Nature's Misfits Natural World

Life on Earth.

Stunning...

..spectacular...

..and diverse.

LEMUR HOWLS

Endless forms, startling and beautiful.

Some animals amaze us with their speed...

..their strength...

GORILLA GROWLS

..or their intelligence.

Whilst others fascinate us by, well, being a bit odd.

Creatures that don't normally grab the limelight.

Unconventional

and unusual.

Not the big stars, more the character actors.

Let me introduce you to nature's misfits.

I want to show you the extraordinary and rarely seen lives

of these evolutionary oddballs.

Their strange habits, their astounding forms

and the hurdles

they have to overcome.

It's time nature's misfits got the credit they're due.

Before we get going, let's be clear on what makes an animal a misfit.

For some it's because they appear ill-suited to their habitat.

Others have become so highly specialised in one way

that they seem disadvantaged in others.

But first we'll meet the misfits that stand out

because they're different from the rest of their animal family.

So how do these oddities manage to survive?

Could it be that being different can actually give you an edge?

Changqing in China.

In these snowy hills lives a confused creature.

RUSTLING

A giant panda.

Pandas are bears.

Close relatives of grizzlies and polar bears.

And, of course, bears are ferocious carnivores.

But not the panda.

They have turned their back on their meat-eating past...

..and gone veggie.

99% of their diet comes from a single plant.

Bamboo.

Making them a non-meat-eating carnivore.

A true misfit.

In the depths of winter, most bears would be tucked up hibernating...

..but not the panda.

The problem is bamboo contains so little energy that pandas

simply can't build up the fat reserves required to hibernate.

Instead, they endure the long freezing winters...

..forcing down bamboo even when it's frozen stiff.

That's what all the nose twirling is about.

They're breaking up the ice.

A panda must eat up to 18 kilograms of bamboo a day...

..requiring them to feed continuously for 16 hours.

This colossal consumption does have an inevitable consequence.

Pandas have to answer the call of nature 40 times a day.

Giant pandas are so dependent on bamboo

that it affects every aspect of their lives.

It even helps explain their relaxed attitude to reproduction.

Spring.

Mating season for pandas.

This female is on heat...

..which has aroused the interest of a male.

She's only fertile for a few days and just once a year...

..so she needs to get on with things.

PANDA GROWLS

That wasn't the response she was hoping for.

She decides to give it another go

PANDA GROWLS

Things aren't going well.

They both know why they're here

but just can't seem to settle their differences.

Now he gingerly approaches her.

Finally it happens.

It's little wonder pandas have acquired

such a dubious track record for procreation.

But there is purpose to all this.

Pandas are so reliant on bamboo

that if their numbers were ever to dramatically increase

there might not be enough food to go round.

Being slow breeders means they can survive

whilst relying on just one food source.

It all comes back to their veggie and very un-bear like diet.

For our next misfit, it's not their diet that marks them out

as different but their size that makes them stand out

from the rest of their kind.

Vivid colours,

incredible eyes...

..and a lethal weapon of a tongue.

You've got to love chameleons.

But there's one chameleon that is distinctly different.

It's down there, bang in the middle of that big leaf.

Meet the minute leaf chameleon...

..one of the smallest reptiles on the planet.

Found only on one island off the coast of Madagascar,

it's a lizard the size of an ant.

Being this small is tough.

The world's a very dangerous place

when you can be mowed down by a millipede.

When it comes to finding a mate,

being a miniature misfit can make things rather complicated.

This is a male minute leaf chameleon.

He's constantly keeping an eye out for a partner

but, being so small, he rarely bumps into any others of his kind.

Should he find a potential mate, he has to make the most of it.

A female.

It's an opportunity he can't let slip away...

..so he makes his move.

This might not look very fast...

..but in chameleon terms this is a sprint -

a reckless headlong dash.

And it nearly ends in disaster.

It'll take more than that to put him off his stride.

He's back on track.

Finally, he catches up with the larger female.

Gently, he climbs aboard.

And here he'll stay.

Leaf chameleon lovers have to stick together

as they so rarely meet one another.

