Jungles QI

APPLAUSE

Goooooooood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,

and to a greater or lesser extent, good evening and welcome to QI,

where tonight, my companions and I are plunging into the jungle.

And helping me swing my machete are, the King of the Jungle, Greg Proops.

APPLAUSE

The King of the Swingers, Reginald D Hunter.

APPLAUSE

A jungle VIP, David O'Doherty.

APPLAUSE

And a bit of an animal, Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

Well, before we begin, we ought to hear your beastly buzzers. Reginald goes...

LION ROARS

David goes...

BIRD SCREECHES

Greg goes...

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

And Alan goes...

CRICKET CHIRPS

All creatures in the jungle are of equal value.

So, first question. Where will the lion sleep tonight?

Ah, no. Is this going to be a trick where they don't sleep in the night?

Where they don't sleep in the jungle?

You're right.

Man, I am nailing this game!

Because of course there is a famous song.

In the jungle the lion sleeps tonight.

Wimoweh, wimoweh.

By Tight Fit.

-Well, by all kinds of people, actually.

-But mainly Tight Fit.

But what you managed to avoid was falling into the trap

that lions sleep in the jungle, because where do lions live?

Office buildings.

I was going to say Luton. I don't know why.

Don't they live in like the veldt or something like that?

The savannah. It's dry, it's certainly not jungle.

You wouldn't get a lion there.

And also, quite rightly, one of you said, they don't sleep at night.

Actually they do sleep a bit at night,

but most of their waking hours are at night.

They sleep a hell of a lot, because they're cats.

And what do cats do?

Sleep in the jungle, er, forest?

They do a lot of sleeping.

That's what I was going to say.

Yeah. They basically let big animals spend 23 hours a day

eating grass and then they kill them and eat them all

and get all that nutrient that lasts them for a week.

So instead of eating vegetables,

you eat something that does eat vegetables.

Exactly right. That's true.

I feel better about my diet now.

Yeah, I'm glad about that.

But the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight was the most popular song

ever to come out of Africa.

It was written by a man called Solomon Linda.

He and the Evening Birds, as the band were called,

recorded a song called Mbube, which is the Zulu word for lion.

And they chanted, "Mbube, uyi Mbube" - lion, you're a lion.

And he was paid the princely sum of £1.

No more than that. In 1949, Pete Seeger gave it to the Weavers.

They made a huge hit out of it.

And then it just carried on being a hit,

and all kinds of people, like Tight Fit.

Tight Fit!

But, more importantly, perhaps...

It's better than Loose Fit for a band, I suppose.

Disney, in 1994, incorporated it into...?

The Lion King.

Into The Lion King. Now, it's estimated that if Solomon Linda...

-I'll get points for that.

-Will you?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-For knowing Lion King?

If Solomon Linda had been paid standard composer royalties,

he would have earned, just from the Broadway version...

£2.

-Just from the Broadway version alone...

-£3.

5 million.

-Oh!

-Just in five years. That's just five years of it.

I've got a question now. The pound that he earned, who paid him that?

Was it somebody British?

No, someone South African, I fear.

So what were them people doing with y'all money?

It's a good and fair question.

It's not the first time that musicians, artists, composers

have been exploited, but it is a pretty extreme example of it.

So just from the song being used in the Lion King, the musical

on Broadway, he'd have made 5 million?

Yes. That shows you how much Elton John makes.

That's what I was going to say.

No wonder Tim Rice is always grinning!

Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of money in musicals.

It is staggering, isn't it?

But, fortunately, there was some good that came out it,

because a South African journalist called Rian Malan

brought the case to international notice

and Solomon Linda's family sued and came to a settlement.

So the heirs of Solomon Linda have at least benefitted from it.

Which is a good story.

That's good, that's good.

Isn't it.

Nice to see that, you know, natives weren't exploited again, you know.

That's a good story there, if I was, yeah, I would tell that story to...

And yet we opened by saying

that the whole thing was predicated on a black lie.

-In the jungle, the mighty jungle.

-Lions do not sleep in the jungle.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

It doesn't sleep at night, doesn't sleep in the jungle.

He's lucky to get a £1 for it, if you ask me.

Anyway, so that's it.

Now, what would be the best way for Tarzan to get around the jungle?

Well...

Without a family, I would guess.

Without being tied down.

Is that Johnny Weissmuller?

That's Johnny Weissmuller, who made his name as a...

-German Olympic swimmer.

-Olympic swimmer, that's right.

-Is that Maureen O'Sullivan?

-That's Maureen O'Sullivan.

Was the boy just called Boy?

Boy, yes.

