Weird Nature (2002–…): Season 1, Episode 6 - Peculiar Potions - full transcript
There was a time when myths
and science were entwined,
when mermaids and unicorns
could mysteriously appear.
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.
Even familiar animals
indulge in strange activities.
MIAOWING
Cats from far and wide are irresistibly
drawn to a seemingly insignificant plant.
In the presence of catnip,
they do the unexpected.
They not only eat its flowers,
they rub, sniff and chew its leaves.
LOUD PURRING
Cats are strangely
addicted to this fragrant herb.
They return for a fix of its
heady scent again and again.
Its aromatic oils make
them frisky and playful.
As they fall deeper under its influence,
their mood changes in other odd ways.
As well as rolling around, apparently
in ecstasy, they chase imaginary mice.
This odd behaviour is triggered by
chemicals resembling those in tomcat urine.
Courting females writhe
in this provocative way,
but strangely, catnip affects both sexes.
Cats even inherit this sensitivity.
Three-quarters are affected in some way.
This weird journey shows how natural chemicals influence
animal behaviour and reveals much about ourselves.
Aromatherapy is now more popular than ever.
But we are in surprising company.
Starlings use aromatic
herbs to decorate their nests.
As science studies the human
benefits of aromatherapy,
starling research shows that herbs
help their chicks' immune system.
Their herbs contain the same
essential oils as those we use.
In starlings the oils are
absorbed through the shell.
They boost the embryo's white
blood cells that fight infection.
Chicks reared with herbs grow faster and cope
better with stress when they leave the nest.
Twice as many birds from
herbal nests survive the first year.
In a dangerous world, the smallest variation in
fitness makes the difference between life and death.
CHIRPING
Many birds of prey bring
vegetation back to the nest.
The black eagle returns with garlands of aromatic
leaves throughout its three-month nesting season.
Like the oil in herbs, leaf oils are the
plant's natural defence against insects.
In the nest they seem
to act as bug-busters,
tackling infestations
of flies, ticks and mites.
Local people use the same leaves
as insect repellents in their homes.
Perhaps like starlings, eagles
also gain other health benefits.
Whatever the truth, birds
clearly know what's good for them.
So do chimpanzees.
Chimps use over 30 different
plants to treat stomach complaints.
This is aspilia.
Their young learn about
self-medication by watching their elders.
Aspilia leaves need special handling.
They must be rolled, not chewed.
This preserves hairs
which trap intestinal worms.
The leaves are also dosed
with anti-parasitic chemicals,
giving a double whammy.
Many chimp remedies are also used
by local people as herbal medicines.
A growing knowledge of animal pharmacy is
giving science insights into human treatments.
There is much that nature can teach us.
The axolotl has miraculous
powers of regeneration.
It dwells in a few lakes near Mexico City.
This salamander tadpole never grows up.
Adults keep their gills and
spend their whole lives submerged.
Lake Xochimilco is a tough place to live.
It is the most popular
boating spot in Mexico.
The way the axolotl copes with the hazards
has made it the focus of scientific study.
Limbs lost in accidents
mysteriously re-grow.
Their process of regeneration is providing
insights into the repair systems of our own bodies.
They take just three months
to replace a severed leg.
If we can unlock the axolotl's
secrets, we too might re-grow lost limbs.
Such studies into the weird side of nature
may unlock the key to our future health.
Nature can even tackle its own
environmental health problems.
Many birds like the rook
employ pest controllers.
They enlist the unwitting help of ants.
It surrenders to the frenzy of
bites with outstretched wings.
The ants also squirt formic
acid, a natural insecticide.
This vinegary acid keeps down feather mites
and seems to double as a plumage conditioner.
Smoke triggers the same odd contortions.
So it probably acts as a pesticide too.
It must fumigate their plumage.
The rook's posture resembles the
mythical phoenix - a bird reborn from fire.
Did a bird indulging in pest
control spawn the phoenix legend?
Other familiar animals
perform equally strange rituals.
Hedgehogs are immune to many poisons
and even have a taste for
noxious substances. Like creosote.
Their substance abuse is harmless
but it provokes a peculiar reaction.
They contort their body and
lick saliva onto their spines.
