The Wild Episode: Recent Episodes
Brian Ruckley
A Collection of Wonders and Curiosities from the Animal Kingdom. Zoology, natural history and sometimes human history too. Amazing stories about amazing wildlife.
The Texas Horned Lizard has solved a tricky problem: how to eat insects that not only have a powerful bite but also some of the most painful and lethal stings in the world ...
You can support the show - keep it going, keep it growing - and get additional content by subscribing at The Wild Episode Substack. Become a paid subscriber to get access to occasional bonus episodes.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
Please share the show on social media, rate and review in your podcast app. That helps a lot. Or best of all, become a paid subscriber at The Wild Episode Substack. Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Doppler Piano by Mark Wilson X, CC BY 4.0; Freeze and Build by AvapXia, CC BY 4.0
You can support the show - keep it going, keep it growing - and get additional content by subscribing at The Wild Episode Substack. Become a paid subscriber to get access to occasional bonus episodes.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
Please share the show on social media, rate and review in your podcast app. That helps a lot. Or best of all, become a paid subscriber at The Wild Episode Substack. Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Doppler Piano by Mark Wilson X, CC BY 4.0; The Desert Archer by Pipe Choir III, CC BY 4.0; Lucid Coma by Kevin Hartnell, CC BY 4.0.
The infamous and fearsome (or not?) Bullet Ant. The first of three loosely connected episodes about ... pain.
You can support the show - keep it going, keep it growing - by subscribing at The Wild Episode Substack. Become a paid subscriber to (if there's enough interest/support!) get access to occasional bonus episodes.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app. Or best of all, become a paid subscriber at The Wild Episode Substack. Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Doppler Piano, A Killer in Me, Ruminations and Terror Dome by Mark Wilson X, CC BY 4.0
Remipedes! Upside-down-swimming, venom-injecting, cave-dwelling amazingness. Some of the strangest crustaceans ever discovered, living in some of the strangest places the world has to offer.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Short Song 030223, Short Song 022723 and Short Song 022523 by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0 ; cinematic suspense series episode 004 and lost place atmospheres 001 by Sascha Ende, CC BY 4.0.
Ants that can glide and Myrmeconema, a parasitic nematode that can change the appearance and behaviour of its host. What happens when the two of them meet?
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Distant Early Warning Line and Tropospheric Scatter by Aldous Ichnite, CC BY 4.0; and Crawling, The Other Side of Darkness and Played by Ear by Unheard Music Concepts, CC BY 4.0.
The Sumatran Rhino, the closest living relative of the extinct Woolly Rhinoceros, is the most vocal of all rhinos. This is the story of its extraordinary voice, and its journey through the twilight of the natural world ...
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Pilgrimage - Contemplation and Pilgrimage - Inspiration by Wayne Kinos, CC BY 4.0; Mourn by Mark Wilson X, CC BY 4.0 and Ancient Rite by Kevin MacLeod, CC BY 4.0.
Sumatran Rhino and Humpback Whale vocalizations are from the paper:
Elizabeth von Muggenthaler, Paul Reinhart, Brad Lympany, R. Barton Craft; Songlike vocalizations from the Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis). ARLO 1 July 2003; 4 (3): 83–88
The Cookiecutter Shark is famous for its gruesomely efficient parasitic attacks on whales, seals and big fish. But that is only a part of the story when it comes to this extraordinary, and extraordinarily bright, shark ...
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Icy Interlude [feat. Mystified], Uncertainty and Left Behind by Nova Beat Estate, CC BY 4.0; Lightless Dawn by Kevin Macleod (incompetech.com), CC BY 4.0.
The Giant Barrel Sponge: one of the simpler animals on Earth yet grows to enormous size over a crazily long life, exerts a big influence on reef ecosystems and, unlike a great many animals in our oceans, seems to be thriving ...
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Equatorial Complex by Kevin Macleod (incompetech.com), CC BY 4.0; Short Song 011123, Short Song 011023 and Short Song 011323 by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0.
The Aldabra Giant Tortoise is an amazing survivor of a lost time - very recently lost - when giant tortoises dominated many of the islands in the Indian Ocean. Aldabra Atoll is the only place in the world you can still see great herds of tens of thousands of these huge reptiles.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Lost Frontier and Lost Time by Kevin MacLeod, CC BY 3.0 and Quiet Endings by Mark Wilson X, CC BY 4.0.
The Whip Spider Phrynus longipes is not a spider but one of the craziest-looking arachnids on Earth. They're also territorial and cannibalistic, so how do they manage to survive at super high densities in Caribbean caves without eating each other?
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Solitude and Morpheus Cave by Mark Wilson X, CC BY 4.0, God, Why Do You Do What You Do to Me and They Call It Nature by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 3.0, and Horror 13 from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
The Glacier Lanternfish is one of the most important fish in the world - part of arguably the greatest, and most under-appreciated, concentration of animal life on the planet. Which we can only really 'see', and understand, using sound.