Yes, he was, the boy was called Boy and the chimpanzee was called?

Cheetah.

Cheetah, yes.

-He gets around by swimming and swinging on... What does he swing on, Greg?

-Vines.

SIREN BLARES

You trapped him!

Oh, Alan! You wicked, wicked, that was diabolical!

I feel really good tonight,

I feel like I've finally nailed this game.

I didn't know you were going to use your Jedi powers on me, Davies.

I came in here with every good intention

and the next thing I know, I'm providing answers to you.

Tarzan, in the movies, does appear to swing on vines,

or lianas, as they're called.

But it's impossible to do so,

because they grow from roots in the ground.

So, if you tried to swing, you'd just fall straight down.

You might get some that are twisted into the branches,

but no animal or ape conveys themselves by swinging on woods.

But what about when you see,

you know, gibbons and whatnot, flinging through the jungle?

Ah, now that's a very different kind of action, which is brachiation.

Using their arms to move along.

And gibbons do that and are excellent at it,

and as you can see, There you are, yeah. That...

CRICKETS CHIRP

Orang-utan.

Four.

You're in a competitive mood tonight.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

I'd like to say that Alan is Tarzan's chimp,

because cheaters never prosper.

Hey, very good!

But Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created Tarzan, of course, he said,

"He leaps through the trees unaided."

"He could drop 20 feet at a stretch from limb to limb

"in rapid descent to the ground,

"or he could gain the utmost pinnacle

"of the loftiest tropical giant with ease and the swiftness of a squirrel."

And also, why would it be a vine in the middle of the jungle?

Because a vine is?

Grapes grow on vines.

Exactly.

But, you know, as in the manner of grapevines,

now, as legend has it, Tarzan, the reason he used a vine

was not because of its strength

or, you know, the fact that it came up out of the ground,

it was more so because early on,

when he heard about his girlfriend cheating on him,

it came, he heard it via one of those vines.

A lot of people don't know that.

I would say fewer than a handful really.

Was it his friend Marvin who told him that, by any chance?

You know the story too!

I know the story as well, there you go.

That's why they let you host the show, you smart!

And why is, if you've got a vine,

why is wine based on the Latin for vine, when we have a vine,

wine and vine, shouldn't they be, why isn't wine called vine?

When I was taught Latin, we were taught to pronounce the V as a W.

So it would be "weni, widi, wici,"

I came, I saw, I conquered, is what Caesar said, or "Caesar" said, yeah.

Is Kaiser in German from Caesar, then?

Caesar, yes it is. As is Tsar.

See, you learn something every day.

I'm not talking to you any more.

The more you say vine, the less I'm going to say vine.

But the Germans say Wein and spell it with a W.

-Ah.

-So why is it called a Caesar salad, then?

It was invented by someone called Caesar.

I've had a bottle of Caesar salad where it's on the label

and the man who invented it is on the label.

-Points to Alan Davies.

-Yes.

-It was, in fact, a cook called Caesar Cardini.

-Yeah.

Well done, Alan.

-Well.

-Damn, you're doing well. Yeah.

APPLAUSE

Wow, it's interesting that the two people who be on this show

every week are doing the best. All right, there.

Yeah, you've got time to catch up, Reginald, don't you worry.

I just hope for a chance, I want a chance.

There are questions coming your way that will thrill you.

-All right, then.

-OK, so, why don't ginger ants use soap?

Cos they like to feel it when they get together.

Well, getting together is what it's all about.

Ginger ants, also known as fire ants, live in the jungle.

And in jungles you can get huge downpours that will suddenly cause

gigantic rivers to appear where none were before.

And what's to stop the ants drowning?

What's their strategy to keep themselves afloat?

Find a bar of soap?

No, the soap is the bad thing.

That, they don't want that?

They don't want the soap. Let's say no to soap.

No soap. All right, then.

I assume they'd climb a tree.

If they could, they would, and we're going to see them climb a tree,

but first they have to cross the water, if they're suddenly deluged.

Do they sail on little rafts?

They make a raft of themselves.

No!

They cling together all their little bits, like this,

and they make a raft like that, even carrying their eggs

and their precious cargo.

That's the fish underneath having a nibble at them,

but they are, and there

they're getting towards a tree.

They try and climb that tree,

because then they'll be safe.

But it's a really smart strategy.

There they go, he's got, the first one's up

and then all the other ones are following.

Isn't that amazing?

-It is amazing.

-And they all survive.

Even the ones on the bottom?

Yeah. What happens is that none of the ants become submerged

because of the plastron layer of air between their bodies and the water,

and that's from piastroni, Italian for breastplate,

which is rather pleasing.