Discarded cigarettes are another popular
stimulant. They induce the same effect.
Why hedgehogs perform
this bizarre ritual is a mystery.
But self-anointing is
triggered by any pungent taste.
Perhaps the spittle cleans
spines that are impossible to groom
and when mixed with the noxious
stimulant it might deter parasites.
Nicotine is the tobacco
plant's natural insecticide.
Human addiction is an accidental
effect of this powerful chemical.
What have you done with my fags?
But the link between addiction and
insecticides may not be purely accidental.
Millipedes are extremely poisonous.
But in Madagascar they
are gathered with enthusiasm.
These black lemurs don't eat their finds.
They just annoy them by biting them gently.
The millipede sprays out defensive
chemicals including cyanide.
The lemur spreads
these toxins over its fur.
Lemurs crave these dangerous substances
and grab every millipede within reach.
There is reason behind their
addiction. The poisons repel insects
and keep malaria-carrying mosquitos at bay.
As the self-anointing ritual
continues, something strange happens.
The lemurs enter a blissful state.
The secretions seem to act as a narcotic,
giving the lemur pleasure as a reward.
Their drug habit must be harmful but its benefits
as an insecticide must outweigh the risks.
Millipedes usually survive the
experience relatively unscathed.
The lemur takes a little longer to recover.
Our own liking for intoxication
has its roots in the natural world.
We even have similarities with bees.
Hives are complex societies
with each bee assigned a role.
Visitors are identity
checked by guard bees.
Workers gather nectar and pollen.
They are especially partial
to the sugary sap of lime trees.
But the sap soon ferments
into an alcoholic drink.
Alcohol affects bees much as it affects us. Their
beeline back to the hive takes a few turns for the worse.
As well as losing coordination,
they lose their sense of direction.
Those that stagger back not
only have to land successfully...
..they have to pass the security check.
Like bouncers, the guards evict drunk
and disorderly bees from the premises.
Their role is to stop behaviour that
disrupts the smooth running of the hive.
Bee bouncers give all drunks the same rough treatment.
Persistent offenders may even have their legs bitten off.
They literally end up legless.
Similarities with our own
behaviour may be purely coincidental,
but true insights into our love affair
with alcohol can be found in nature.
This is the sleepy island
of St Kitts in the Caribbean.
300 years ago, vervet monkeys were brought here from
West Africa along with slaves serving the rum industry.
Escaped monkeys acquired a taste for alcohol
by eating fermented sugar cane in the fields.
Today they satisfy their
thirst by raiding local bars.
They have learned to be sneaky.
Picking the right moment is everything.
For years the monkeys have been studied
for insights into our own drinking habits.
Just as we vary in our taste
for alcohol, so do the monkeys.
Some do anything for an alcoholic cocktail.
But just as some people are
teetotal, so are some monkeys.
These reject alcohol
in favour of soft drinks.
Significantly, the percentage of teetotal monkeys
matches the non-drinkers in the human population.
In line with humans,
most drink in moderation.
12% are steady drinkers
and 5% drink to the last drop.
This similarity between us shows that a liking
for alcohol is determined mainly by our genes.
After each daily raid,
other human parallels soon appear.
But unlike us, monkeys that are heavy drinkers
make better leaders, respected by other monkeys.
They seem to tolerate
leaders that monkey around.
Like monkeys, our taste for alcohol began when
we scoured the forest for ripe, fermenting fruit.
Food and alcohol became
linked with intoxicating effect.
In Peru, spider monkeys have the
equivalent of a detox programme.
They come to this muddy spa to eat dirt.
The mud contains kaoline, a neutralising
clay used to treat our own stomach upsets.
Peccaries, a kind of pig, visit this jungle
pharmacy for the same medicinal treatment.
So do parrots.
The leaves and fruits of
rainforest trees are poisonous.
A daily dose of clay
detoxifies these meals.
A full health spa attracts hunters.
SCREECHING
Cats have their own tastes in medicines.
Just as pet cats eat grass,
large cats like jaguars eat leaves.
When regurgitated they
cleanse their digestive system.
But like catnip, some
plants induce other effects.
Yage is one of the commonest rainforest vines.