Being miniature means leaf chameleons can specialise

at feeding on all the tiny insects in the leaf litter -

food which is out of reach for other chameleons.

They're not the only misfits that benefit by doing things differently

from the rest of their kind.

Purple frogs from India are one of just a handful of frogs

that live and feed underground, a bit like moles.

They only ever pop up to the surface for two weeks a year to find a mate.

So there has to be some frog speed dating.

Flying lemurs have independently evolved wings.

Technically they're gliding, not flying.

And while they're certainly not lemurs...

..it's still one hell of a trick.

Flying fish are definitely fish.

They take to the air to avoid underwater predators...

..gliding up to 400 metres.

Sometimes, being a bit different works brilliantly.

Other times, it can be risky.

High in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia,

lives an unlikely looking creature

which seems to have lost all sense of self preservation.

This is the only place in the world where you find big-headed mole rats.

They've not got high opinions of themselves...

..just very large heads.

It's the big-headed mole rat's lifestyle

that qualifies them as a misfit.

There are 36 different species of mole rats...

..all specially adapted to live underground.

But the big-headed mole rat is different.

They're the only one of their kind that always feeds above ground.

But round here that's not necessarily a great plan.

These mountain plateaus are home to Ethiopian wolves.

Unusually for a wolf, they rarely hunt in packs.

They're specialist rat catchers...

..and work best as solitary hunters.

Big-headed mole rat senses

are designed for their old burrowing lifestyle.

Feeble eyesight...

..and poor hearing.

Above ground, they're sitting ducks.

A very close shave.

With the mole rat's determination to forage above the ground,

they could really benefit from having a sentry -

a look-out to check the coast is clear.

And that's exactly what these are.

Moorland chats.

Expert foragers on these high mountain plateaus.

They hang around the mole rats...

..feeding on any bugs and worms dug up in their spoil heaps.

In return for this easy meal,

the chats keep an eye out for troublesome wolves...

CHAT TWEETS

..alarm calling if they come too close.

By choosing to feed above ground,

big-headed mole rats have turned their backs

on millions of years of evolution.

For this misfit, being able to get direct access to rich grass

must outweigh the risk of being preyed on.

But sometimes there appears little logic

as to why an animal has evolved to be different

from the rest of its animal family.

The primeval forests of New Zealand.

Amongst the undergrowth, something stirs.

A parrot,

but a parrot unlike any other.

This is the world's heaviest and only flightless parrot.

But that's just the start of its misfit credentials.

For this is a kakapo.

Kakapos can be surprisingly nimble on the ground.

But that's no use to them when their favourite food is up in the trees.

Reaching it isn't as easy as it perhaps should be.

They awkwardly clamber around...

..relying on their bill as an extra claw.

It's all a bit embarrassing really...

..for a bird.

Kakapos evolved to be flightless

because there were no ground predators on New Zealand.

When the first settlers arrived on these islands,

their ships also contained cats, weasels and rats.

When threatened, the kakapo's principle defence mechanism

is to stand very, very still.

This strategy has not worked out well for the kakapo.

Now there are only 125 left in the wild,

which brings us to another major issue.

Kakapos are one of the world's slowest breeding birds

and have a delightfully eccentric mating ritual.

Night.

This is when kakapos' minds turn to finding a mate.

A male limbers up.

He plods along a well-worn path, his personal stomping ground.

In a small hollow that he's carefully excavated,

he settles down and calls out for a mate.

KAKAPO BOOMS

The deep, low tone drifts across the valleys.

It can be heard up to three miles away.

He'll do this for up to eight hours every night for three months.

As is often the case, it's the females that are the picky ones.

They're only interested in breeding once every five years.

Despite his best efforts, it's not going to happen tonight...

..or any time soon by the looks of it.

With no natural predators to keep a check on their population,

kakapos evolved to be slow breeders.

Happily, now their numbers are increasing again,

just very slowly.

Being the world's most peculiar, ill-equipped and unlikely parrot

more than qualifies the kakapo to join the misfit gang.

Which brings us to our next set of non-conformists.

Animals that all appear hopelessly ill-suited

to the environment in which they live.