A turtle's underbelly is also called the plastron

and so is a man's stiff, formal shirt-front.

So you can actually have...

LAUGHTER

Yeah, that was a relief, wasn't it?

You can actually have half a million fire ants connecting together

in this way and they can assemble themselves in less than 100 seconds.

And they can float for days, even weeks,

and migrate immense distances.

Isn't that interesting?

That's how I came over from Dublin this morning.

But if you put a tiny drop of soap anywhere near it,

the detergent would break the surface tension

and they would drown.

But I've got an interesting experiment,

and I do love, as you know, to do an interesting experiment.

He does love an experiment.

Now, these will represent red ants.

And this is just, I just find this magical.

And it's something you can do at home, ladies and gentlemen,

this is what's fun about it. And...

Will we form an island

and swim across the jar of water?

No. This is red coloured sand

and this is floating on top.

You'll notice wherever I drop it, it tends to start clinging together.

So you've got, here's your little raft of red ants,

there they are, in the water.

And I can put my finger in it, like that,

and my finger will come out completely dry.

Absolutely dry.

-That's bizarre.

-Holy cow!

Yeah, there you are, there you are.

And I've got no sand on my finger at all. And it just, but...

Are you a devil?

Watch this. This will excite you.

I'm going to pour all this in here.

-Blue ants are attacking red ants!

-Goodness!

Yeah, all these blue ants here, it's just horrible.

And look at that, it's all clustered down below.

But this is the magic part.

I get my spoon and I get, all this sand that's underwater now,

and I just pick up a little bit of it, like so.

And it's completely dry.

-Hey!

-It's utterly dry.

Witchcraft!

-Sorcery!

-Burn him!

It's completely dry. It is, look.

Witch!

Sand, absolutely dry,

even though there are drops of water next to it.

-Isn't that magical?

-That really is.

-That's just sand and water?

Well, I can tell you.

It's the special nature of the sand. It's been, as it were, coated.

And, without wishing to give away the name of a brand of spray

that you are encouraged when you buy suede shoes to use

to protect your suede shoes,

that might be called something that rhymed with Gotch Scard.

If you wanted to try this experiment at home,

you would get a can of that Gotch Scard

and spray the sand with it and you will

be able to amaze your friends, if, but only if, you're as sad as I am.

But there you are. Hooray!

APPLAUSE

The fun you can have with things.

Yes.

It's nice, it's good.

It is. Very fun.

Exactly.

Well, anyway, what goes at 40 mph and smells of curry?

Ah, no.

-BIRD SCREECH

-Yea?

Usain Balti.

APPLAUSE

That's very good!

I have to say that's impressive.

I have to give you points for that, it's just too good.

I will give you this clue.

An astonishing number of animals in the wild smell of other things.

And there is an animal that smells of curry.

And there's no reason for it to, because it doesn't live in India, it doesn't eat chillies.

But 40 mph is pretty quick.

That's the thing. It's the fastest of its species.

And it's a signature species for a whole nation, a whole continent.

The ostrich goes about 40 mph.

It does, but this is not a bird.

-Kangaroo.

-Yes.

It's the western grey kangaroo.

The fastest of all the kangaroos, and amazingly...

It smells of curry?

"Ah, Jesus, smells of a curry. Smell that, mate."

That's just an Australian who's had a curry the night before,

done a particularly stinky fart,

and then tried to blame it on a passing kangaroo.

"Oh, did you see that kangaroo go by there?

"Jeez, what a stink! It's like a curry!"

Anyway. Now, describe the world's most hideous lunch.

There's a pretty rotten fruit you can get in Indonesia that stinks.

-Well, the durian fruit you're thinking of?

-Yes.

-Yes. It's actually delicious, but..

-It smells like rotting flesh.

Yeah. This is actually an animal thing.

It's just one of those cruel tricks of nature, you know,

that certain species find ways of eating other species

that are cunning and cruel.

It's not going to be a burrowing parasite thing?

Well, it's sort of...

In your Jap's eye.

Oh!

Or in your eye, even.

Think of a little, innocent frog.

A frog sees a larva, a little bug of some kind,

it will dart its tongue out.

There you go, there's the big frog and there's the little larva,

and the frog's going to win.

The frog's going to poke its tongue out and it's going to eat.

-It's not that small a larva.

-I agree.

I mean, I still think that's quite an ambitious meal

for that frog to take on.

I agree. One of two things happens.

One is the larva will simply attack the frog

and latch itself with its quite strong horns,

which you might just be able to discern in the picture...

What I would do.

-..onto the back.

-I would do that.

And then just eat it from the inside out.

Yeah, that's exactly what I would do.

