Weird Nature (2002–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Marvelous Motions - full transcript
There was a time when myth
and science were entwined
When mermaids and unicorns
could mysteriously appear
And devilfish flew the oceans
Nature was weird
When science revealed the truth
behind these imaginary creatures
it found real animals
lay behind the legends
Today, science still makes
astonishing discoveries
but nature seems just as weird
It's just that fact
has broken free from fiction
In Weird Nature,
real animal behavior
is set against human backdrops
They give us astonishing insights
The spiral tusk of the unicorn
has been traced to a white whale
just as wonderful as the legend
The narwhal uses its twisted horns
and jousts like a medieval knight
The mermaid's forked tail
belongs to the dugong
Half seen its body and face
can appear surprisingly human
The devilfish is a Manta ray
They leap to shed parasites and then
briefly glide like phantom craft
Weird Nature takes you into a world
where imaginary human setting
showcase animal behavior
that is absolutely real
What is weird is best defined
when compared to our own lives
Our first weird journey shows
the wonderful ways that animals move
Life began in the oceans
This imaginary wreck brings together
some early forms of motion
Jellyfish are the only animal
to move by wafting water
through a pulsating skirt
But such graceful jet propulsion
is no match for the tides
A strange ancient mollusk
improved the concept
The nautilus jets water through a siphon
that can move to control direction
It controls depths by
regulating gas in a series of
buoyancy chambers in its shell
Flame scallops jet propel by clapping
their shells like castanets
They jet water from either side
of their hinge
They dance to escape predators
or to find new places
The Spanish dancer's technique
is more elegant
It flamingos by rippling
the ribbons along its body
The frills of its costume
are actually gills
and despite its romantic name,
it's really a sea slug
The seahorse can't move
its armoured body in sinuous ways
like other swimming fish
Instead, a fin that quivers
20 times a second whirls it around
Shimmering side fins
act as steering propellers
Jointed legs were an exciting
new movement in evolution
Spiny lobsters use them to conga
Their procession
provides safety in numbers
as they move to deeper water
to avoid winter storms
The slipstream from the leader
cuts drag for those behind
Legs helped animals
make the next evolutionary step
Today we prefer faster options
But legs have been invoked since the first
amphibians crawled from the sea
They dragged their bodies along
using four legs splayed to the side
In California,
the Mt. Lyell salamander
uses its tail as a 5th leg to negotiate
the Sierra Nevada mountianside
They are also special
in more human terms
The wheel was hailed
as one of our greatest inventions
But as these creatures prove,
we were simply reinventing it
Rolling is the quickest way down a hill
as this salamander has discovered
It's designed to flex like a rubber tyre
so it doesn't feel the bumps
The pale moth caterpillar was common
but its talent for doing wheely
is a new discovery
It rolls with its caterpillar track
on the inside
Salamanders and caterpillars
were born to rock'n'roll
so this behavior is second nature
The salamander's more normal motion
can cause problems for heavier creatures
that move in the same way
For the early reptiles,
crawling along the ground
was literally a drag
Crocodiles had an odd solution
Walking on stilts
cuts friction on rough ground
but these flat feet have to
rotate forward to take a step
It may be slow,
but it saves energy
and most crocs use this stiff-legged
walk whenever the going gets rough
The Australian freshwater croc
shows an even strange gait
when provoked by predators
such as the saltwater croc
It gallops,
but not like any other animal
Its front feet work together
in opposite motion to the back
As the front feet hit the ground,
the back swing forward
when the back push away,
the front reach out
Galloping horses
were once painted like this
In truth, only freshwater crocs
run in this seesaw way
It can reach 15 miles an hour
and easily lead to safety
Evolution has taken many
weird twists and turns
Each year, 20 million leapers
of a more playful kind
arrive in the world's toyshops
from a tiny part of Mexico
The jumping bean is really
the seed of a desert shrub
Only a few show this odd leaping
The seeds, imported as novelty toys
seem to have a mind of their own
