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Qi Xl - Season 23 Episode 10 - ‘W’ Animals
Transcript
00:30Good evening and welcome to QI, but tonight we're taking a walk on the wild side in a show all about animals starting with W.
00:39Let's meet our pride of panellists. Wiley as a wolf, it's Nabeel Abdul Rashid.
00:48Whip smart as a whippet, it's Sam Campbell.
00:54Grass as a rass, it's Holly Walsh.
01:00And the blue whale is his white whale, it's Alan Davis.
01:09Let's hear their whinnies. Holly goes.
01:14Ooh, Sam goes.
01:18Nabeel goes.
01:22Alan goes.
01:24Weedie-dum-boom, weedie-dum-boom, weedie-dum-boom, weelie-wee, still the old man.
01:31Now let's open this cat of worms with question one. How many legs does a walrus have?
01:37Four.
01:39What about the hands then? Are the hands it has?
01:46No, so there are legs so it does have four but it has more than that perhaps the walrus it has different stages
01:52So when it's in its larvae stage, you would have no legs and it as it grows
01:56It would sort of and they yeah sort of it ends up with one
02:04Okay, so the definition of leg is each of the organs of support and locomotion in an animal body
02:10Okay, support and locomotion support and locomotion
02:14Well, it goes mainly about on its tummy doesn't it and how does it pull itself forward on the ice when it's on its
02:19With it with its hands tusks it uses its tusks uses its tusks. Yes as well as the four flippers
02:25So we count those as we don't count those as legs
02:29Do the two tusks count as one leg so no they count as two legs and so it's got four flippers so in total
02:36It's got six legs doesn't that technically making an insect
02:44It's like a fly stay walk people they're lying to us
02:53BBC is rife with corruption
02:56The revolution is being televised but may be edited
03:02What I like is that both the males and the females have tusks and they both have mustaches
03:07But captive walruses have longer moustaches. Why do you think that might be they can't go to the barber?
03:15Is there a barber at sea?
03:16Yes, it's called the barber of sea-ville
03:18Yeah
03:20But why might a captive walrus have a longer moustache than one that's out in the wild?
03:29I would think then out in the wild they must be getting worn away or chipped off or nipped at by fish something that's going on out in the wild
03:36That's anti-tache
03:38Yes, they are constantly scrubbing along the ground looking for food. What's their favorite food?
03:42Any thoughts?
03:44Just for a bonus point we'd like to say that the walruses have a very pungent odor
03:50Okay, did you want to say it together or
04:00I think that's probably too they are essentially if you look at that mouse they can eat three to six thousand clams in a single sitting
04:08Clams clams. Yes, they like vongole
04:10They love clams if you took a walrus out it cost you about fifteen hundred quid at a london fish shop. That's the cost of it
04:18Well, what they can do which is amazing is they can clamp their lips around the clam shell
04:21And then they pull their tongue backwards into the mouth so fast that it's this incredibly powerful sucking force
04:28It opens the clam and sends the clams flying up and then they spit the clam shell out
04:32Do you know that's like me when I eat edamame
04:37I eat them like they've wronged my family
04:41What walruses can do is that when they're in captivity they can actually suck holes in wooden planks because they have this incredible sucking force
04:48So they can suck a glory hole
04:53I mean, I don't think that's what they advertise them as in the zoo
04:56The mustache is so they can be more incognito because they've gone around sucking on all these glory holes, Sandy
05:01Yeah, maybe that's it now. I've got something which is walrus related
05:06I'm going to have to wear gloves in order to show it to you. What do you think I might be showing you?
05:11Is it a bit of a walrus is a bit of a walrus? Yes
05:13Yes, it's an astonishing bit
05:14Is it a tusk?
05:15Balls! Sorry
05:16Weirdly, Nabeel, you are closer
05:19Okay
05:20A penis
05:20A penis
05:22So
05:23So you two both get a point because male walruses have a penis bone
05:30Or a baculum and this is such a thing wow it looks like a rounder's bat
05:36It's well
05:37They have been used as clubs in the past this has been lent to us by the grant museum
05:41What you're going to say was lent to you by a walrus
05:43I
05:45Want it back
05:48The grant museum at the ucl credit since 1828 do go and have a look it's the most fantastic museum anyway
05:54They've lent us this so why my boner yes, why might they want to have a bone inside?
06:00Is it counts as another leg?
06:08Is it a rudder?
06:09Is it a rudder? No
06:10No
06:12No, it means they can start mating without waiting for an erection
06:15Well that badges are the same
06:16And I don't know that from personal experience
06:21Why doesn't everyone have that?