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Acoustic Ambient Improv #1, Acoustic Ambient Improv #2, Acoustic Ambient Improv #3 and Acoustic Ambient Improv #8 by Ryan Lutton, CC BY 3.0
The Matabele Ant conducts large-scale raids against its only prey: termites. And the way it does it is amazing, with elements that might remind us of reconnaissance, generals, signalling, tactics, even battlefield medical services.
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: The Companionship of Isolation, Everything Tastes Different and A Gentle Fog Descends by Brylie Christopher Oxley, CC BY 4.0.
medic medic voice by cosmicembers, CC BY 3.0.
The Yellow-footed Antechinus is a tiny marsupial predator in Australia that has a life history, and in particular a breeding system, that makes it one of the most unusual mammals in the entire world ...
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Aggressive Phenomenon by Mystery Mammal, CC BY 4.0
The Japanese Train Millipede has a surprising history of interactions with the country's railway system, and the pattern of those interactions reveals it to be almost unique in the way its life is governed by a ticking clock ...
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You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: (Ambient)Breath, Melancholy Fear, Discovery, A Fleeting Thought and Dream State by Kirk Osamayo, CC BY 4.0
The leopard is the most flexible, adaptable big cat in the world, with a surprisingly long history of visiting urban areas. Today, as in the past, sharing your city with a large predator brings problems, but maybe there's an upside, because of how, and what, urban leopards are hunting ...
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: $50 to Breathe, I Refuse to Accept That There's Nothing I Can Do About It and Thanks for Trying to Rescue Me But You've Made Things Worse by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 3.0
What connects feasting Japanese fish, a swimming pool in southern France and Alexander the Great's encounter with the Gordian Knot? The extraordinary horsehair worm Paragordius tricuspidatus, a simple animal capable of astonishing things ...
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Cave and Wild bird by Gurdonark, CC BY 4.0; Blooming Flower by Lee Rosevere, CC BY 4.0
Northern Gannets are famous for one thing above all else: plunge diving after fish. So, an episode that's a bit of a deep dive into ... diving! How high, how deep, how dangerous, and how individually distinctive is a gannet's dive?
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You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy, Path to the Hidden Gate, Midnight in the Monastery and Elegy for a Family by Justin Allan Arnold. CC BY 4.0.
Gannet colony recording by dobroide , CC BY 4.0.
The Antarctic Krill is one of the most numerous animals on Earth, probably responsible for the biggest single species aggregations you can find nowadays. So numerous, in fact, that its surprising connection to Antarctic sea ice is just one of the ways it's bound into global climatic systems, carbon cycling and flows of energy and matter ...
Subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss any future Wild Episodes, and e-mail your comments, corrections, suggestions or feedback to help make those future episodes better!
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Ambient Dream, Nightmare Designs and Dark Awakening by malictusmusic, CC BY 4.0
SCP-x2x and Symmetry by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 4.0
The tentacled snake is one of the most unmistakable snakes in the world. And the story of how its tentacles connect to its extraordinary hunting strategy involves two letters: 'J' and 'C'.
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: New Year's Loops by Correspondence, CC BY 3.0, Wants To Know by Bodysurfer, CC BY 3.0, Piano Soundtrack 1 by Gurdonark, CC BY 3.0
The Mediterranean Monk Seal is probably the rarest pinniped in the world. It's had almost everything thrown at it - by us and by Nature - and survived, just, in part by changing its own behaviour. At some point, left with no alternative, it went into hiding.
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Realization, Breath and On A Blimp by Kirk Osamayo, CC BY 4.0. Bittersweet and Suonatore di Liuto by Kevin Macleod, CC BY 3.0.
The São Tomé Caecilian is a fantastic creature: an extremely yellow legless amphibian living in the soil on a single volcanic island. An extraordinary example of an already extraordinary group of animals.
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You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Minor With Cricket and Second Nature by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0 and Dizzy Spells - Instrumental by Josh Woodward. CC BY 4.0.
Something very weird goes on in mating assemblies of the White-barred Acraea butterfly - males and females swap roles. Why? And what can it tell us about a secret natural force shaping whole populations of insects?
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Headway, modum and periculum by Kai Engel, CC BY 4.0
Whirling Disease in fish is caused by a tiny parasite. But what is that parasite and just how tiny is tiny? The answers will astound you!
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: On The Highway, Age, Angled Insight and Unforeseen Space by Unheard Music Concepts, CC BY 4.0
The Megamouth Shark is one of the biggest, yet least known, least understood, sharks in the world. Not entirely surprising, since we've only known it exists for about fifty years ...
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You can also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter.