There really is a mind
behind the jumping
a moth caterpillar
lives and feeds inside the seed
The caterpillars
flip their home to escape
They not only feel the heat
light makes them jumpy
They fuss and fidget into the shade
This behavior is a lifesaver
in the hot Mexican desert
The caterpillar repairs the damage
by weaving a silken wall
It grips onto the silk wall
when it leaps
and the shape of the bean
helps it roll
For weirdness,
the Mexican jumping bean
is hard to beat
But sifaka lemurs from Madagascar
turn leaping into a surreal ballet
The secret of their graceful pogoing
stems from a life in the trees
They can leap 30 metres with ease
These acrobatic skills have to
be modified for the challenge
of moving over the ground
The legs act as springs
and feet curled for gripping
become landing pads
With no branches to grab the arms
are free to act as stabilizers
Every move of the legs is complemented
by a matching move of the arms
The balletic poses
maintain perfect balance
Sifakas only show such bizarre
and beautiful motion
because they evolved
for a life in the trees
The same is true of the bushbaby
This time slice sequence
shows the various poses of
a bushbaby adopts as it jumps
It leaps 2.25 metres in height,
equivalent to us clearing
two stacked double-decker buses
To achieve this,
the legs and feet act like springs,
converting the energy of impact
back into propulsion
It really does have a spring in its step
It waits until the peak of its jump
before reaching out
Its tail acts as a counter balance
It's like a rubber ball with a brain
almost impossible
for a predator to catch
This sequence freezes a bushbaby
as it becomes airborne
But gliding animals specialise in
prolonging their time in the air
The golden tree frog of Malaysia
is a treetop acrobat
Usually it hops just a few metres
but if it meets a golden tree snake,
it happily makes a leap into the unknown
As it plummets,
spread limbs slow its descent and
its webbed feet double up as a parachute
The Javan flying frog goes one better
Its webbed feet have evolved
into miniature wings
Instead of parachuting,
it paraglides at an angle
But it's the Wallace frog that
achieves aeronautical perfection
Its huge webbed feet become aerofoils
that slow and control its descent
It glides as far forward
as the distance it falls
As well as winged feet, its whole body
is aerodynamically shaped
This is classic evolution
one feature progressively improved
until perfection is achieved
Lizards lack webbed feet,
so they expand other body features
to get their wings
The flying gecko's impressive
glide angle is due to
winglike fringes on its body
Every available edge
has an aerodynamic extension
But it's the Draco lizard
whose design really flies
A huge aerofoil turns the Draco
into a living frisbee
while its tail steers like a rudder
Foldable ribs act as support struts
to create the perfect wing
The golden tree snake uses other
aeronautical traits for its leap of faith
It loops its body
for the ultimate takeoff
and projects forward
to gain a head start
It then flattens into a ribbon,
and swings through the air
using S-shaped waves of its body
The star of this jungle airshow is
the owner of the most extravagant wings
From 18m up,
the Wallace frog glides 80m forward
The gecko soars 100m
but nothing beats the flying frisbee
The Draco reaches a full 200m
Even a flying snake makes 150
complete with controlled landing
A lack of legs has made snakes
devise other weird ways of moving
In the deserts
of the American southwest,
off road travelling
is notoriously difficult
Shifting sand is one of the most
challenging surfaces to negotiate
The horned rattlesnake's solution
is to touch the sand with
as little of its body as possible
Appropriately,
its nickname is the sidewinder
Like tyre tread, a snake's scales
usually grip the ground as it moves
but sand simply gives way
So the snake makes
an S-shape with its body
and lifts the loops
in a rolling corkscrew
This continually shifts
the points of contact
to stop that sinking feeling
As waves of grip pass down the body,
the snake rapidly picks up speed
Its hidden prey can also
make a surprise move
Sidewinders avoid
being buried by sand
others welcome its smothering embrace
This predator spends much of its life
lurking just beneath the surface
It can swim through shifting sand
like an eel up a river
because the grains act like liquid rock
The sand swimmer's wedge-shaped head
parts the grains like the prowl of a boat
Its over slung upper jaw
stops it swallowing sand
and it can close its nostrils
