Episode 2 Curious Creatures

APPLAUSE

Hello, I'm Kate Humble, and welcome to Curious Creatures,

a brand-new quiz all about the wonders of the animal world.

From the African Savannah to the Arctic tundra,

we've scoured the planet to bring you some of the most fascinating

and, indeed, curious creatures on planet Earth,

and here are four of them.

Please welcome, on my left,

all-round animal guru Chris Packham.

Who today is joined by Ferne Corrigan,

zoologist and children's wildlife presenter.

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And on my right, teaming up with zoologist and writer Lucy Cooke

is self-proclaimed animal geek and former zookeeper

Niall Strawson.

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Now, every correct answer in today's show wins our teams one part of what

we're calling a curious creature -

a strange beast made up of the parts of various different animals.

Like this little one, from our titles.

It has the head of a meerkat, the body of a robin,

the arms of a chimpanzee, the legs of a rhinoceros,

and the tail of a thorny dragon.

So, it's a meer-ro-chim-rhin-dragon.

A very rare and wondrous being indeed.

Known to all of us as Duncan.

Each team will be building up their own curious creature during the game

and the more parts they win,

the more points they can score at the end of the show.

Two parts of your curious creatures are up for grabs instantly

as we go straightaway into our opening round -

Yay Or Neigh?

Now, I will read a statement about an animal

and our teams' job is simply to work out if it's a fabulous furry fact...

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

..or frankly, a little bit woolly. HORSE WHINNEYS

So, Chris, we will start with you.

Owls can rotate their heads through 360 degrees.

What owls want to do by having such a flexible ability

is to be able to look for their prey without moving to another spot.

Because, obviously, if they're flying about,

there's a risk they will disturb the prey

-which they're attempting to stalk.

-Mmm-hmm.

So the ability to look over their shoulders and behind them

will minimise that.

The question is, of course, to be pedantic, as ever...

Chris, so unlike you!

I know. But can the skull rotate through 360 degrees

on top of the neck, or do they achieve the ability

to turn their head through 360 degrees by rotating

both the skull and the neck?

I don't know. An absolute full head turn,

to spin around and look the other way,

I feel like it might be a bit pointless, wouldn't it?

To turn your head the full way...

Try telling that to a tawny owl on a dark night!

Like, if it wants to look in that direction,

why does it need to go all the way around to do it again?

But can it do that?

If it's just the skull, I'm going...

-..neigh. Are you a neigh?

-I do, I completely agree with you.

-If it's just the skull, we're neighing.

-HORSE NEIGHS

And you would be right to neigh.

Yes!

APPLAUSE

Now, you said, Chris, that they do this because it means

they don't have to fly around and look for prey,

they can just stay in one place.

But there is another reason why they have to do it, do you know why?

Their eyes are placed on the front of their head like ours.

They essentially have a beak where we have a nose

and therefore they have a rather humanlike face.

So if their eyes are forward-facing,

in order to see what's behind them, they have to turn their head.

Absolutely right, they can't actually

turn their eyes in their sockets.

Would you like to see an owl with its head

almost entirely turned round?

After all this, I'd love to see anything.

So would I! Let's have a look at it.

There we are, there's a barn owl.

So, you have won the very first part of your curious creature.

Let's have a look at it.

-Oh, goodness me.

-That's going to be a hard one to identify later.

Unless you want its personal name,

that's not going to be tricky, is it?

Lucy, your fabulous fact is,

all species of penguin live in Antarctica.

Well, this is a common misconception, isn't it?

Penguins don't just live in the Antarctic, do they?

You find them in all sorts of places.

I've seen them in Australia, little blue penguins.

Yeah, little blue penguins in Australia,

you get them in the Galapagos.

I think a lot of them, in hotter countries,

-live in burrows to keep cool.

-They do.

What penguins don't like is, they don't like heating up,

basically, because they're meant to live in the cold and the water.

So they do live outside of Antarctica,

but they do struggle with staying cool.

So, you are going...?

-Neigh.

-HORSE NEIGHS

It is a neigh.

APPLAUSE

Very well done. Let's have a look at these glorious creatures.

They're like ballerinas under the water.

Well, they fly underwater. That's what they've evolved to do,

they no longer use their wings for conventional bird flying,

but they use them to literally fly underwater.

I think they might have the densest feathers of any bird,

to form their little sort of wet suit.

No, you're absolutely right.

They have more feathers per square centimetre than any other birds,

and several types of feather,

in terms of insulating themselves as well.

We can say that you were absolutely correct.

Penguins do not just live in Antarctica, and that means

that you have won yourselves your first curious creature part.

