Travelling Tales 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,

how to get from A to B, Wild and Weird style.

A dam-busting, fish-firing cannon.

Some amphibian aviation innovation.

And there's a furry game of follow-the-leader.

HAMMERING

What are you doing?

Just inventing.

Ooh, what've you made this time?

Something that will revolutionise the transport industry forever.

-Whoa.

-Behold, the speed shoe.

Pshew, pshew, pshew.

Isn't that just a roller-skate?

OK, uh...

What about my jetpack?

It's a fan in a rucksack.

Ugh, all right.

Teleportation device?

-That's a wristwatch.

-No, it isn't.

Shall we just have a cup of tea and watch telly instead?

Yeah, all right.

Where's the remote?

Hmmm.

Ooh! Here it is.

Here you go.

It's just how you like it, that. All the way from India.

Mmm.

We start with salmon -

not a fish you'd expect to require assistance in getting around.

Not only do they migrate thousands of kilometres

from the ocean back to their freshwater spawning grounds,

they also swim up rivers against the current,

propelling themselves through rapids and up weirs

with phenomenal strength.

But there are some obstacles that are just too big to hurdle,

even for a salmon.

-I'm talking about...

-Skyscrapers.

-..dams.

-Dams, yep.

There are 75,000 dams in the USA alone

and that number is rising higher year on year,

unlike the salmon, who are stuck down at a dead end.

Ooh, terrible problem.

Must be like banging your head against a brick wall.

HE LAUGHS

Cut off from their spawning grounds, the salmon are in trouble.

So in some cases as much as 50% or more

of the habitat that used to be used by the salmon

has been completely blocked off.

-Who's that?

-Salmon saviour...

The numbers of fish that are now returning is

a fraction of the historical numbers.

So, how to help the poor old salmon?

Until now the existing solution was fish ladders.

How does a fish even climb a ladder? They don't even have arms or legs!

OK, they're not actually ladders,

more like steps running up the side of a dam

which take advantage of the salmon's leaping instincts,

allowing them to pass upstream unaided.

Now, this is all fine for a small dam,

but some can be almost as tall as a...

-Dam.

-..Skyscraper.

-Skyscraper.

Ugh.

And even the strongest swimming salmon isn't going to be able

to get up a ladder that long.

A new solution was needed and this is where Steve came in.

-Ah, so Steve's a salmon expert?

-No.

-Dam builder?

-No.

Engineer?

Marine biologist? Construction manager?

The company originally started in the fruit business...

The fruit business?!

..trying to solve the problem of taking fruit from a tree

and putting it in a packing case in the field.

And they came up with this - an octopus in an orchard.

Don't be silly, they can't put an octopus in...

Oh, it's not a real octopus, is it?

No, Tim.

This ingenious machine transports delicate fruit,

without damaging it,

by sucking it gently through a tube.

HE STRAINS

That's not going to work, Tim.

You're right, silly me.

Need a hosepipe.

And if delicate fruit could be transported in this manner unharmed,

why not a salmon?

So, Steve and the team went to work and came up with this.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the salmon cannon.

That is brilliant.

The fish enters the cannon, a door closes behind it

and then a blower pushes the fish and a little bit of water

through this slippery tube.

The salmon move through the device

at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour,

before popping out unscathed at the other end.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Supersalmon!

So we've been very careful to make sure

that the design doesn't harm the fish.

They still spawn successfully and there's no impact

on the number of young that that fish can produce.

These fish-firing flumes are now being installed

all over the USA and Europe

and, with the ability to transport one salmon every three seconds,

they've already helped thousands of slippery customers on their way.

So, next time you're passing by a dam,

you might want to keep an eye out for low-flying fish.

Tim, where are you going with my pet fish?

Gardening.

-Put him back.

-Ugggh.

What's that?

It's Amphibian Aviation,

the number one magazine for fans

-of flying and ectothermic tetrapod vertebrates.

-Ooh.

Hey, has it got the story about the frog that's making aeroplanes safer?

Uhhh...

-No.

-Hmm.

Heathrow Airport, December 2010.

-NEWS READER:

-The drop in temperature

has led to grounded planes being frozen into their parking stands,

with the de-icer having little effect,

leaving 350,000 passengers stranded.

Ice on grounded planes may cause travel chaos,

but it's much worse if ice forms on the wings mid-flight,

causing the plane to lose lift.

-It says here that losing lift when flying is bad.

-Yeah.

It also says, ha,

juvenile amphibians have a single loop circulatory system

similar to fish.

-Yeah.

-That bit's probably less relevant.

-Yeah.

Shall we?

The current solution for this icy conundrum

is to simply spray the wings with anti-freeze before takeoff,

which is generally very effective

but it can't always stop ice from forming mid-flight.

Hence, grounded planes and winter travel turmoil.

It's a problem that's been troubling aviation experts for years,

as mechanical engineer

Konrad Rykazwheez...Rykazwhiz...

As Konrad explains.

The problem is that ice comes in many different forms.

