Gruesome Goings-On Wild & Weird

# Wormy fish-killers Convoys of caterpillars

-# Super-clever, brainless slime... #

-Ugh!

# 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

# They're really, really wild

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

Coming up on today's show, some gruesome goings on.

The super slime that's as slick as a city,

a plant that smells like poop

and the worst dinner guest ever.

You're just overwhelmed with pain.

Tim, you need to tidy your room.

There are dirty clothes, crockery, takeaway cartons everywhere,

it is like a rubbish dump.

I tidied it in January.

Yeah, January last year.

It's been so long,

some of your socks have evolved into intelligent life.

It's disgusting.

Naomi, I think you're overreacting a little bit.

There's plenty of things in nature much more gruesome

than a messy bedroom.

Here, let me show you.

Ooh, onybitaball, hiiiiim.

It's June 2013, and in Fountain Valley, California,

there's something creepy going on in the garden.

Trip out on this. What is that? Crazy.

And it's not just here.

Strange yellow blobs are emerging all over the country.

Uggghh, that looks disgusting.

It's like a mushroom thing.

And they're spreading fast.

It grew in hours.

This was like four little specks three hours ago

and now you see how big it is.

Is it an alien invasion?

No, it's something much more down to earth.

It's slime mould.

Ooh, slime and mould, two of my favourite things.

-Really, are they?

-No, of course not, I'm being sarcastic.

Can't you tell, Mr Smarty Pants?

I haven't got Smarties in my pants.

-Why would I do that?

-CRUNCHING SOUNDS

Slime mould is very weird indeed.

It's a single cell organism that lies dormant until awakened

by moisture in the air.

And once it's up, it needs to eat.

This speeded up footage captures its voracious search for food,

moving at the breakneck pace of a few centimetres per hour.

Moving at a few centimetres per hour on a voracious search for food?

Sounds a bit like you in the morning, Tim.

Only you're after the cornflakes and it's... Ooh, actually,

what is it after?

Well, let's ask biologist Dr Mark Fricker.

So it's hungry and its food is bacteria, fungi,

bits of decaying matter, but it has to find them.

And it doesn't have a brain and it doesn't have any nerves and

it can't see where it's going.

So, it has to feel its environment.

It sends out a series of tubes.

The ones that don't find food fade away,

but the ones that do are strengthened

and send yummy fungal goodness back to the hub,

creating a very simple, but very effective, transportation network -

one to rival those of even the biggest cities.

You say that, but seeking out a few mushrooms,

it's not really the same as moving millions of people

around a huge city like Tokyo, is it?

Well, let's find out as we play...

..Slime versus City.

The single-celled super organism known simply as slime mould.

Moving a Metro-wide population of 35 million people,

it's the Tokyo rail network.

So, Natalie.

-It's Nao...

-Who do you think's going to win

this battle of transport efficiency?

-Well...

-I'm going to have to hurry you, I'm afraid.

-Oh, it's probably...

-Oh, what a shame, you're out of time.

-What?!

-Let's see what happens

when we compare the slime mould's food-finding forays

to one of the world's most complex rail networks.

Over to you, Mark.

So this represents Tokyo, where the slime mould's growing out,

and these are all the little oat flakes

representing the cities around Tokyo.

So, you can see the margin spreading, foraging,

trying to find resources,

but, just behind the margin, it leaves behind these tubes

connecting it to the central resource.

Not all of those tubes are going to remain, some of them will disappear.

At the end, it's still going foraging there

but it leaves behind a network that's reasonably stable.

So, we can ask whether that network that the slime mould has produced

resembles the Tokyo rail network designed by humans.

And the answer is...

Yes! Yes, it does!

CHEERING

Are you finished?

Yep.

It turns out our biological wonder, the slime mould,

is every bit as efficient

at building transportation networks as us humans.

Not bad for an animal with no brain or nervous system.

Perhaps there really is beauty in simplicity after all.

I'm not sure I'd use the term beauty when discussing slime mould.

It looks like something that might be growing in your bedroom. Oof!

Hey, my bedroom's not that messy.

Then why can I smell it from here?! Ooh.

No, that's my flower collection.

Uh, Tim, flowers smell nice.

Not all of them.

Look at this.

Our planet is home to a bewildering array of unusual plant life.

But whilst most compete to attract pollinators

with beautiful blooms and fine fragrances,

there is one species that has taken a somewhat alternative approach.

Meet the Titan arum.

Titan arum?! That's a silly name. Who came up with that?

Uh, award-winning broadcaster, naturalist and all round legend...

Sir David Attenborough.

Like I said, it's a great name.

#Awks.

This titanic plant reaches up to three metres in height,

making it the largest flowering structure in the world,

and it blooms just once every ten years.

But it's not just the look of this peculiar plant that's strange,

it's also its smell.

Now, we appreciate that it is very difficult

to do a story about smell on TV,

which is why Naomi here went out of her way

to send a scratch and sniff card

to every single one of our Wild and Weird viewers.

You did send them, didn't you?

-Yeah, yeah, I did that.

-Great stuff.

So, kids, smell number one. Get scratching.