06:23Who said everyone doesn't?
06:26It's an absolute monster
06:28It's tis big isn't it and I say that with no experience whatsoever
06:33By the way you're holding it
06:40So in the native alaskan languages it's known as an
06:49Ussik and they make them into ornate clubs actually mostly I think for the sort of tourist industry you can see one here
06:54It's got a pair of polar bears carved into one end and it's really
06:58It's called an ussik
06:59Yes, I'm going to pop this away because it's rather precious
07:02Female walruses also have a clitoris bone which is called a bobellum, but it's tiny
07:06These are different ages of clitoris bone which are strictly speaking called clitorides
07:13And they're much much smaller half a pound of clitorides, please
07:20Does it sound like you're going on holiday after we're going to the clitorides?
07:24It's all inclusive
07:27So bats have them rodents have them cats dogs we don't know why some have them and some don't they're gorgeous
07:33They are gorgeous darling and here is the thing is that I wanted to show you the baculum the male penis
07:39And I wanted to show you the bobellum and we looked for one to show you today, but none of our elves could find one
07:55But if you think how do they attract each other male walruses they clap and they wolf whistle to attract females
08:02So they use whistling above ground. What do you think they do underwater party bubbles?
08:09Well, I can't even look at you after I've said 30 bubbles
08:14You're not far off really they do create air bubbles, but they do it by clapping their flippers, okay?
08:18It's called cavitation and they can clap up to 200 decibels. That's as loud as a volcanic explosion
08:26So this is not as loud as that but have a quick look
08:31What's he thinking about there?
08:34It's not up on the glass isn't it?
08:36It's like one single fan at a peter andre concert
08:41I don't find that attractive. Do you not?
08:43No
08:47I would be like I'm out and that's why up to now you still haven't found a walrus girl
08:51That's not been your thing. Why isn't it clitori? What did you call it? I don't think anybody ever gets that lucky
09:02Clitori is quite a nasty infection
09:04Now you know how walrus is get about but how did walking catfish get to florida?
09:17This is a walking catfish anybody know where they first came from
09:20So they're not originally from america africa everything starts in africa. That's right
09:25Right
09:28When the revolution comes we're gonna give you a head start
09:35And a stick to defend yourself
09:38I know where you can get a penis bone
09:40Did it go by plane?
09:43Yes, it did go by plane
09:44It did?
09:45Yes
09:45They were imported from thailand to the united states in the early 1960s as aquarium fish
09:50But everybody kind of forgot that they can walk on land
09:54And so they were in a truck being transported from one florida fish farm to another
09:58And a whole bunch of them got out
10:00And 10 years later they had spread across 20 counties and they are the absolute best
10:05Let's have a look at how they move
10:07They have specialized gills that let them breathe air
10:11Okay, we've all got home like that at the end of the night
10:15But they wriggle along the ground like a snake
10:17But they have to stay moist so they don't last all that long
10:20Maybe a couple of days before they need to get back in the water
10:23But these catfish can smell the air with their skin
10:28And they will wriggle away from things like the smell of rotten eggs
10:31But they will wriggle towards the smell of pond water
10:34In fact it's the only fish known to be able to smell out of water
10:37And because they can't stay on the land for very long
10:39They are able to work out by smell where they ought to go
10:43And the thing I hadn't really thought about is that fish have a very well developed sense of smell
10:48They can smell who's related to them
10:49They can smell where their home area is
10:52They can smell where food is
10:53Wouldn't they just know if they're related to someone
10:55I don't need to smell my dad, he's my dad
10:58Right
11:00But if you were blindfolded would you still know that it was your father?
11:03Why am I blindfolded?
11:07How many men are you presenting me with?
11:09What kind of sick game is this?
11:13You're lining up ten men and asking me to smell the topic
11:16I mean I'm game, I'll do it
11:17But you are out
11:18If I was blindfolded I couldn't tell my dad from smelling him
11:23But I'd know it was him from how he'd react to me smelling him
11:30Was that an early childhood lesson?