Where better to start than a muddy shoreline in Japan?

Mudskippers look like creatures that began to evolve,

then got stuck halfway.

A fish that can live out of water.

Although hauling themselves along on their fins

doesn't make it look like they've really cracked it yet.

Survival is tough enough as it is

so there must be a good reason to add that extra level of difficulty.

Well, it's all about the mud.

It may not look appetising

but mudskippers eat and thrive on mud.

It's rich in tiny plants and animals which they filter out.

And they've got a neat trick to stay alive in this hostile environment.

To breathe on land, mudskippers store water in their cheeks,

surrounding their gills...

..every now and then topping up the oxygen levels in the water

with a big gulp of air.

They're not breathing the air directly.

The air they're gulping in mixes with the water around their gills,

allowing them to draw out the oxygen.

And they're also able to breathe directly through their skin.

But, being a fish, and a tropical fish at that,

they are taking a big risk.

Drying out is their biggest danger.

Only when their skin's wet can they breathe through it.

If it dries out, they will quickly suffocate.

To avoid this, they're constantly rolling around in the mud...

..in order to keep their skin moist.

Mudskippers do seem to be rather disagreeable creatures.

But perhaps it's a result of having to eat mud every day.

Our next metaphorical fish out of water

is also a little ungainly on the land.

Penguins - loved by all.

They're certainly endearing creatures.

Of course, we're used to seeing them

in the frozen vastness of Antarctica,

but there's one penguin that has chosen a different path.

Yes, this is a penguin taking a stroll in a forest.

It's a Fiordland crested penguin

and this is South Island, New Zealand.

They're here to raise their chicks.

With no natural ground predators, it's a very safe place to nest.

Like any self-respecting penguin, they still love fish...

..which are understandably in short supply in the forest.

Every day, the adults shuffle back and forth to the sea to feed...

..using crystal-clear forest streams as convenient highways.

The chicks are left to fend for themselves

and, like many young birds, they're rather clumsy on land.

It's often early in life that animals seem most ill-suited

to their environment...

..and face their greatest threats.

A remote sandy spit in the middle of the Pacific.

Black-footed albatross chicks.

They've been raised on this tiny island

and are now ready to take to the air.

These are mythical birds of the open ocean,

completely at one with their environment.

Surely an albatross can't be a misfit.

Once airborne, they're fine.

It's that tricky learning process that puts them in the misfit camp.

These ugly ducklings are cumbersome and awkward on land.

And for a sea bird, they're pretty inept in the water too.

Albatross are such huge birds they simply can't take off

without a strong headwind...

..or a very long run up.

The chicks practice along the shore.

But eventually their maiden flight will have to be over open water.

This is not the place to linger.

Tiger sharks.

A dozen of them are drawn to the island,

purposely to prey on the fledging chicks.

From the shore, others watch on...

..waiting for their moment.

One chick builds up courage and sets off.

No sooner is it airborne, the wind drops...

..it ditches.

Amazingly, it escapes.

Others also get away.

Once airborne, they'll never look back...

..leaving their misfit phase behind them.

Beneath the waves, deep down,

is a creature that can't escape its misfit ways.

Simply getting around is enough to give them a headache.

A nautilus is the creature that time forgot -

a living fossil.

A primitive inhabitant of the deep sea

which first evolved 400 million years ago.

Distantly related to octopuses and squid,

they're the sole survivors of a once abundant group of sea creatures.

Having pottered around underwater for near on half a billion years,

you might expect them to be perfectly adapted

to life in the ocean.

But, of course, we wouldn't be talking about them

if that was the case.

Nautili move by forcing water out of a specially adapted tentacle,

using the same principle as a jet engine.

But with their jet propulsion thrusting them shell first,

their eyes are effectively pointing backwards...

..which makes them rather prone to the odd collision.

With 400 million years of not knowing what hazards

you're swimming into, it's amazing they've survived at all.

They can't even avoid the relatives.

Nautili are able to reverse directions.

By bending their tentacle round under their shell,

they can gingerly move forward.

Although this doesn't appear to be any improvement.