To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Desert Archer, Hot Soup on Cold Days, Coffee and Time and Homesick by Pipe Choir III. CC BY 4.0.
Just a quick update on the podcast, and a quick look forward to 2023!
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
The Vampire Jumping Spider feeds - in part - on blood. Often, human blood. But how it does it makes it one of the most extraordinary spiders in the world ...
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Wax by Nctrnm, CC BY 3.0; Murmur, Leer and Ah! by Mystery Mammal, CC BY 4.0
The Vampire Squid is not really a vampire, nor is it really a squid. It's the last survivor of an ancient lineage that has arrived in the present with an astonishing array of adaptations that equip it to live in a place most other animals can only visit ... the oxygen minimum zone.
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
The Long Journey, Gone, It's A Mystery and How I Used To See The Stars by Lee Rosevere, CC BY 3.0
The Corsac Fox is a small, elegant fox of Central Asia, Mongolia and China - a huge range, most of which it shares with four other animals that loom large in its life: red fox, golden eagle, marmots and, inevitably ... humans.
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Mastoom Mastoom/Asmar Asmar, Drum Solo and Fidayda by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road, CC BY 4.0
The Neon Flying Squid is one of those animals that lives up to its cool name: a squid that can actually fly. And we're not talking just gliding - time to talk jets and rockets ...
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Wonder Cycle, Your Journey Is Resuming Now and It Takes a Lot to Keep a Figure Like This, by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 3.0
The most numerous purely terrestrial animal in Antarctica is almost certainly the nematode worm Scottnema lindsayae. An astonishingly resilient little creature that goes places almost no other animal can, and probably rides the wind to get there ...
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To support the show, please share on social media, rate and review in your podcast app! Thank you.
Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Iced Spring Theme and The Fall by Peter Rudenko, CC BY 4.0 and CC BY 3.0 respectively.
The Red-Crowned Crane is a hugely charismatic, properly iconic bird, with symbolic importance in much Asian art, culture and myth. So here's me trying, in a way, to use it as a symbol of something else ... the state of the natural world, for want of a better description ...
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Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Kindling, Goldfinch: Flight to the North and Reservoir Sunsnset by Axletree, CC BY 4.0
The Emperor Scorpion (Pandinus imperator) is one of the biggest, most impressive and fearsome-looking scorpions in the world. So why is it described online as '... very good with children ...'?
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Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Sad Marimba Planet and What's Behind The Door by Lee Rosevere, CC BY 3.0
To fill an unanticipated, COVID-related gap in the schedule, this is a rebroadcast of an episode from the first year of the podcast - one that mysteriously became unavailable in the podcast feed a while back. Hopefully it sticks around this time, though no promises since I don't know what went wrong with it the first time round.
The northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) is one of the commonest seabirds in the North Atlantic, and a true master of the air. But most importantly for this episode, it is a central character in the story of how, for centuries, a village of perhaps two hundred people survived in one of Britain's most isolated, bleak locations ...
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Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of:
Bloom (Instrumental) and Fight the Sea (Instrumental) by Josh Woodward. CC BY 4.0.
The Return by nisei23. CC BY 3.0.
In A Moment and Reflections by Lee Rosevere. CC BY 3.0.
Field Recording of fulmars by neilg. CC BY 3.0
The Pig-Nosed Turtle of New Guinea and northern Australia really does have a pig-like nose. But this is one of the most unusual, distinctive turtles in the world, so there's a whole lot more going on than just that ...
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Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Quizitive and Everywhere by Lee Rosevere, CC BY 3.0
Fenyes's strepsipteran (Caenocholax fenyesi) is one of the most extraordinary insects in the world. A parasitoid living a deeply strange life - twice over, in fact, since males and females both get up to some remarkable stuff but are wildly different in both form and behaviour ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
The Tri-spine Horseshoe Crab (Tachypleus tridentatus) is one of four living horseshoe crab species (probably, marginally, the biggest). Animals that have survived, superficially very little changed, for hundreds of millions of years. They've come through multiple mass extinctions, but are still facing new and unexpected challenges today ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Modum by Kai Engel, CC BY 3.0, Another Version of You and An Extraordinary Camera Was Custom Built and Used Only Once by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 3.0
Colugos (often called, entirely inaccurately, flying lemurs) - there are two officially recognised species at the moment - are more dramatically and completely adapted to gliding than any other mammal. They've essentially turned their entire bodies into one big gliding surface. Extraordinary animals which also, as it happens, have extraordinary teeth ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Another Brilliant Age and The Last Whale by Jelsonic. CC BY 4.0.
First in a series of listener-suggested shows! The Wasp Mantidfly (Climaciella brunnea) is a stunning little insect with some amazing stuff going on. Mimicry, convergent evolution, phoresy, egg predation, hypermetamorphosis and much, much more.