to avoid suffocating
As the snake submerges,
its polished scales slip through the grains
as if immersing in water
Nature shows many wonderful forms
of travelling
those that seem weird
are usually the least familiar
But although we think we are normal,
in nature, it is we who are peculiar
Our two legs place us
among the world's oddest animals
We are the only mammal
to regularly walk like this
Sometimes other primates hint
at the origins of our strange bipedal walk
Proboscis monkeys use it
to cross mangroves
A few scientists think
we were once semi-aquatic,
walking like this
kept our heads above water
Others believe that freeing
the hands for gripping or carrying
allowed the landed
to bring back food to a family
Whatever the reason,
animals that walk like us seem strange
We find it weird to see our actions
mirrored in other animals
In the age of the dinosaurs
we might have felt more at home
many were also bipedal
Today a few unrelated lizards
continue in their footsteps
Like a miniature tyrannosaur,
the collared lizard hunts on two legs
But it is more agile than any dinosaur
and size for size much faster
Being smaller gives
speed and maneuverability
Most bipedal lizards live in deserts
This kind of running need space
When hunting other lizards,
two legs give it the edge
The tyrannosaur's modern equivalent
But while this lizard
uses two legs for speed,
we now prefer alternatives
The dinosaur's real descendants
are birds
Because they fly,
we rarely notice that
they walk on two legs like we do
but the road runner is an exception
Its comical humanlike gait
made it a cartoon character
To save energy for its sprint,
the road runner
exposes a solar panel
This dark skin patch raises
its body temperature 7 degrees
It's primed
for a superheated performance
To the road runner,
our open roads are race tracks,
good for chasing insects and lizards
Its tiny legs take it
to 26 miles an hour
If our legs moved this fast,
we would overtake any speeding bike
Because two-legged running
limits our own speed,
we use artificial means of travel,
such as flying
But even though it can fly,
the strange road runner chooses
to run on two legs for speed
Our machines take us ever faster
and we sometimes pay the price
But when we smile at
the road runner's bipedal running
are we recognizing
our own weird nature?
and science were entwined
When mermaids and unicorns
could mysteriously appear
And devilfish flew the oceans
Nature was weird
When science revealed the truth
behind these imaginary creatures
it found real animals
lay behind the legends
Today, science still makes
astonishing discoveries
but nature seems just as weird
It's just that fact
has broken free from fiction
In Weird Nature,
real animal behavior
is set against human backdrops
They give us astonishing insights
The spiral tusk of the unicorn
has been traced to a white whale
just as wonderful as the legend
The narwhal uses its twisted horns
and jousts like a medieval knight
The mermaid's forked tail
belongs to the dugong
Half seen its body and face
can appear surprisingly human
The devilfish is a Manta ray
They leap to shed parasites and then
briefly glide like phantom craft
Weird Nature takes you into a world
where imaginary human setting
showcase animal behavior
that is absolutely real
What is weird is best defined
when compared to our own lives
Our first weird journey shows
the wonderful ways that animals move
Life began in the oceans
This imaginary wreck brings together
some early forms of motion
Jellyfish are the only animal
to move by wafting water
through a pulsating skirt
But such graceful jet propulsion
is no match for the tides
A strange ancient mollusk
improved the concept
The nautilus jets water through a siphon
that can move to control direction
It controls depths by
regulating gas in a series of
buoyancy chambers in its shell
Flame scallops jet propel by clapping
their shells like castanets
They jet water from either side
of their hinge
They dance to escape predators
or to find new places
The Spanish dancer's technique
is more elegant
It flamingos by rippling
the ribbons along its body
The frills of its costume
are actually gills
and despite its romantic name,
it's really a sea slug
The seahorse can't move
its armoured body in sinuous ways
like other swimming fish
Instead, a fin that quivers
20 times a second whirls it around
Shimmering side fins
act as steering propellers
Jointed legs were an exciting
new movement in evolution
Spiny lobsters use them to conga
Their procession
provides safety in numbers