Nautili may struggle with getting around

but having barely changed for hundreds of millions of years,

it can't be doing them too much harm.

At least their ocean home is pretty constant.

Whereas our next misfit has to deal with

some of the most extreme seasonal changes on the planet.

The high Arctic.

A bleak and inhospitable place.

This is not where you'd expect to find

a caterpillar.

It's the start of summer

and these Arctic woolly bear caterpillars

are in a race against time.

They feast while they can...

..making the most of long summer days.

Their goal is to reach an optimum weight

to enable them to pupate into a moth, completing their life cycle.

But this far north, summer is brief.

Soon the days begin to shorten.

Winter is coming.

This woolly bear has not managed to eat enough to transform into a moth.

Time has run out.

As temperatures plummet, it settles under a rock to await its fate.

Still alive, its body starts to freeze.

Its heart stops beating...

..blood turned to ice.

The depths of winter.

For five months, temperatures won't rise above -30.

Spring, and the thaw begins.

The caterpillar miraculously rises from the dead...

..and begins to feed.

But no matter how fast the woolly bears eat,

they won't be able to pupate this year either.

The cold closes in once again.

The years pass, the seasons come and go,

and still the caterpillars feed while they can,

before being wrapped again in an icy embrace.

By breaking down their cell components

and flooding their bodies with anti-freeze chemicals,

amazingly, the caterpillars can survive...

..withstanding temperatures as low as -70 degrees centigrade.

Eventually, a very special summer arrives...

..as this will be its last.

Only now has it eaten enough

to make the transformation into an adult.

It's seven years old.

The world's oldest caterpillar.

Days later, the adult moth emerges.

It must now find a partner and mate.

The woolly bears can only complete their life cycle

because of their incredible adaptation.

It's their extraordinary solution

to living in such a hostile and marginal habitat.

Many animals have unique adaptations that make them highly specialised.

Marine iguanas are the only lizards on the planet that feed in the sea.

Grabbing mouthfuls of seaweed whilst holding their breath.

With a sticky 60cm tongue

and some of the largest claws of any mammal,

giant anteaters can devour 30,000 termites in a day.

Their bodies are so highly specialised

they can now only ever feed on these tiny insects.

Which isn't a bad thing -

by weight, termites are more protein rich than any other food source.

Texas blind salamanders spend their entire lives

in the pitch black of caves.

With zero light, eyes would be utterly useless

- a drain on precious energy.

Now they sense their prey with receptor cells

dotted along their bodies.

But being such a specialist animal can also have its down sides.

Vanuatu, in the South Pacific.

On a pristine tropical island like this

you might expect to find all manner of exotic looking crabs.

But here there's a real oddity.

This mighty beast...

..is a coconut crab.

With a meter-wide leg span, weighing up to 4kg...

..this is the world's largest land invertebrate.

The crabs have evolved to be giants to feast on a tropical delicacy.

The clue is in the name but just to be clear,

coconut crabs do actually eat coconuts.

They're one of the few animals

strong enough to break the tough husk.

The whole process can take several hours...

..but the reward is well worth it.

Coconut crabs' outlandish size and strength

might be an advantage when it comes to feeding...

..but it can be fatal when it comes to reproducing.

Like all crabs, these giants have to release their eggs in the sea.

But unlike most crabs they can't breathe underwater.

And because they've grown so heavy,

if they're ever washed out of their depth they'll never recover,

eventually drowning.

A female, her belly bulging with eggs.

Carefully she edges towards the pounding waves.

One missed step could mean disaster.

Clinging precariously to the edge, she quickly releases her eggs.

Only when she reaches the shoreline will she be safe.

Coconut crabs' incongruous size

has evolved so they can feed on coconuts.

They're not the only misfits whose very special diet

has resulted in a very specialised body.

Madagascar, in dead of night.

A ghoulish creature awakes.

Half bat, half monkey...

..and with a grotesquely elongated finger.

The aye-aye is undoubtedly very peculiar.

Like a cross between ET and Nosferatu.

In fact it's a type of lemur, a primate,

a misfit in our own animal family.

Their curious features allow them to find their favourite food.