It seems to cause playful, kittenish behaviour.
But could something deeper be happening?
The vines are used by forest
people in their hallucinogenic rituals.
They take them to enhance their senses
and gain the jaguar's hunting power.
They believe the jaguar also takes
yage to heighten its senses when it hunts.
Like so much of weird nature,
there is still so much to know.
GROWLING
In the Arctic Circle, this fungus also
has magical associations with animals.
Fly agaric contains hallucinogenic chemicals
and is a favourite food of reindeer.
For thousands of years the lives of
reindeer and Sami people have been entwined.
Fly agaric was important to both of them.
In autumn, reindeer seek out the mushrooms,
even under an early fall of snow.
No-one knows whether the
reindeer are affected, but in the past,
Sami shamans took fly
agaric in their visionary rituals.
They even drank urine from reindeer
believed to be under the influence.
In trance they contacted
the great reindeer spirit.
On humans the drug heightens
senses and creates visions of flying.
Some believe the greatest of all modern myths
arose in the Samis' visionary flights of fancy.
Ho, ho, ho!
Perhaps early 19th century ideas drew on
these stories to create a Christmas legend.
Weird Nature explored strange animal behaviour
against settings of modern myths and human lives.
It began by revealing the odd
ways that some animals move.
But compared with nature's movements, our two-legged
walking is one of the oddest on the planet.
Animals have many devious defences.
But we have no natural defences at all.
Some animals have
fantastic ways to catch prey.
But we need artificial help to catch ours.
Creatures have struck
up strange partnerships.
But we depend on more
animal partners than any other.
There are fish that change sex.
And males that give birth.
But biologically, most of our
breeding habits are strange.
All in all, we are one of
nature's strangest animals.
We are weird nature.
There is another way that we are unique. Our
imagination can conjure up the most fanciful creatures.
But science has shown us that
even these have roots in reality.
Giant octopus have been found
with tentacles that span over 30 feet.
When science separated myth from reality, it found
that real creatures had fed our fertile imagination.
But whatever our minds dream up,
science is stranger than myth.
Subtitles by Alison Foy,
Subtext for BBC Broadcast - 2002
and science were entwined,
when mermaids and unicorns
could mysteriously appear.
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.
Even familiar animals
indulge in strange activities.
MIAOWING
Cats from far and wide are irresistibly
drawn to a seemingly insignificant plant.
In the presence of catnip,
they do the unexpected.
They not only eat its flowers,
they rub, sniff and chew its leaves.
LOUD PURRING
Cats are strangely
addicted to this fragrant herb.
They return for a fix of its
heady scent again and again.
Its aromatic oils make
them frisky and playful.
As they fall deeper under its influence,
their mood changes in other odd ways.
As well as rolling around, apparently
in ecstasy, they chase imaginary mice.
This odd behaviour is triggered by
chemicals resembling those in tomcat urine.
Courting females writhe
in this provocative way,
but strangely, catnip affects both sexes.
Cats even inherit this sensitivity.
Three-quarters are affected in some way.
This weird journey shows how natural chemicals influence
animal behaviour and reveals much about ourselves.
Aromatherapy is now more popular than ever.
But we are in surprising company.
Starlings use aromatic
herbs to decorate their nests.
As science studies the human
benefits of aromatherapy,
starling research shows that herbs
help their chicks' immune system.
Their herbs contain the same
essential oils as those we use.
In starlings the oils are
absorbed through the shell.
They boost the embryo's white
blood cells that fight infection.
Chicks reared with herbs grow faster and cope
better with stress when they leave the nest.
Twice as many birds from
herbal nests survive the first year.
In a dangerous world, the smallest variation in
fitness makes the difference between life and death.
CHIRPING
Many birds of prey bring
vegetation back to the nest.
The black eagle returns with garlands of aromatic
leaves throughout its three-month nesting season.
Like the oil in herbs, leaf oils are the
plant's natural defence against insects.
In the nest they seem
to act as bug-busters,
tackling infestations
of flies, ticks and mites.
Local people use the same leaves
as insect repellents in their homes.
Perhaps like starlings, eagles
also gain other health benefits.
Whatever the truth, birds
clearly know what's good for them.