Mmm, yeah, there's strawberry, lemon, blackcurrant. Ooh, mmm.

-No, I don't think that's what Konrad meant.

-Oh.

Freezing rain, snow, sleet, freezing fog or frost.

What we wanted to make is a paint or a surface for the aeroplane

that releases anti-freeze when it's exposed to ice.

Their goal was a plane that produces its own anti-freeze

when it gets cold,

in much the same way that us humans produce sweat when it's hot.

But where to search for a solution to such a peculiar problem?

Um, scientific research papers?

Aviation construction manuals?

No, the jungle.

-The jungle?

-Yep.

My wife and I were on holiday in Panama.

Ah, lovely Panama.

The sun, the beaches, the offshore tax havens.

We went on a jungle tour.

As we're going to the jungle,

the guide lifted up a leaf on a palm tree

and there was a little poison dart frog.

And he said, "Ah, don't come up. These things are really dangerous."

Poison dart frogs come in a dazzling variety

of bright and inviting colours.

Like ice lollies,

although never mistake a poison dart frog for an ice lolly.

Whoof, that's a holiday I'll never forget.

The colours are actually a warning to potential predators

because the skin of the poison dart frog

is covered in a potent neurotoxin.

But it wasn't the poison that Konrad was interested in,

it was how the frogs release it.

They have little glands in their skin

and when they're very scared,

when they see a predator or a tourist,

they start releasing or secreting this toxin

from the inner part of their body onto the outside of their skin.

And, incredibly, this was the inspiration

that Konrad and his team had been looking for

to solve their icy plane problem.

We made a surface that mimicked the structure of the frog

that releases, in this case, an anti-freeze instead of a toxin.

Work is now underway to develop this new technology for use on planes,

delivering instant anti-freeze whenever cold weather strikes.

And that in turn should mean fewer grounded planes

and stranded tourists.

All because of a tiny frog no bigger than your thumb.

-Artificial frog skins on planes.

-Mm!

-Weird, eh?

-Mm.

Whatever next, Kangaroo pogo sticks? Electric eel cars?

-A-ha-ha!

-No, a caterpillar convoy.

-Brilliant, that's a good one.

-No, really. Look.

We're off to northern Israel where, in a typical back garden,

something very untypical is occurring.

No, this is not a new species of strange furry snake,

this is a tiny traffic jam of truly epic proportions.

Just wow.

What is this?

Ha-ha, it comes into my garden.

-That is crazy.

-I know.

The grouting on that wall is, ugh, what a mess.

No, not the wall! What's on the wall.

-Oh, what, the furry snake?

-Ugh.

For those of you that are paying attention,

this crazy convoy is actually made up

of around 300 individual caterpillars,

each one marching behind the next in a freaky game of follow-the-leader.

-You know, I just read an amazing book about a caterpillar.

-Did you?

Mm. On Monday, he eats an entire apple but he's still hungry.

-So, on Tuesday, what he...

-Is this going to take a long time?

All right, I'll skip to the end, there's an amazing twist.

He turns into a butterfly.

No, Darth Vader is his father!

Ooh. No, that's not right. Think I got mixed up.

So, what on earth are our furry friends up to?

Well, one clue might be their name,

because these are caterpillars of the Pine Processionary Moth.

They've spent the whole winter in a pine tree,

feeding and growing, but, come spring,

they leave their tree en masse and march out,

one after the next, into the big wide world.

And that's when they start to raise eyebrows.

They have eyebrows?!

-It's an expression, Tim.

-Oh.

I think that is one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

Wait a second, doesn't creating a giant caterpillar conga line

make them more likely to be spotted by predators?

It's true that hungry eyes are always on the lookout

for a tasty caterpillar,

but some creatures, like these fungus gnat larvae,

actually use mass movement to trick predators,

fooling them into thinking they're a single large animal

that's too tough to tackle.

So, is this what our crafty caterpillars are up to?

No, because they're already protected against attackers

by a secret weapon.

-L...

-Don't say laser eyes!

Every time I mention a secret weapon you always say, "Laser eyes."

Laser ears?

Ugh.

These caterpillars are actually protected by their hair.

-Laser hair! Oh, so close!

-Not laser hair -

poison-tipped hair,

which can be incredibly irritating to would-be caterpillar chompers.

So, if it's not to protect themselves,

why are they all lined up like that?

They queuing for the bus?

Well, put simply,

each caterpillar is programmed to follow the one in front.

It's straightforward evolutionary instinct,

an excellent way of staying together and conserving energy.

And when the leader finds a nice piece of sunlit soil,

they all dig down and make a den

where they can safely transform themselves into...

..Darth Vader.

-Oh, no, I got that wrong again, didn't I?

-Yeah, moths, Tim. Moths.

Anyway, it's a good way of getting around.

Yeah, much like my speed shoe jetpack combo.

Ugh, this'll be good.

Whoo! OK.

So long, sister, let's go.

FAN BLOWS

Whoa.

# 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! #