AYE-AYE TAPS RAPIDLY

That extraordinary finger taps at the branch up to ten times a second.

AYE-AYE TAPS RAPIDLY

Ears pick up on the unmistakable echo of a hollow.

Teeth gnaw a hole.

They're the only primates whose teeth grow constantly

throughout their lives, just like rodents.

Finally she hooks the prize - an insect grub.

Aye-ayes feed almost exclusively on these grubs,

fishing them out from rotten wood.

Normally birds like woodpeckers would feed like this,

using their bills to break through the wood.

But woodpeckers never reached the aye-aye's island home of Madagascar.

Instead these primitive primates have evolved

to fill the woodpecker's niche,

exploiting a resource that no other animal can get to.

On first impressions, other misfits' strange bodies

are much harder to explain.

On the forest floor in Malaysia...

..an alien creature emerges.

It's an insect, a type of fly, and this is a male.

If you think he looks unearthly now, just wait to see what happens next.

He starts by gulping in air, forming clear bubbles in his head.

He forces these bubbles into the stalks supporting his eyes.

Like blowing up a balloon, the stalks stretch,

getting longer and longer.

A few final adjustments

and a couple of hours in the sun to let its skin go hard,

and the look is complete.

Meet the stalk-eyed fly.

These bizarre stalks don't help the fly see any better,

in fact, quite the opposite -

it's thought they reduce the effectiveness of their eyesight.

So there must be another benefit that's allowed these

implausible appendages to evolve.

In the evening a group of males gather.

They size each other up...

..eyeball to eyeball.

There's some aggressive posturing...

..but a full-on fight never breaks out.

The stalks are sort of measuring sticks,

a way to gauge how strong a rival is.

As they square up, the male with the widest stalks wins.

Males with broad stalks are also considered the more desirable

by the females and will therefore produce the most offspring.

It's sexual selection, rather than natural selection,

that has allowed the stalk-eyed fly's unique appearance to evolve.

Our final misfit has to be one of the most peculiar

yet most endearing animals on the planet.

It's not often you see a sloth in a rush.

This is a three-toed sloth...

..a female...

..and she's ravenously hungry.

It's the leaves that she's after.

However in order to protect themselves,

rainforest leaves are often tough, rubbery and full of toxins.

They're indigestible and lacking in energy.

But that hasn't stopped the sloth.

With large, multi-chambered stomachs containing a unique mix of bacteria,

they're able to deal with the tough leaves.

But it's not a quick process.

Sloths have the slowest digestion of any mammal.

It can take them two weeks to process a single meal.

And it's a hopelessly inefficient process.

Sloths had two options...

..either they had to eat more or do less.

Sloths evolved to do less.

Their entire lifestyle is all about expending

as little energy as possible.

The word sloth has come to mean laziness but sloths aren't lazy,

they've just developed a laid-back survival technique.

Although watching them does make you feel like a nap.

But their legendary lethargic manner does have a downside.

Harpy eagles...

-JAGUAR ROARS

-..and jaguars...

..both regularly hunt sloths.

Without speed as a defence, sloths had to go down another route...

..camouflage.

They've become the world's only vaguely green mammal.

Of course, there are plenty of green bugs...

..green lizards...

..and green birds...

..but can you name another green mammal?

There aren't any.

So how have they done it?

Their thick, coarse fur has evolved

to house entire communities of algae, single celled plants.

It's the algae that's turned them green,

the perfect way to blend into the forest.

Sloths may come across as comical and incongruous,

but they're actually highly evolved and extremely well-adapted

at their chosen way of life.

In fact, all misfits prove

that being different does give you an edge.

It can make you very successful.

The result is a group of wonderfully eccentric creatures,

creatures we should be grateful we share our planet with.

Yet now, largely due to our influence,

over half of the animals in this programme are endangered.

It's because these animals are so specialised

they're often more prone to the threats that face all wildlife.

That's why we should be looking out for them more than ever before.

They deserve our admiration, these misfits, these quirks of nature,

turning their oddness into opportunity.

They might be a bit weird,

but they're equal to any of the wonders of the planet,

in the glorious spectacle that is life on Earth.