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Show notes, with photos, video and links to lots more information, are available at thewildepisode.com
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
The Great Slaty Woodpecker (Mulleripicus pulverulentus) is probably the biggest woodpecker in the world. A spectacular inhabitant of Asian forests that's haunted, perhaps, by the ghosts of two even bigger woodpeckers ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
What Have You Done and Small Steps by Lee Rosevere, CC BY 3.0
The Greater Argonaut (Argonauta argo) is a very unusual octopus, that travels the oceans in an exquisite papery case. And many of its secrets were uncovered by a very unusual (for her time) woman - the remarkable Jeanne Villepreux-Power - one of the 19th century's leading scientifically-minded naturalists.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
Hey Ruth Instrumental Version, Pompeii No Vocals, The Pawnbroker's Stepdaughter Instrumental Version and Bloom Instrumental Version by Josh Woodward, CC BY 4.0
The Stoplight Loosejaw (Malacosteus niger) is a pretty extraordinary fish: a jet-black denizen of the twilight zone, armed with some of the strangest and most spectacular jaws in the animal kingdom and a surprising superpower: it's one of the very, very few creatures down there that can both generate and see red light.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
Oxygen Garden, Perhaps It Was Not Properly Manufactured, CGI Snake and Divider by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0
The Giant Hummingbird (Patagona gigas) is, by a long way, the biggest hummingbird in the world. It's about twice the size of the next biggest hummingbird - the most extreme version of a kind of animal that's already pretty extreme ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
It's a Jazz Thing by Smiling Cynic, CC BY 3.0
Dead From The Beginning, Alive Till The End by Doctor Turtle, CC BY 3.0
The African Death's-Head Hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos) is a big, striking moth loaded with grim symbolism and superstition. But we're mostly interested in its very unusual vocal abilities, its very unusual diet, and its surprising connection to ... potatoes.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
Slide Rule by Gurdonark, CC BY 3.0
Recording of Acherontia styx, Natural History Museum Sound Archive via wikimedia/bio.acousti.ca, CC BY 3.0
The Armadillo Lizard has a fantastic scientific name - Ouroborus cataphractus - which connects it to ancient mystical symbolism and ancient heavy cavalry. In fact, it shows that in Nature, everything's connected. Everything in this case being armour, speed, sociability, predators, prey, climate, geology. And a high speed police pursuit.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
Wants To Know by Bodysurfer, CC BY 4.0
The Nemertean egg predator Carcinonemertes errans may be the most patient, persistent and committed predator ever covered on the podcast. A tiny marine worm that lives, in huge numbers, only on the exoskeleton of the Dungeness crab, and feeds on only one thing: crab eggs. Millions upon millions of crab eggs.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
The Meadow, The Jewel and Me, I Dare You and Procreation by Little Glass Men, CC BY 4.0
The Black-Headed Duck is the only duck that's a brood parasite: it lays its eggs in the nests of other species. But unlike every other bird in the world that does this, it causes its host species negligible harm - because of what its ducklings do as soon as they hatch ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
Driving Through Tunnels, Call Me and Blue Lobster by Daniel Birch, CC BY 4.0
Quiet The Mind Instrumental by Mr. Pepino, CC BY 3.0
Let's Start At The Beginning by Lee Rosevere, CC BY 3.0
The Orca (Orcinus orca) is one of the most famous animals on the planet - but there is some very unusual and kind of mysterious stuff going on with orcas, and a lot of it may be connected to their astonishing predatory abilities ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
It's Always Too Late to Start Over, Let Your Enemies Feel The Weight of Your Burdens, That Kid in Fourth Grade Who Really Liked the Denver Broncos, Perhaps It Was Not Properly Manufactured and God Be With You Till We Meet Again by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0
The Rakali, aka the Australian Water-Rat, (Hydromys chrysogaster) is a pretty remarkable rodent. A carnivorous, semi-aquatic rodent that's native to Australia: a bit like the Australian version of an otter, it seems to be better than many Australian predators at dealing with the invasion of the poisonous cane toads ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
plus modified versions of:
Acoustic Guitar 1 by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Know No No-Nos, Jolenta Clears the Table and Today’s Special – Jam Tomorrow by Doctor Turtle, CC BY 4.0
The Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake (Hydrophis platurus) is probably the most widespread snake in the world and, arguably, the most marine of all living marine reptiles. It has cut all ties with the land, and mastered an environment no other sea snake quite has: the open ocean.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of:
Iced Spring Theme, Slow Motion, Aug 12, The Fall, What Follows Me by Peter Rudenko, CC BY 4.0
Prelude No 1, Prelude No 6 by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0
Electric eels (three species, in the genus Electrophorus) are famous animals, and have been for centuries. That doesn't mean they've given up all their secrets to science, though: recent research has revealed they're even more extraordinary than we knew. Plus: how to use horses as bait when fishing.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
The European Beewolf (Philanthus triangulum) is a big, striking wasp. A specialist predator of honeybees, with many tricks up its sleeve: chemical and biological warfare tricks, including symbiotic bacteria, embalming and poison gas.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of:
Danse Macabre - No Violin, Vanishing and When The Wind Blows by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 3.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
The Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is the biggest invertebrate on Earth - a truly enormous mollusc that weighs as much as a bull moose. Yet much about it remains deeply mysterious. It is a hidden wonder of Nature, hidden away deep in the Antarctic Ocean ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of:
Spatium by Keys of Moon, CC BY 3.0.