So do chimpanzees.
Chimps use over 30 different
plants to treat stomach complaints.
This is aspilia.
Their young learn about
self-medication by watching their elders.
Aspilia leaves need special handling.
They must be rolled, not chewed.
This preserves hairs
which trap intestinal worms.
The leaves are also dosed
with anti-parasitic chemicals,
giving a double whammy.
Many chimp remedies are also used
by local people as herbal medicines.
A growing knowledge of animal pharmacy is
giving science insights into human treatments.
There is much that nature can teach us.
The axolotl has miraculous
powers of regeneration.
It dwells in a few lakes near Mexico City.
This salamander tadpole never grows up.
Adults keep their gills and
spend their whole lives submerged.
Lake Xochimilco is a tough place to live.
It is the most popular
boating spot in Mexico.
The way the axolotl copes with the hazards
has made it the focus of scientific study.
Limbs lost in accidents
mysteriously re-grow.
Their process of regeneration is providing
insights into the repair systems of our own bodies.
They take just three months
to replace a severed leg.
If we can unlock the axolotl's
secrets, we too might re-grow lost limbs.
Such studies into the weird side of nature
may unlock the key to our future health.
Nature can even tackle its own
environmental health problems.
Many birds like the rook
employ pest controllers.
They enlist the unwitting help of ants.
It surrenders to the frenzy of
bites with outstretched wings.
The ants also squirt formic
acid, a natural insecticide.
This vinegary acid keeps down feather mites
and seems to double as a plumage conditioner.
Smoke triggers the same odd contortions.
So it probably acts as a pesticide too.
It must fumigate their plumage.
The rook's posture resembles the
mythical phoenix - a bird reborn from fire.
Did a bird indulging in pest
control spawn the phoenix legend?
Other familiar animals
perform equally strange rituals.
Hedgehogs are immune to many poisons
and even have a taste for
noxious substances. Like creosote.
Their substance abuse is harmless
but it provokes a peculiar reaction.
They contort their body and
lick saliva onto their spines.
Discarded cigarettes are another popular
stimulant. They induce the same effect.
Why hedgehogs perform
this bizarre ritual is a mystery.
But self-anointing is
triggered by any pungent taste.
Perhaps the spittle cleans
spines that are impossible to groom
and when mixed with the noxious
stimulant it might deter parasites.
Nicotine is the tobacco
plant's natural insecticide.
Human addiction is an accidental
effect of this powerful chemical.
What have you done with my fags?
But the link between addiction and
insecticides may not be purely accidental.
Millipedes are extremely poisonous.
But in Madagascar they
are gathered with enthusiasm.
These black lemurs don't eat their finds.
They just annoy them by biting them gently.
The millipede sprays out defensive
chemicals including cyanide.
The lemur spreads
these toxins over its fur.
Lemurs crave these dangerous substances
and grab every millipede within reach.
There is reason behind their
addiction. The poisons repel insects
and keep malaria-carrying mosquitos at bay.
As the self-anointing ritual
continues, something strange happens.
The lemurs enter a blissful state.
The secretions seem to act as a narcotic,
giving the lemur pleasure as a reward.
Their drug habit must be harmful but its benefits
as an insecticide must outweigh the risks.
Millipedes usually survive the
experience relatively unscathed.
The lemur takes a little longer to recover.
Our own liking for intoxication
has its roots in the natural world.
We even have similarities with bees.
Hives are complex societies
with each bee assigned a role.
Visitors are identity
checked by guard bees.
Workers gather nectar and pollen.
They are especially partial
to the sugary sap of lime trees.
But the sap soon ferments
into an alcoholic drink.
Alcohol affects bees much as it affects us. Their
beeline back to the hive takes a few turns for the worse.
As well as losing coordination,
they lose their sense of direction.
Those that stagger back not
only have to land successfully...
..they have to pass the security check.
Like bouncers, the guards evict drunk
and disorderly bees from the premises.
Their role is to stop behaviour that
disrupts the smooth running of the hive.
Bee bouncers give all drunks the same rough treatment.
Persistent offenders may even have their legs bitten off.
They literally end up legless.