And there it is.

Ooh!

Ferne, this one is for you.

A female prairie dog can only conceive on one day each year.

I'm just imagining them to be kind of similar, in a way,

to mole rats and stuff, if they have their little communities and

things that they live with.

They love a bit of breeding, they do, yeah.

I don't know, I could be completely wrong and I feel like...

Are you feeling sort of disapproval emanating from the Packham?

-No, not at all.

-No?

No, no, I'm not!

So, you're saying that you think that they do conceive

on more than one day a year?

Yes, that would have been my first answer,

but when it comes to these kinds of things,

you always start second-guessing yourself, don't you?

Every form has a function in the natural world.

Every adaptation has a purpose,

so there would have to be a good reason to only be able to

conceive on one day a year.

Can you think of a good reason?

Surely not, but then again, this sort of question...

-It does, it makes you second-guess, doesn't it?

-Yes, it does.

But I'm going to leave it to you, Ferne, having deliberated.

It's your question and on your head may it rest.

I'm going to stick with my initial answer and say neigh to that.

HORSE NEIGHS

-You're wrong.

-What?!

They do only conceive on one day a year.

It appears to be true of nearly all species of prairie dogs.

Females go into heat, or oestrous, for a single day during the winter,

so mating season only happens once a year.

Any idea how long pregnancy might last?

-What, to birth?

-Mmm.

-35 days.

Not bad, 34-38 days.

Despite their name, prairie dogs,

they are actually rodents and members of the squirrel family.

So, sadly, Ferne,

I'm afraid you don't get another part of your curious creature.

Now I'm getting the vibes!

No, it's all right, I was supporting you.

Niall, here is your fact.

Dolphins can sleep with one eye open.

I used to work as a dolphin trainer, doing enrichment stuff with them,

making sure they're entertained.

One of them was pregnant, actually,

-so I had to do morning and night shifts to watch for the birth.

-Yeah?

So, I think I know this, because I saw them doing it.

-OK.

-Ooh!

-And what did they do?

They do, in fact, sleep with one eye closed.

I'm not entirely sure what the theory is,

but I think part of it's predatory awareness.

So, if you're swimming. And also, because they have to breathe.

So, in captivity, you might see dolphins just sleeping

at the surface with their blowhole open.

But, of course, in the wild, if they stopped,

they'd get nailed by something with big teeth.

So, you are going with a yay for this fact?

-I am, in fact, going for a yay.

-ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

And you would be absolutely right to do so.

APPLAUSE

Thank goodness.

And you have won yourself a second part of your curious creature.

Let's have a look at it. There we go.

-Hmm.

-OK.

And see how it fits onto the head.

There we go. Just by the by,

where you there when the pregnant dolphin gave birth?

I was actually. The baby...

It's so brilliant, it's about this big.

It's very, very cute.

But, of course, dolphins have a dorsal fin, right?

So how do you give birth to something with a fin?

-I hate to think. Ouch!

-Yes, well.

So actually, a baby dolphin, when it's born, has a little, floppy fin.

And then maybe 20 minutes after it's born, it goes stiff.

It's really lovely.

So, well done, you're currently racing ahead of Chris and Ferne,

and now we move on to round two, which today is, What On Earth?

Now, we are going to start with you, Chris and Ferne.

I would like you to tell me, what on Earth is going on here?

There we are.

Any initial thoughts?

-It's a flamingo slick.

-Mmm-hmm?

And these might well be lesser flamingos

that have come together in one of Africa's Rift Valley lakes.

They come together in enormous numbers, millions of birds.

I once had the great good fortune

to be at a place called Lake Bogoria one morning.

And we thought there was somewhere in the region of 500,000 birds

on the lake at that point. They were spread out.

Why do they all come together and gather in these lakes?

Well, they go through this extraordinary behaviour of marching.

And they march in these long lines,

performing these extraordinary displays.

They march one way, then they twist and march back the other way.

It's all part of their nuptial display, of course.

And their heads turn as well, don't they, in unison?

Yeah, they do all of this.

And they do it in this incredibly caustic water.

The lakes are extremely alkaline,

you can't walk in them without it stripping the skin from your feet.

That morning, at Bogoria... They fly overnight, when it's cool.

They'll often fly hundreds of miles from one lake to another

when the feeding density in one drops to a certain level.

And just as it got light,

the best part of 2 million flamingos flew in and landed on the lake.

I sort of thought,

getting a pizza and a video on a Friday night

is not going to really match up to that, really.

I call it my moon-landing moment.

Because I often wonder what Neil Armstrong did

the week after he got back from the moon.

