have dived in a multitude of places in

ze world but Emerald Lake is ze most wonderful place

I have ever come across.

And the reason it's so special?

Grass.

Bridges.

Flowers.

Benches and paths.

These are all things you would normally expect to see above

the water line.

It's always surprising to see a massive trout

going through the branches of a tree.

-Ooh, did he say trout?

-You can't possibly be hungry again already?!

What? I like fish!

But how can such a place exist, a place where fish skip through

the meadows and flowers bloom underwater?

-Oh! Is it the lost city of Atlantis?

-In the Alps?

Well, that's probably why it's lost. I mean, who would look there?

It's not Atlantis but this lake is rather elusive because for much

of the year, the valley where it's found lies covered in deep snow.

Then, come spring, the snow melts, revealing a familiar bench

-and bridge.

-Hang on.

-Weren't both the bench and bridge from earlier on underwater?

-Yep.

-And now they're not?

-Yes.

-I'm confused.

-Do you want me to explain?

I meant I'm generally confused, but OK.

In early spring, the Emerald Lake is just one metre deep.

-More like an Emerald pond, then?

-Exactly.

But, as all the meltwater from the mountain soaks into the ground,

it raises the water table, so much so, that the valley begins

to fill up with water.

And little red divers, by the looks of it.

Then, for two very surreal weeks of the year, the spring growth

finds itself submerged, ten metres deep.

It is so translucent that you can see the underwater

scenery as far as the eye can see.

It is just extraordinary.

An underwater wonderland halfway up a mountain.

It just goes to show what a weird world we live in.

Ah, the world's not that weird, is it? I mean, it's not like you

can suddenly change into a giant fish.

HE LAUGHS

I've changed into a giant fish, haven't I?

Why are you looking at me like that?

What's that frying pan for? Naomi. Naomi!

# We're wild and weird, wild and weird

# Really, really wild and really, really weird

# They're wild and weird, wild and weird

# And really, really wild and really, really wild and weird. #

Wild and weird!