Similarities with our own
behaviour may be purely coincidental,
but true insights into our love affair
with alcohol can be found in nature.
This is the sleepy island
of St Kitts in the Caribbean.
300 years ago, vervet monkeys were brought here from
West Africa along with slaves serving the rum industry.
Escaped monkeys acquired a taste for alcohol
by eating fermented sugar cane in the fields.
Today they satisfy their
thirst by raiding local bars.
They have learned to be sneaky.
Picking the right moment is everything.
For years the monkeys have been studied
for insights into our own drinking habits.
Just as we vary in our taste
for alcohol, so do the monkeys.
Some do anything for an alcoholic cocktail.
But just as some people are
teetotal, so are some monkeys.
These reject alcohol
in favour of soft drinks.
Significantly, the percentage of teetotal monkeys
matches the non-drinkers in the human population.
In line with humans,
most drink in moderation.
12% are steady drinkers
and 5% drink to the last drop.
This similarity between us shows that a liking
for alcohol is determined mainly by our genes.
After each daily raid,
other human parallels soon appear.
But unlike us, monkeys that are heavy drinkers
make better leaders, respected by other monkeys.
They seem to tolerate
leaders that monkey around.
Like monkeys, our taste for alcohol began when
we scoured the forest for ripe, fermenting fruit.
Food and alcohol became
linked with intoxicating effect.
In Peru, spider monkeys have the
equivalent of a detox programme.
They come to this muddy spa to eat dirt.
The mud contains kaoline, a neutralising
clay used to treat our own stomach upsets.
Peccaries, a kind of pig, visit this jungle
pharmacy for the same medicinal treatment.
So do parrots.
The leaves and fruits of
rainforest trees are poisonous.
A daily dose of clay
detoxifies these meals.
A full health spa attracts hunters.
SCREECHING
Cats have their own tastes in medicines.
Just as pet cats eat grass,
large cats like jaguars eat leaves.
When regurgitated they
cleanse their digestive system.
But like catnip, some
plants induce other effects.
Yage is one of the commonest rainforest vines.
It seems to cause playful, kittenish behaviour.
But could something deeper be happening?
The vines are used by forest
people in their hallucinogenic rituals.
They take them to enhance their senses
and gain the jaguar's hunting power.
They believe the jaguar also takes
yage to heighten its senses when it hunts.
Like so much of weird nature,
there is still so much to know.
GROWLING
In the Arctic Circle, this fungus also
has magical associations with animals.
Fly agaric contains hallucinogenic chemicals
and is a favourite food of reindeer.
For thousands of years the lives of
reindeer and Sami people have been entwined.
Fly agaric was important to both of them.
In autumn, reindeer seek out the mushrooms,
even under an early fall of snow.
No-one knows whether the
reindeer are affected, but in the past,
Sami shamans took fly
agaric in their visionary rituals.
They even drank urine from reindeer
believed to be under the influence.
In trance they contacted
the great reindeer spirit.
On humans the drug heightens
senses and creates visions of flying.
Some believe the greatest of all modern myths
arose in the Samis' visionary flights of fancy.
Ho, ho, ho!
Perhaps early 19th century ideas drew on
these stories to create a Christmas legend.
Weird Nature explored strange animal behaviour
against settings of modern myths and human lives.
It began by revealing the odd
ways that some animals move.
But compared with nature's movements, our two-legged
walking is one of the oddest on the planet.
Animals have many devious defences.
But we have no natural defences at all.
Some animals have
fantastic ways to catch prey.
But we need artificial help to catch ours.
Creatures have struck
up strange partnerships.
But we depend on more
animal partners than any other.
There are fish that change sex.
And males that give birth.
But biologically, most of our
breeding habits are strange.
All in all, we are one of
nature's strangest animals.
We are weird nature.
There is another way that we are unique. Our
imagination can conjure up the most fanciful creatures.
But science has shown us that
even these have roots in reality.
Giant octopus have been found
with tentacles that span over 30 feet.
When science separated myth from reality, it found
that real creatures had fed our fertile imagination.
But whatever our minds dream up,
science is stranger than myth.
Subtitles by Alison Foy,
Subtext for BBC Broadcast - 2002