I mean, what do you do when you've been to the moon?

For me, that was such an incredible thing.

I just sat there in a deck chair,

and millions of flamingos came and landed in front of me.

That was extraordinarily fortunate.

I felt like a lucky bloke.

Well, you are absolutely right.

For those of you who weren't, or haven't, sat in a deck chair

at Lake Bogoria, let's show you this little bit of video

so you too can share in its wonder.

-So, is this what you are seeing, Chris?

-Yeah, this is it.

They're drinking there, in some of these shots.

They come to the freshwater springs at the edge of the lake.

Once they've sated their thirst,

they go out and they perform this marching display,

where they hunch their necks and twist and turn.

They go backwards and forwards along the shoreline.

Sometimes they do that in their hundreds, if not thousands.

It is one of nature's greatest spectacles,

there's no doubt about that.

Well, you can add another part to your curious creature.

Let's have a look and see what it is.

-Ah, there we are.

-Mmm.

LAUGHTER

Lucy and Niall.

What on Earth is extraordinary

about this roaring rodent?

SIREN-LIKE HOWL

-Wow.

-Have either of you ever seen that before?

No, I've never seen it. Have you?

I don't know what that is.

You've no idea?

-Well...

-I mean, what would incite an animal

to stand on a rock and howl like that, do you think?

-Romance.

-Yeah.

-Really?

-Looking for love.

-Is that how you do it?

-Yeah.

Doesn't everybody?

Mr Packham, do you have an answer for us?

I don't know what species that is.

Mice are largely herbivorous anyway,

so I don't think it's luring prey, in that sense.

No, you're all just fabulously off the mark.

I am going to show you what is extraordinary about this rodent.

Have a look at this.

Incredibly brave.

And then it eats the scorpion.

HOWLS

Well, there's a triumph howl.

-Really?

-So, what you were watching

was a grasshopper mouse that fights and eats scorpions,

and it is completely immune to the venom.

When it fights its prey,

the grasshopper mouse howls a high-pitched, sustained whistle

that, relative to its size, is the equivalent of a roar.

So, there you are.

You don't get any more parts of your curious creature.

Now it's time to play Is It Bigger Than A Chicken?

In this round, the teams ask me questions

to help them identify a mystery animal.

They must be questions to which I can answer only yes or no.

Each time they get a yes,

a small part of the animal is revealed on the screen behind me.

If you wish, you can then guess what the animal is.

But be careful, because if you guess wrong, you will be out of the round.

OK? The first question that must be asked is, audience?

-AUDIENCE:

-Is it bigger than a chicken?

Thank you very much. So, Niall, I think we'll start with you.

What question would you like to ask me?

Hmm...

Do you know what? I'm going to go with...is it bigger than a chicken?

Excellent first question.

You will be delighted to know that the answer is yes.

Which gives you your very first little bit of the jigsaw.

Why, thank you.

There we are. Let's whisk that away.

Any thoughts, while you're looking at that?

My first thought that came to mind was, fishy, maybe?

But now, looking at it, I don't know.

It's definitely not furry, is it?

-Could be scaly.

-Could be furry...

-Could be skinny.

-Could be anything.

So, we're not going to hazard a guess at this point?

-It's pink.

-Yeah.

Fine. So, Ferne, let's go to you now. What would you like to ask?

Is it a mammal?

Yes, it is.

So, you get another little bit of our animal jigsaw.

Let's have a look.

I know what it is.

You know the definite species, though?

I believe that this is a scaly mammal.

-Yes.

-OK.

I'm just trying to think what continent it's from.

Well, they come from both Africa and Asia.

Two in Africa and six in Asia, as far as I recall.

-But you go for it, it's your bag. Name it. It begins with P.

-Yeah.

It's a pangolin.

And you would be absolutely right.

Well done.

APPLAUSE

Yeah, I wouldn't.

Have either of you actually seen a pangolin in the wild?

-Oh, yes.

-Have you?

Have you seen a pangolin in the wild?

I've had one stick its tongue in my ear, actually.

Which I can tell you, you haven't actually lived until you've had a

pangolin stick its tongue in your ear.

-How did that happen?

-Well...

Well, I was holding it and they're ant-eaters, or termite-eaters.

So their tongues are very long and very sticky.

They like to rootle around in crevices, looking for bugs.

Chris, you are right. There are eight species of pangolin,

but there are actually four in Africa and four in Asia.

OK. Stand corrected.

That piece of deduction wins you both another part

of your curious creature.

There it is.

Now, given how precocious these two were

at identifying the mystery animal today,

I'm going to give you the chance of also winning a part

of your curious creature by offering you a bonus question, which is,

what is unusual about the way some species of pangolin walk?