Most plants use the sweet smell of nectar

to attract bees or butterflies,

but our floral rebel is after a very different kind of pollinator -

carrion beetles.

Ugh, Tim, that's disgusting.

I told you the natural world was gruesome.

These ghoulish insects are attracted to the smell of dead animals,

which is why the bloom of the Titan arum

smells like rotting flesh.

-Yuck.

-It makes its shocking stench with a mix of chemical compounds,

including dimethyl trisulfide,

which is one of the principal ingredients

in the smell of human faeces.

Yes, this plant literally smells of...

This ominous odour is all part of a giant confidence trick,

as botanist Professor Beverley Glover explains.

If you imagine a plant flowering in a dense jungle environment,

it's no good being brightly coloured or easy to see

because you're in very dense vegetation.

So, it's much better to attract pollinators

by having a smell which disperses over quite a big distance.

The Titan arum is effectively mimicking a piece of dead animal.

It's got its colours.

If you look at the deep red, it looks like blood.

There's the yellowy textures in there.

And then with that scent as well of rotting flesh,

it's really doing a good job of pretending to be a dead animal.

That's so crafty, what a fantastic flower.

You wouldn't want to send a bunch of those to your girlfriend

on Valentine's Day though, would you?

No way.

THEY CHUCKLE

-VERY QUICKLY:

-Florist-here.

-Is that the florist?

-Something-the-matter?

-Yes, I'd like to cancel an order.

The first night that it's open,

the flower heats itself up to about 40 degrees centigrade

and that heating up allows

the chemical compounds that are made to be released.

So, for every ten degrees or so centigrade

you increase temperature,

you increase tenfold the distance

that scent molecules will travel in the air.

-So, the heat makes the reek go further.

-Mm.

-Ingenious.

It wouldn't make a good underarm deodorant then, would it?

Is that the chemist?

This super strong stench is the perfect thing

to lure the carrion beetles, who wander around picking up pollen

and then carry it on to the next Titan arum,

ensuring these pongy plants will be around for generations to come.

So, there you go.

That funky aroma that you can smell

is just my collection of Titan arum.

It's definitely not the dead rodent in the bottom of my wardrobe.

Well, that's a relief... Wait, what?!

Ooh, so, moving on, you'll like this one.

Here's another gruesome tale from the natural world.

Spiders and wasps are both thought of as fearsome animals but

what happens when the two bump into each other on a garden path?

Uh-oh, we might have a little war here.

Yep, that's the first time I've actually even seen this.

This incredible footage was shot by a man in Texas, USA.

But who will win this battle of the multi-legged monsters?

That's easy, wasps are largely vegetarians,

flitting delicately from flower to flower.

Tarantulas, on the other hand, are terrifying ambush predators

armed with giant venomous fangs, so, they would definitely win.

Well, let's find out.

Ugh. Not again.

I've told you to get the sleeves ready.

Live from Texas, welcome to...

In the blue corner, the heavyweight horror,

the terror of Texas, Mr Tarantula.

You goin' down, puny wasp.

And in the red corner, it floats like a butterfly and stings

like a...like a wasp, the aerial assassin, Mr Tarantulaaaaaa!

Don't you mean Mr Wasp?

No, it's actually a tarantula hawk wasp.

So, the wasp is named after the tarantula?

And a hawk.

Oh, it's got three names like a donkey shark pig?

Oh! Is that a real animal?

-No!

-Oh.

Shame, that.

Well, the tarantula hawk wasp is a real animal

and it's an awe-inspiring insect.

The largest wasp in the world,

it's equipped with one of the most painful stings of any animal,

as biologist Dr Justin Schmidt can testify.

It just sends this electric shock just totally through your body,

just paralyses you.

You just sit there and scream, you're just overwhelmed with pain.

If the sting can do that to a great big human,

just imagine what it does to the poor old tarantula.

One hit from the wasp and this wrestling match is over,

leaving the victor the tricky task

of dragging away its oversized opponent.

Wait a second, if wasps are largely vegetarian,

what does it want with a whopping great big spider?

-What's that for?

-You'll see.

Because the tarantula isn't actually dead.

She doesn't kill it, she just paralyses it,

then puts it in a cell where she makes a little burrow,

lays an egg on it, seals it up and goes away. Momma's job is done.

She doesn't eat any of the tarantula,

it's her baby that eats it.

Babies eat tarantulas.

-Ugh, wait, so the wasp lays its egg on the tarantula.

-Yeah.

Oh, and then the baby wasp hatches out and starts eating the spider?

-Yeah.

-While it's still alive?

-That's right, yeah.

-Euuurggh.

They start on the non-essential organs

so the muscle and the fat, then they slurp up the blood...

-Hurrrghh.

-..chew down on the heart, before devouring the brain.

Bfff, blurrrghh.

It's an ingenious piece of childcare,

a living larder for her children,

ensuring they have enough fresh food to see them through to adulthood.

So, while it may be a tad unfortunate

for the poor old tarantula,

the hawk wasp is actually only being a good mum.

There you go, I told you there was plenty of things

more gruesome than my messy bedroom.

You might still want to clean it though.

Why?

That bag had a hole in it

and I didn't quite make it to the bathroom.

# 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...

# Wild and weird. #