Light Lab, Treated Acoustic Guitar and End of WInter by Rest You Sleeping Giant, CC BY 4.0.
Abyss by Myuu, CC BY 3.0
www.thewildepisode.com
The olm (Proteus anguinus) is a very unusual animal: a large cave salamander, with an extraordinary life and an interesting history of research, that comes in (at least) two very different forms: the white olm and the black.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of:
Ah by Mystery Mammal, CC BY 4.0.
Disintegration and Silent Turmoil by Myuu, CC BY 3.0.
They Call It Nature and Raise Your Hand If You Think Evil Is Increasing In This World by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0
www.thewildepisode.com
The Madison Cave Isopod is a small aquatic crustacean living an extraordinary subterranean life: not in underground rivers, but in the groundwater. In the aquifer.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: I Should Have Been More Human, We Were Never Meant To Live Here and Stories About The World That Once Was by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
The Oilbird is a bird not quite like any other: first described by one of history's greatest naturalist-explorers, it is a cave-nesting nocturnal fruit-eater, whose nestlings had the misfortune to become a valuable fuel source for humans ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of: Saying Goodbye in the Rain (string), Saying Goodbye in the Rain (piano), No Doubt, Darkling Skies and Lost Star by Jelsonic, CC BY 4.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
Eleonora's Falconis a very elegant, very unusual bird of prey. It nests in big colonies on Mediterranean Islands, and on one of those islands may have been the first bird in the world to get specific legal protection. But here's the main question: why, unlike almost any other bird, does it breed not in the Spring or Summer, but in the Autumn?
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
The Greater Noctule bat is Europe's biggest bat, but also probably its most mysterious and least studied. In the last twenty years, though, remarkable details of its life have come to light. Such as: it's one of the very few bats in the world that is a major predator of birds ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
The Return by nisei23 (CC BY 3.0) and Electric Commando by Ian Alex Mac (CC BY 4.0).
www.thewildepisode.com
The purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) was only described by scientists in 2003. Naturalists actually knew about it - knew a little about it - way back in the early 20th century, but its existence had been kind of forgotten. And even now, we don't know much more than a little about it. But what we do know is enough to make it a pretty remarkable frog ...
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Recordings of purple frogs calling are by Thomas A, Suyesh R, Biju S, Bee M, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
Cannibals on the march ... The Mormon Cricket (Anabrus simplex), which is found across western North America, is prone to outbreaks: the mass movement of millions upon millions of insects. And what happens within those outbreaks, inside the vast crowd, is pretty brutal ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Night Caves, Wandering, Reflections, Gone and The Nightmare by Lee Rosevere, CC BY 3.0
www.thewildepisode.com
Labord's Chameleon (Furcifer labordi) may look like just another chameleon, albeit a small one. But it isn't. In one crucial respect, it is one of the most unusual animals on Earth. Virtually unique among tetrapods, in fact ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Magnet and Leer by Mystery Mammal, CC BY 4.0
Rewound, Another Version of You and Candlepower by Chris Zabriskie. CC BY 4.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
www.thewildepisode.com
The Lowland Streaked Tenrec (Hemicentetes semispinosus) is a small, worm-eating mammal from Madagascar. It has yellow stripes, a shared evolutionary history with elephants and sociable inclinations. It also has spines, and it does something with them that no other mammal can do ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
Moths for Halloween! If you can drink nectar, or fruit juice, as many moths do, you can drink other kinds of liquids too. Such as ... the bodily fluids of other animals. Up to and including the one that earns you the name ... vampire.
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
www.thewildepisode.com
The loricifera are a group of microscopic animals that, despite being abundant and widespread in marine sediments, no-one knew existed until the late 20th century. Once they were discovered, it soon became clear they are very, very unusual: including in one specific way that makes them unlike any other animal on Earth ...
Thanks to Jack Wilkinson for research assistance with this episode!
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of the following pieces:
Dark November #2, Dark November #4, Dark November #6, Adaptation and Admiration by Wayne Kinos. CC BY 4.0
www.thewildepisode.com
The bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) may not look out of the ordinary (apart from its big ears) but it is. Known as the only insectivorous dog in the world, it has the most teeth and the probably the fastest jaw of any wild dog. It also has a very unusual way of going about the business of raising the next generation ...