They tend to walk around on their back legs, don't they?

-Do they?

-Yeah.

-Why?

-Because then they look like little scaly humans.

Lucy, you're right.

Let's have a look at a pangolin

looking like a little scaly human.

-Here it is.

-Aw, look at them!

They are the sweet...

I mean, look at his dear little eyes and his little hands.

-Look at that!

-Very well done.

-You have won a new part of your curious creature.

-Yes!

Let's have a look.

-And there it is.

-Ooh!

It's magnificent.

It is magnificent.

Anyone know how many insects a pangolin might eat in a year?

-I'd say... In a year?

-Yeah.

Let's say a million. No, more than that.

-Go big or go home.

-FERNE: I'd say tens of millions.

-Tens of millions?

-If not hundreds of millions?

-5 million? 10 million. 10 million!

-You're going 10 million?

We see your five and we'll go to ten.

70 million.

Well done, everybody.

We're now professors of all things pangolin.

APPLAUSE

Now onto round four.

Today, it's a personal favourite of mine, it's called Whose Poo?

Yes, we have a sample of animal poo for each team to try and identify.

These samples have been kindly provided by our friends

from the National Poo Museum on the Isle of Wight.

A quick health-and-safety message - please don't try this at home.

All animal poo is potentially harmful and our expert teams -

that's you - are examining their samples

under strictly controlled conditions.

So, Chris and Ferne, I'm going to start with you.

There we are.

For your delight and delectation.

Shall I do this with a bit of a flourish?

I think a little bit of a flourish would be good. Silver service.

-Excellent.

-We can firstly pick it up and have a sniff.

-SNIFFS

-Oh, yeah.

Quite a sweet smell to it.

-A bouquet.

-It's not a bitter smell.

Or, indeed, in any way unpleasant.

I mean, I wouldn't rub it all over me, but, you know,

it's not bad.

What sort of clue does a sweet smell give you as opposed to a bitter one?

Well, typically, carnivore poo can pack a pong.

So this smells like vegetarian poo.

I just kind of want to know what shape it was.

Well, look at this one here.

This one looks like the shape of a blood cell,

in the sense that it's circular,

but it's got an indentation on both sides.

So that's quite a characteristic shape, isn't it?

Would you like a little poo clue?

Well, to be honest with you,

there are any number of animals that produce poo in this form.

So I think a poo clue, I think, might be required.

OK, this is an animal that doesn't poo very frequently.

I would say perhaps, on average, once a week.

-Sloths.

-Sloths, they don't poo very often.

-No.

They come down once a week, they store it all up.

-And it's very, very...

-Yeah. And, I think, you know...

-..well-digested, as well.

-Yeah.

I've only ever seen sloth poo once,

and it wasn't exactly like that, I've got to say - it was darker.

But that would depend on its diet, and colour's not that important.

But, yeah.

Shall we go for sloth or "slowth", depending on what she'd say.

You certainly seemed to think that was what it was, Ferne?

Famous last words, yeah.

-Go on, then.

-Stick with your convictions, because you're right.

Yay!

APPLAUSE

And you win another part of your curious creature.

Let's have a look.

-OK.

-Good legs.

-Very good legs.

Lovely pair of legs.

As we have discovered, sloths - or "slowths" -

only poo about once a week.

Any idea how much they can poo in one evacuation?

What, dry weight?

Let's say in terms of its body weight.

-Oh, in terms of its body weight?

-Yeah.

OK, let's hazard a guess.

What do you think? 10, 15%?

Yeah, something like that.

Lucy, as the main appreciator of sloths throughout the world,

can you disabuse them of this fact, or are they right?

I think it's more than that.

I think it's 30%.

-30%?

-Wow.

It is about a third of their body weight with each evacuation.

No wonder they come down from the trees.

Now, there is something else extraordinary about the sloth.

Have a look at this little bit of film to see a strange relationship

between sloth and another creature.

So, what's going on here, Lucy?

That is a moth.

It's a sloth moth, that actually has one of the most unappealing jobs

in the animal kingdom.

It spends its adult life living on the body of a sloth,

and then it breeds and lays its eggs in the dung of a sloth.

Absolutely. Congratulations to Chris and Ferne.

You were absolutely right.

Lucy and Niall, now, this involves...

SHE STRUGGLES

-Oh, my God!

-..a little bit of heavy lifting.

Would you like to reveal it?

OK. Three, two, one.

I so wasn't expecting that!

Well, I think...

-It does have an odour, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's...

It's... It's...

It's sort of, erm...

Pooey?