Until there's nothing left but a pile of bones.

It would simply eat the whole thing.

Really? One larva?

Yeah. But if it so happens the frog is really quick

and gets the larva into its stomach, it will then an hour later

regurgitate it, and the larvae will still be alive and will then eat.

Holy cow!

So it will be eaten and then eat the thing that ate it,

which is pretty unusual in the world of nature.

So you can have your frog and eat it?

You can, exactly. It's a pretty unpleasant process.

It makes you wonder about all things bright and beautiful.

But we have no footage. Do we have footage?

We have footage, I'm afraid.

Oh, no! Don't eat that larva!

Two hours later.

-Oh!

-I don't feel so good!

Oh, having a vomit and out, it's pulling out of its own mouth

the thing that is then going to eat it.

It's just so, and there, oh, it's just being eaten,

it's eating its chin.

It's really not a nice relationship.

And there they are. Poor frog.

Wait a minute, I didn't see the end, who won?

It looked pretty intense,

but it looked like it could go either way, really, you know what I mean.

We were too tasteful to show you the outcome, it was horrible.

-Too tasteful? That's what's up.

-They shake hands and then they say,

"We've both learned a valuable lesson here."

It's called the Epomis beetle larva.

But while on the subject of frogs, what's this little frog doing?

What's this chap up to?

Wow! It's practising first position?

No. What's going on in the background?

He's trying to build up his nerve into jumping in that gushing stream.

And he's going, argh, I can do this!

He's facing the other way.

Ah, I can do this.

Is he fishing? Is he catching things in his webbed...?

No.

I was thinking maybe there was a plane load of frogs trying to land.

APPLAUSE

But you know, air traffic controller frog.

What is it about the background?

Running water. Water stream, I mean...

Yeah, and what does that create?

If you've got a waterfall behind you,

how do you communicate with your neighbour?

How do you shout?

It's sign language?

-Yes.

-No!

-It's semaphore.

-Really?

-Stop it!

It's the semaphore frog, because it lives by waterfalls and cataracts,

and so little...

(IMITATES FROG)

..won't get heard.

So that's how it communicates.

Basically, it's saying to other males,

"This is my territory, keep away."

Or it's saying to girls, "Here I am."

It is a wonderful sight.

It's solved the problem of the fact that it can't vocalise,

because it lives in a noisy environment.

There are other ways of attracting mates which are unusual.

CRICKETS CHIRP

Yes?

The internet.

LAUGHTER

If only you'd said what you often call the internet.

-What do you sometimes call the internet?

-The interweb.

-Yes.

-Web, spiders.

Spiders, yes.

Spiders make webs to catch prey so they can eat, survive and thrive.

Yes. But there's a particular breed of spider, they ejaculate into a pad

of webbing and transfer the sperm-laden pad to their "palps",

which are like their antennae,

and then they wave them around to attract the female.

"I've got some sperm here. I've got some sperm for you."

I used to do that, I used to do that to my ex-girlfriend, because...

I mean...

Why am I not surprised by the word "ex" in there?

Yeah, I mean she just wanted to have a baby so bad,

it was just really easy to get her excited like that.

"I've got some sperm."

And she'd come running and I'd be like,

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding."

You're probably each well out of it.

Yeah, she's the better for it.

I mean, in fact, I take pride in believing that I helped her

prepare for the next cat that she...

And think what you're saving on triple ply tissues. There you are.

Wow!

Sorry.

In some weird English way, I feel dealt with.

By the way, the credit for the video tape of that extraordinary frog

waving its hands belongs to the School of Environment

of Life Sciences at the University of Salford.

Thank you, University of Salford.

Anyway, Alan, what I'd like you to do is press your buzzer.

-It's not a trap.

-It's going to be a trap.

Yeah, press your buzzer.

CRICKETS CHIRP

What are those and how do they make that noise?

Now, this could be one of two things.

Right.

There's the one that makes the noise by inflating its thorax,

and the one that makes a noise by rubbing its back legs together...

SIREN BLARES

So I think it was the first one.

There is actually no insect that makes a noise

by rubbing its back legs together.

Ah.

But do you know what the animal was in fact you were listening to?

-Cicada.

-It's a cricket, in fact.

It's been known for thousands of years that crickets

don't chirp by rubbing their legs together.

So where did that come from then?

It's just one of those weird fallacies that people cling to,

and I've clung to fallacies, and it's, it's a...

LAUGHTER

He did say weird phallus, didn't he?

This, this is all, this is...

He said it's a weird phallus that people cling to.

He said that, didn't he?

-He said, he said fallacies.

-Oh.