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Music
Opening & Closing Themes: Running Waters and Acoustic Meditation by Audionautix (Jason Shaw), from audionautix.com. CC BY 3.0.
Modified versions of the following pieces:
Rotisserie Graveyard, It Looks Like the Future but it Feels Like the Past, Kiss Inflation and The Ants Built a City on his Chest by Doctor Turtle. CC BY 4.0
www.thewildepisode.com
The Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens) may look like just another dragonfly, but it is in fact one of the more remarkable insects on Earth, undertaking some of the most extraordinary journeys in the entire animal kingdom ...
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Music by Audionautix and Mystery Mammal and Siddhartha and Chris Zabriskie and Peter Rudenko. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
The Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is Nature's greatest bonebreaker and bone-eater, and it uses two very different tools to make that possible: gravity and acid. It also has a somewhat mysterious but apparently significant relationship with iron oxide ...
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Music by Audionautix and Bert Alink and Unheard Music Concepts and Damiano Baldoni. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
The glacier ice worm Mesenchytraeus solifugus might look unremarkable, but it is an extraordinary animal. Above all, it's extraordinary in where it lives: on and in glaciers. It is one of a tiny handful of non-microscopic animals that can not only tolerate but require glacial ice to survive ...
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Music by Audionautix and Daniel Birch and Meydän. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
The Greater Honeyguide (Indicator indicator) is famous for its extraordinary co-operative relationship with humans. Less famous is its ruthlessly destructive relationship with other birds ...
Research assistance for this episode by Jack Wilkinson.
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Music by Audionautix and Damiano Baldoni. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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The Bonnethead Shark (Sphyrna tiburo) is a shark that packs quite a bit of unique into its smallish size. It's a member of the hammerhead family, so you know its head is going to be unusual, but the most surprising things about it are actually its teeth and its remarkable diet ...
Research assistance for this episode by Jack Wilkinson.
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Chris Zabriskie and Spin Day. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
The West Indian fuzzy chiton (Acanthopleura granulata) is a relatively unobtrusive, modest-looking marine mollusc with an extraordinary secret. Its shell is not just for protection; built into it are hundreds of tiny eyes. Eyes with lenses made of crystals.
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Music by Audionautix and by Kevin Macleod. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
The Barbary Macaque (Macaca sylvanus) is the only macaque that lives outside Asia, hanging on in pockets of the wild Atlas Mountains in North Africa. And, famously, living a semi-wild life on the Rock of Gibraltar. It's also been responsible for at least a couple of interesting human deaths, and exploring those connections takes us all over the place, and all over time: monkeys in prehistoric Europe, the Spanish Civil War, the Carthaginian wars, Roman arenas and a whole lot more ...
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix and by Doctor Turtle. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
Yeti crabs (Kiwa spp.). Hydrothermal vents. Life built not on sunlight, but on chemistry. We're going for a visit to some of the strangest places, with some of the strangest animals living the strangest lives, on the planet ...
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
The Alpine chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus) is, as far as birds are concerned, pretty much the ultimate mountaineer. It has bred at higher altitude than any other bird, and been seen hanging out near the summit of Mount Everest. But it is also a bird with a remarkable, almost inexplicable, deep history; because the Alpine chough has a mysterious, but possibly profound, connection to the Neanderthals ...
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Ondrosik and Chris Zabriskie. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
www.thewildepisode.com
Solorzano's Peripatus (Peripatus solorzanoi) is the biggest velvet worm in the world. Which makes it the biggest example of a very, very unusual group of animals: cute, unique creatures that are highly secretive and mysterious. And are also dedicated hunters with an unusual secret weapon in their arsenal: glue.
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Chris Zabriskie. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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The Portuguese man o’ war (Physalia physalis) is the most famous and spectacular member of the Blue Fleet. Questions to be asked and answered: What is the Blue Fleet? What obscure connection does it have to the Aquatic Ape theory of human evolution? Just how insanely weird is the Portuguese man o’ war anyway, and what strange connection does it have to another member of the Blue Fleet – the improbably beautiful sea swallow, a ferociously predatory sea slug?
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Kai Engel , Jacopo Tore and Josh Woodward. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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Most spiders live solitary lives, but Anelosimus eximius is an example of a different lifestyle: colonial living. A very social spider, that maintains and defends a communal web and hunts in packs. And because it hunts in packs, it can target bigger prey than your average spider. But it is itself the target for some very unwelcome attention, from thieves and killers.