LAUGHTER

That's very diagnostic.

A poo that smells of poo, excellent.

No, but it's like your classic kind of manure-y smell, isn't it?

-I think you'd call it grassy, probably.

-Yeah, grassy.

So it's a herbivore, isn't it?

It's a herbivore with, I would hazard a guess, a very large...

-..bum.

-Yes.

-I think you're probably thinking elephant, aren't you?

-Yeah.

Niall, I reckon, has had a more intimate relationship with...

-With large poos.

-With large poos, being a zoo man.

I'm sort of tempted to go with you.

But then, in the back of my mind is, could it be a rhino?

No, Niall. I've seen rhino poo, it doesn't look like that.

Chris is looking really smug,

he wants us to come off the rhino track and go for the...

Oh, really?

Well, you're misreading.

-Really?

-I just always look smug.

So maybe this is a trick and they want us to say elephant

because it's so massive, and...

I think, let's go for elephant, just because it's so grotesquely big.

And you'd be right.

APPLAUSE

And that wins you another part of your curious creature.

And there it is.

-Ooh!

-Hmm.

Now, we're nearly at the end of the show,

which means it's time to see how many bits of their curious creatures

our teams can identify.

So, Chris and Ferne, we'll start with your four.

Let's go straight in with possibly the trickiest one you've got there,

the head. Any guesses, any wild guesses?

-Oh...

-Hmm.

I think it comes from Africa.

Lion.

Two points. Very well done.

APPLAUSE

What about this next little body part?

-I wish I had one of those.

-Do you? Why would you like one?

Not stuck on my face, but in my collection.

It's the spatulate bill of a spoonbill.

It is a spoonbill. I'll give you two points.

Let's go for the body.

Ferne, you're happy with this, aren't you?

Yes. We were looking at the colouration and stuff,

just below where its head would be.

And we were thinking that it could be an emperor penguin.

And you'd be thinking absolutely right. Two points.

The final body part that you managed to collect,

this lovely pair of pins.

Yeah, giraffe.

Yes, just giraffe will do.

So, you have eight points.

APPLAUSE

However, you can gain an extra point by identifying the part that you

didn't manage to collect, and it is this.

Oh, yeah.

-OK.

-I would have thought maybe some form of salamander-style thing,

newt-style thing.

So, what are you thinking, then, Chris and Ferne?

I'm thinking it's the tail of a newt.

A male newt in breeding finery.

-Ferne, do you agree?

-I completely agree, yeah.

And you would be absolutely right.

So there's one point there.

APPLAUSE

So, Lucy and Niall, you have got nine points to beat.

You can get nine points,

but you do need to answer every single question right

-for it to be a draw.

-No pressure.

-Really, it's fine, yeah.

So let's start with this rather magnificent head.

Any wild guesses?

-It's a hippo.

-It is a hippo.

So, two points for that.

Well done.

Now, the little frilly bits adorning our hippo.

What do we think that might be?

I think it might be an axolotl, which I can never properly say.

It might be an axolotl. I think that looks more like axolotl head shape

that's been chopped out of the middle.

Shall we go with axolotl?

We're going to go with axolotl.

That's a very good decision, because it gets you two points.

APPLAUSE

Now, how about, then, this lovely, rosy chest?

Now, this, I think this is magnificent.

I think it belongs on the chest of a bird.

-Am I correct?

-And it gets inflated in order to attract the ladies.

-Is it a frigatebird?

-A frigatebird.

Or magnificent frigatebird, perhaps.

Frigatebird would do.

Thank you very much indeed. Yes, two points.

APPLAUSE

So, at the moment, it's six points playing nine points.

Now then, whose lovely legs are these?

-It's primate-y.

-Mmm, yeah.

-So let's go for a generalist lemur.

-OK.

-We're going to go lemur.

-OK.

You would be absolutely right, it is a lemur.

-To be exact, it is a ring-tailed lemur.

-Oh!

So you have eight points.

Chris and Ferne have nine points.

If you get this next one right, it will be a draw.

Now, obviously, you didn't win this one,

but we will show it to you so you can just get one point for this.

And here it is.

Well, it looks rather foxy.

It does look quite foxy to me.

In which case, we can go for fox. Shall we just go for fox?

Let's make it foxy.

We're going to go with fox.

Well done. One point.

APPLAUSE

So, we end up with Chris and Ferne on nine points

and Niall and Lucy also on nine points. It's a draw!

APPLAUSE

Thank you to all four of you glorious, curious creatures

for taking part, and thank you

to you beauteous beasts at home for watching.

See you next time. Goodbye.

APPLAUSE