as they move to deeper water
to avoid winter storms
The slipstream from the leader
cuts drag for those behind
Legs helped animals
make the next evolutionary step
Today we prefer faster options
But legs have been invoked since the first
amphibians crawled from the sea
They dragged their bodies along
using four legs splayed to the side
In California,
the Mt. Lyell salamander
uses its tail as a 5th leg to negotiate
the Sierra Nevada mountianside
They are also special
in more human terms
The wheel was hailed
as one of our greatest inventions
But as these creatures prove,
we were simply reinventing it
Rolling is the quickest way down a hill
as this salamander has discovered
It's designed to flex like a rubber tyre
so it doesn't feel the bumps
The pale moth caterpillar was common
but its talent for doing wheely
is a new discovery
It rolls with its caterpillar track
on the inside
Salamanders and caterpillars
were born to rock'n'roll
so this behavior is second nature
The salamander's more normal motion
can cause problems for heavier creatures
that move in the same way
For the early reptiles,
crawling along the ground
was literally a drag
Crocodiles had an odd solution
Walking on stilts
cuts friction on rough ground
but these flat feet have to
rotate forward to take a step
It may be slow,
but it saves energy
and most crocs use this stiff-legged
walk whenever the going gets rough
The Australian freshwater croc
shows an even strange gait
when provoked by predators
such as the saltwater croc
It gallops,
but not like any other animal
Its front feet work together
in opposite motion to the back
As the front feet hit the ground,
the back swing forward
when the back push away,
the front reach out
Galloping horses
were once painted like this
In truth, only freshwater crocs
run in this seesaw way
It can reach 15 miles an hour
and easily lead to safety
Evolution has taken many
weird twists and turns
Each year, 20 million leapers
of a more playful kind
arrive in the world's toyshops
from a tiny part of Mexico
The jumping bean is really
the seed of a desert shrub
Only a few show this odd leaping
The seeds, imported as novelty toys
seem to have a mind of their own
There really is a mind
behind the jumping
a moth caterpillar
lives and feeds inside the seed
The caterpillars
flip their home to escape
They not only feel the heat
light makes them jumpy
They fuss and fidget into the shade
This behavior is a lifesaver
in the hot Mexican desert
The caterpillar repairs the damage
by weaving a silken wall
It grips onto the silk wall
when it leaps
and the shape of the bean
helps it roll
For weirdness,
the Mexican jumping bean
is hard to beat
But sifaka lemurs from Madagascar
turn leaping into a surreal ballet
The secret of their graceful pogoing
stems from a life in the trees
They can leap 30 metres with ease
These acrobatic skills have to
be modified for the challenge
of moving over the ground
The legs act as springs
and feet curled for gripping
become landing pads
With no branches to grab the arms
are free to act as stabilizers
Every move of the legs is complemented
by a matching move of the arms
The balletic poses
maintain perfect balance
Sifakas only show such bizarre
and beautiful motion
because they evolved
for a life in the trees
The same is true of the bushbaby
This time slice sequence
shows the various poses of
a bushbaby adopts as it jumps
It leaps 2.25 metres in height,
equivalent to us clearing
two stacked double-decker buses
To achieve this,
the legs and feet act like springs,
converting the energy of impact
back into propulsion
It really does have a spring in its step
It waits until the peak of its jump
before reaching out
Its tail acts as a counter balance
It's like a rubber ball with a brain
almost impossible
for a predator to catch
This sequence freezes a bushbaby
as it becomes airborne
But gliding animals specialise in
prolonging their time in the air
The golden tree frog of Malaysia
is a treetop acrobat
Usually it hops just a few metres
but if it meets a golden tree snake,
it happily makes a leap into the unknown
As it plummets,
spread limbs slow its descent and
its webbed feet double up as a parachute
The Javan flying frog goes one better
Its webbed feet have evolved
into miniature wings
Instead of parachuting,
it paraglides at an angle
But it's the Wallace frog that
achieves aeronautical perfection
Its huge webbed feet become aerofoils
that slow and control its descent
It glides as far forward
as the distance it falls
As well as winged feet, its whole body