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Kai Engel. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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The Great Northern Tilefish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps) is a big, beautiful fish from the western Atlantic. It's one of those rare animals that is capable of reshaping its physical environment over vast areas. But it's also interesting for a rather unique reason. It was discovered, entirely accidentally, in 1879 and within 3 years of that discovery, something entirely unexpected and dramatic happened that involved millions upon millions of dead fish.
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The Bone-House Wasp (Deuteragenia ossarium) is recently discovered species of spider wasp that has some remarkable habits. So, three questions. What is a spider wasp? What is an ossuary? And what connects the two to make for a suitable Wild Episode subject? Oh, and can I come with a tenuous excuse to talk about Beowulf and Old English? (Spoilers: yes, I can).
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Kevin MacLeod. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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Ruppell's Vulture (Gyps rueppelli) is one of the biggest vultures in the world, but it's real claim to fame is more spectacular. It is the highest flying bird on Earth. Certain risks come with being a master of the air, though, which leads us into a discussion that may make this episode unsuitable for some listeners: bird strikes, and their consequences for both aircraft and birds. And merely by virtue of being a vulture, Ruppell's Vulture has one another claim to fame: it is a member of a group of birds that exemplifies more than most the catastrophic impact humans can have on the natural world ...
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Kevin MacLeod. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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The world record for longest animal is held by the bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus), a Nemertean or ribbon worm from the North Sea. In fact, it's held by a Scottish bootlace worm that was washed ashore in 1864. But is that record reliable? How long do bootlace worms actually get? And what is a ribbon worm anyway?
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Kevin MacLeod. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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Colobopsis explodens is one of a group of ants known as exploding ants. Highly social insects that have developed an extraordinary approach to the defense of their colonies - a mass of workers, every one of which is prepared for the ultimate sacrifice. But how and why, you might wonder, does an ant make itself explode?
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Kevin MacLeod. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) is a member of a rarely seen, little known and little studied group of whales – the beaked whales – that are in fact widespread, relatively common and completely remarkable. The particular claim to fame of Cuvier’s beaked whale is its astonishing diving capabilities: it holds the record for the deepest dive by an air-breathing animal (without the aid of a submarine!). So we’re heading out, into the open ocean, to visit with one of the most rarely seen large animals on Earth, and to follow it away from the air and the light into the midnight zone …
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix. Other music in this episode by Chris Zabriskie. All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
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The weirdest animals yet to appear on The Wild Episode: Osedax, a whole genus of bone-eating worms that for tens of millions of years have been colonising giant carcasses in the deep sea. They have no mouths, the males are miniature, they secrete acid and they grow roots like trees. Weird, like I say. But wonderful too.
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Intro and outro music by Audionautix.
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Come and meet the tortoise that went to the moon! The Russian Tortoise (Testudo or Agrionemys horsfieldii) was the first vertebrate animal to fly around the moon. It spends more time in hibernation/aestivation than just about any other vertebrate. And despite being probably the commonest and widespread tortoise in the world, it's vulnerable to extinction. What could humans possibly be doing to threaten such a common animal with disappearance?
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What is the biggest terrestrial animal native to Antarctica? It's the Antarctic Midge (Belgica antarctica), a wingless fly that at no more than a quarter of an inch in length is by some distance Antarctica's biggest pedestrian. This is life right on the edge of possibility ...
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The gelada (Theropithecus gelada) is the only living member of the Theropithecus genus. It's the only grass-eating monkey on Earth. It's probably the most terrestrial primate on Earth. It's an amazing species. But it's also an excuse to ask interesting questions (though not necessarily answer them!). Questions like: what is a species, anyway?
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The spider-tailed horned viper (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) is in many ways an unremarkable snake. But in one very particular way - its tail, and what it does with it - it is utterly extraordinary. Welcome to the weird and whacky world of caudal luring, and the snake that has taken that behaviour to an amazing extreme ...
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The Mariana snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei) was only discovered and described a couple of years ago: and it was a big deal, because no fish has ever been brought up from greater depth. How do fish survive, kilometres down in the ocean? Why is this one named after someone called Swire? And what does it all have to do with The Lost World, a space shuttle and a famous film director?
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The Crowned Eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) is one of the largest birds of prey in Africa. It's probably the most powerful and almost certainly the one that regularly goes after the biggest prey. But is the crowned eagle, as is sometimes suggested, the only living bird to qualify for the description 'man-eater'?
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The violet oil beetle (Meloe violaceus) is our way into a discussion of leaky leg joints, toxic oil, aphrodisiacs, the cantharidin world, hitch-hiking, egg-laying on an industrial scale and hypermetamorphosism. There are not many animals that better illustrate just how weird and wonderful Nature can get ...
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The biggest snail in the world, Syrinx aruanus, turns out to be a highly specialized and effective predator. And we'll get to it via dolphins, mistaken identity, a unique human culture and the sound of trumpets.