That means many phalluses.

Yeah, thank you.

Rubbing body... Oh, God, it's getting worse, sorry.

Rubbing body parts to make sound is called stridulation.

And crickets have a large vein along the bottom of each wing,

covered with comb-like teeth.

The chirp comes from the scraping on the top of one wing

over the bottom of the other. Nothing to do with legs at all.

-So it's the wings, not their legs.

-It's the wings, not their legs.

And only male crickets chirp, the females don't.

Four songs, one to attract a female, two to court a nearby female,

three to warn off another male,

and four to celebrate a successful mating session.

Really?

Or, four to say to the female, why don't you say something?!

Yes, quite.

So, basically, it's like they're high-fiving themselves.

-Yes, they are.

-After their, wooo!

Yes, success!

I would just order pizza.

That's what we tend to do, but they just high-five themselves,

as you say. But this, listen to this,

this is the most extraordinary cricket of all.

It's the snowy tree cricket.

And if you count the times, because they're very susceptible

to temperature, if you count the times they chirp in 14 seconds

and add 40, you will get the temperature in Fahrenheit.

No way, shut up!

Yes way, absolute way.

I know it sounds mad, it's from the 1897 masterpiece by Amos Dolbear,

"The Cricket as a Thermometer".

But it is extraordinary, isn't it?

I'd still prefer a thermometer up my bum if I was in hospital than a...

Amazing, isn't it?

Dolbear's Law. Now you know.

Anyway, what lives underwater

and is the loudest animal in the world for its size?

-ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

-Greg Proops?

Oprah.

Good answer, but untrue.

-Is it going to be a blue whale?

-SIRENS BLARE

Oh, Alan, you and your blue, you were doing so well.

No, it's the largest in relation to its size,

the noise it makes is quiet astounding.

When I tell you that its size is two millimetres,

and it creates a sound of over 99 decibels,

which is like a freight train passing by.

It's an incredibly loud noise,

and it's a little lake creature, actually.

Do you know those things that seem to walk on water, do you remember what they're called?

Our Lord?

APPLAUSE

You could call this the Jesus insect if you wanted. It's a water boatman.

The water boatman is a beautiful little creature

and it uses the surface tension of the water, there you see,

to walk along the water.

That's a pond skater, of course.

So, unlike a blue whale in almost every respect.

It really is. The noise it gives out is like a passing freight train.

We have a theory how they produce it, and we'd like you

to try out our theory.

They use their penises against their tummies.

Penii?

Penii, if you like.

Penises if you wanted to speak in English, but...

But by all means penii, if you like.

They rub their penises on their tummy

and somehow create a noise of 99.2 decibels.

-But that's just a theory though, right?

-Yeah.

Because I put my penis against my belly, it don't make no noise.

If you really whack it though, if you...

(MIMES WHIP NOISE)

Steady, steady.

It depends on if I have to get up in a hurry.

Like, if I got an hour or so...

Imagine that it's a penis, all right.

If you'd pass that to Greg.

You know, imagining is not helping, but all right.

Obviously there's yours, Alan.

No.

APPLAUSE

You can have a normal one.

Now this is quite complicated,

but you should have a little bowl of rosin,

as in the kind of stuff that ballet dancers use

to keep their shoes from sliding on the stage

and string players use for their bows. Ordinary rosin.

Oh, very good. Listen to that noise. Keep doing that.

HIGH-PITCHED SQUEAK

You're rubbing, you're trying to, it gets surprisingly loud,

doesn't it?

HIGH-PITCHED SQUEAK

Oh, God, yes!

I don't seem to be attracting any boatmen or women.

I'm not getting 99 decibels.

There, you see that?

This is still louder, though.

-Is that yours?

-But isn't that surprising?

Wow!

SQUEAKING INCREASES

-Yeah.

-Aaah!

Aaaaaah!

It's like Mars attacks and our brains will explode.

Solo!

Alan's very good at it, isn't he?

Have you given him a wand? Is that a wand?

APPLAUSE

So, the water boatman makes a big noise

with its mighty, stridulating penis.

Anyway, it's time for the final scores.

I'm sorry to say, that in last place with minus 10 is Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

How did I get minus 10?

And just behind, with minus eight, is Greg Proops.

APPLAUSE

Then, with minus six, is David O'Doherty.

APPLAUSE

With one plus point, Reginald D Hunter.

APPLAUSE

Well done.

Well, that's all from David, Reginald, Greg, Alan and me.

Remember, snakes are more afraid of you than you are of them.

Unfortunately, this is not true of mosquitoes,

spiders, bears or tigers.

But don't have nightmares. Goodnight.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media