is aerodynamically shaped
This is classic evolution
one feature progressively improved
until perfection is achieved
Lizards lack webbed feet,
so they expand other body features
to get their wings
The flying gecko's impressive
glide angle is due to
winglike fringes on its body
Every available edge
has an aerodynamic extension
But it's the Draco lizard
whose design really flies
A huge aerofoil turns the Draco
into a living frisbee
while its tail steers like a rudder
Foldable ribs act as support struts
to create the perfect wing
The golden tree snake uses other
aeronautical traits for its leap of faith
It loops its body
for the ultimate takeoff
and projects forward
to gain a head start
It then flattens into a ribbon,
and swings through the air
using S-shaped waves of its body
The star of this jungle airshow is
the owner of the most extravagant wings
From 18m up,
the Wallace frog glides 80m forward
The gecko soars 100m
but nothing beats the flying frisbee
The Draco reaches a full 200m
Even a flying snake makes 150
complete with controlled landing
A lack of legs has made snakes
devise other weird ways of moving
In the deserts
of the American southwest,
off road travelling
is notoriously difficult
Shifting sand is one of the most
challenging surfaces to negotiate
The horned rattlesnake's solution
is to touch the sand with
as little of its body as possible
Appropriately,
its nickname is the sidewinder
Like tyre tread, a snake's scales
usually grip the ground as it moves
but sand simply gives way
So the snake makes
an S-shape with its body
and lifts the loops
in a rolling corkscrew
This continually shifts
the points of contact
to stop that sinking feeling
As waves of grip pass down the body,
the snake rapidly picks up speed
Its hidden prey can also
make a surprise move
Sidewinders avoid
being buried by sand
others welcome its smothering embrace
This predator spends much of its life
lurking just beneath the surface
It can swim through shifting sand
like an eel up a river
because the grains act like liquid rock
The sand swimmer's wedge-shaped head
parts the grains like the prowl of a boat
Its over slung upper jaw
stops it swallowing sand
and it can close its nostrils
to avoid suffocating
As the snake submerges,
its polished scales slip through the grains
as if immersing in water
Nature shows many wonderful forms
of travelling
those that seem weird
are usually the least familiar
But although we think we are normal,
in nature, it is we who are peculiar
Our two legs place us
among the world's oddest animals
We are the only mammal
to regularly walk like this
Sometimes other primates hint
at the origins of our strange bipedal walk
Proboscis monkeys use it
to cross mangroves
A few scientists think
we were once semi-aquatic,
walking like this
kept our heads above water
Others believe that freeing
the hands for gripping or carrying
allowed the landed
to bring back food to a family
Whatever the reason,
animals that walk like us seem strange
We find it weird to see our actions
mirrored in other animals
In the age of the dinosaurs
we might have felt more at home
many were also bipedal
Today a few unrelated lizards
continue in their footsteps
Like a miniature tyrannosaur,
the collared lizard hunts on two legs
But it is more agile than any dinosaur
and size for size much faster
Being smaller gives
speed and maneuverability
Most bipedal lizards live in deserts
This kind of running need space
When hunting other lizards,
two legs give it the edge
The tyrannosaur's modern equivalent
But while this lizard
uses two legs for speed,
we now prefer alternatives
The dinosaur's real descendants
are birds
Because they fly,
we rarely notice that
they walk on two legs like we do
but the road runner is an exception
Its comical humanlike gait
made it a cartoon character
To save energy for its sprint,
the road runner
exposes a solar panel
This dark skin patch raises
its body temperature 7 degrees
It's primed
for a superheated performance
To the road runner,
our open roads are race tracks,
good for chasing insects and lizards
Its tiny legs take it
to 26 miles an hour
If our legs moved this fast,
we would overtake any speeding bike
Because two-legged running
limits our own speed,
we use artificial means of travel,
such as flying
But even though it can fly,
the strange road runner chooses
to run on two legs for speed
Our machines take us ever faster
and we sometimes pay the price
But when we smile at
the road runner's bipedal running
are we recognizing
our own weird nature?