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In recognition that Halloween is almost upon us, we pay a visit to Nature's dark side. A beetle, a crustacean and a wasp that do really pretty extraordinary things. But not, let's be honest, things that you could really call 'nice'. Predators and parasites that demonstrate just how surprising. and kind of merciless, the natural world can sometimes be ...
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The Baikal seal is the only purely freshwater seal species in the world, and it lives in precisely one place: Lake Baikal in Siberia. A lake which is itself extraordinary - the deepest in the world - and which is home not only to that unique seal, but to a host of crustaceans, fish and other animals that occur nowhere else on Earth.
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The Spectral Bat (Vampyrum spectrum - which is pretty cool as scientific names go) is the biggest bat in the Americas, and the biggest carnivorous bat in the world. A properly high-ranking predator in its environment, out there in the darkness enjoying a diet that makes its insectivorous, piscivorous and frugivorous relatives look like they're hardly even trying ...
It deserves, I think, to be better known, so here's my tiny contribution to putting that right ...
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Revisiting the subjects of the first three Wild Episodes! Just how common is the huge, ridiculously long-lived Greenland Shark? New research has the beginnings of an answer. The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect can't go home until someone gets rid of the rats that invaded it. Those rats are still there, but elsewhere there's big, big news in the world of rat eradication from islands ... And finally, just how badly did I mislead you in the corn crake episode? Not too badly, but it turns out the truth about Scotland's corn crakes is not as cheerful as I suggested.
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You've probably heard of Archerfish (Toxotes spp.), the Robin Hoods of the natural world. I discovered them when I was a kid, burning through wildlife books from the library. What I didn't know then - because nobody did - was just howthese really pretty small fish rely on physics and fluid dynamics to hunt terrestrial prey using water as a tool.
You know a fish is doing something interesting when the US Navy gets into the habit of naming submarines after it ...
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The coelacanth(s) (Latimeria chalumnae and Latimeria menadoensis) must be amongst the most famous fish in the entire world. And rightly so, since their discovery was one of the most astounding zoological moments of the 20th century.
But they're not just famous. They're also a bit misunderstood, and bit mysterious. They are not really living fossils, or missing links. They are fish that give birth to live young, hunt by doing a headstand and carry in their bodies a blueprint that in some ways connects them more closely to us than to all the other fish in the oceans ...
Welcome to the world of the King of the Sea ...
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The large blue butterfly (Maculinea arion - or Phengaris arion, depending on who you ask) is both beauty and the beast. Beauty because ... well, it's a pretty little butterfly, so what more could ask for? The beast because it's also such a master of deception, infiltration and carnivory it could be the antagonist in a sci fi horror movie.
So welcome to the world of a butterfly that is both parasite and predator, combining the tendencies of the cuckoo and the wolf. Oh, and it spends a chunk of its life pretending to be an ant.
Sometimes Nature's just plain weird ...
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Wild cattle don't come much more beautiful or impressive than the banteng (Bos javanicus), one of three (or is it two?) surviving cattle species that are as much a part of wild Asia as are the tiger or the orang-utan. Like the tiger and the orang-utan, the banteng has not done very well in the face of human pressure, but it has one thing those animals don't: a large population - its largest, in fact - living wild in a country that was never part of its natural range.
So what does it mean for conservation when an endangered animal's safest and most successful home is a place Nature never put it ...?
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Part two of two, and the amazing Steller's sea cow (Hydromalis gigas) - a sirenian bigger than an African elephant - finally makes its appearance, as the wheels come off the Great Northern Expedition and Vitus Bering and Georg Steller discover a Lost World. Astonishing wildlife abounds, but will not abound for long, now that it must share its home with a handful of shipwrecked sailors ...
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Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) was one of the most surprising, dramatic and generally amazing animals to have shared the world with modern humans. To tell its story is going to take two episodes - and this first of them, to be honest, doesn't even feature the sea cow itself. But it does feature Vitus Bering and Georg Steller, two men who would share with that gigantic creature an extraordinary tale of exploration, survival, death and extinction. Oh, and there's a load of other amazing wildlife involved as well ...
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Vikings! Monks! Poetry! Plus, a bird that is next to impossible to see, but almost impossible not to hear. The corn crake (Crex crex) has one of the most distinctive voices in the animal world, and for centuries - even as its population in the UK has plummeted - that voice has been a symbol of the bird itself ...
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This Wild Episode is all about what was once the rarest insect in the world - the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis) - and the bizarre story of how it escaped extinction, pulling off one of the most amazing tricks of species survival the world has ever seen ...
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Where better to start The Wild Episode than with a shark? Specifically, the Greenland Shark. Somniosus microcephalus.
One of the least well known, and most mysterious, top predators in the world. An enormous Arctic shark that lives longer than any other vertebrate, eats almost anything, and loses its sight because its eyes get eaten ...
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