11:31I remember the day I found that my dad was ambidextrous
11:34But that's the story
11:37But unlike walking catfish that wriggle with along with their tails
11:41There's another kind that moves they're called thai cave fish
11:44And they can walk and what's amazing is they do it up
11:48Waterfalls
11:49Let's have a quick look
11:50They have a very specialized pelvis
11:53Really strong fins and they can shuffle up wet rock without sliding
11:57I think they spend like two weeks going up and then they go
12:06It's the only living species that moves like this this particular cave fish in thailand
12:11And this is possibly how the first fish evolved to be able to walk on land
12:15Right let's all move on to dry land and talk about wombats
12:18Okay, here are some facts about wombats
12:20First of all carry their babies in pouches they have cube shaped poo
12:26Their teeth never stop growing and they are the largest burrowing mammals in the world
12:33So how did mad wombat boy get his nickname?
12:39It's a long time ago and I don't want to talk about it
12:43Were you a small boy darling?
12:44Do I look like I've ever been small?
12:46Did mad wombat boy did he do cubie poos?
12:53Could you make them into a rubik's?
12:57They're cubed partly because they they don't roll away and it's a good way of marking your territory
13:01And they're able to do it by constricting their anus
13:03I am so gonna try that when I come home
13:07But wombat boy where are we with wombats?
13:09He was maybe raised by wombats
13:11No, he wasn't raised by wombats
13:13He went to boarding school which is similar
13:17You have to burrow way out
13:18You do have to
13:19So the burrows the burrows are the key to it
13:21Oh, did he go underground and get lost in the burrows?
13:24You get a point absolutely he went down into the burrows
13:26So we're talking about the 1960s
13:29Peter PJ Nicholson
13:30He discovered that there were
13:32That's not him is it?
13:33That's just a one
13:36When he came out the other end
13:37He was at boarding school in Victoria Australia and there were wombat burrows nearby and so wombat burrows only about 20 inches wide and so scientists had never been down to see what they were like
13:58And PJ was 15 and he was quite slight
14:00He sneaked out at night and went down into the wombat burrows and he memorised the layout and he drew maps when he got back to his room
14:08I mean it's unbelievably dangerous
14:10He even found wombats down there that had been trapped in their own
14:14Tunnels and he wrote about this in his school magazine and he became known as mad wombat boy
14:19It's a bit harsh the mad bit isn't it?
14:21Inquisitive wombat boy
14:24Did he show the trapped ones his map so they could make it out?
14:27That would have been good wouldn't it?
14:29How did he know they were trapped down there?
14:31Uh dead
14:35Is it true that he took a wombat bride?
14:40He's still married at first sight Australia
14:46But they are the largest burrowing mammal in the world
14:49They grow up to about four foot long they weigh about 35 kilos about 10 times heavier I suppose than a newborn baby
14:55They're marsupials so what does that mean?
14:58They have pouches?
14:59Yes they have pouches
15:00But I have to say the wombats are very clever because they dig right they're burrowing
15:03They're pouches on the females face backwards so they don't get mud in the pouch while they're digging
15:09Don't you think that's a woman going I'm going to sort this I'm going to sort this
15:13When they stand up everything drops out
15:15Oh
15:17So like other creatures other marsupials the male wombat is called a jack the female is called a jill the babies are called joeys
15:22Now the internet says that the collective noun for wombats what do you think it might be?
15:26Wombos?
15:28Wimbawa wombaway?
15:29Wimbawa
15:30Wombawa
15:33It's a wisdom of wombats now, why is that not a good collective noun?
15:39They're not very wise actually
15:40No, they're hardly ever seen in groups so you don't need it
15:45Yeah, there's no collective nouns for like loners
15:48No, what would be a collective noun for loners pointless
15:52But the wombat is an aboriginal symbol of wisdom so maybe sort to be very clever
15:57Anyway, peter nicholson the school boy now all grown up
15:59His data remained the best information about wombat burrows until the 2024 invention of the wombot
16:08Which is that?
16:10Finally finally it can crawl through on caterpillar tracks. Why can't you get claw gloves?
16:19What? Just for yourself?
16:21Just got got a pair of gloves with claws on and strap them on
16:24I think that'd be a big seller I think a lot of people would like to have claws
16:28There's a lot of uses for them
16:29But what if you forget you've got them on?
16:31Well, you could have an accident if you went to scratch yourself
16:34Yeah
16:35But I think you'd only do that once
16:39Yes, but can I just remind you that no boy can keep his hand out of his trousers so
16:44Okay, so I'm going to upset you here alan and the elves are telling me that claw gloves are available on amazon at 7.99
16:50Oh
16:55Now you know what i'm very i suspect that they'll be a child's toy claw glove
17:00Oh no i've fallen for this in the past
17:02Okay
17:03I once bought what i thought was a ladder and it turned and it was only 3.99 and it turned out to be for a doll's house
17:10Well, i for one was very grateful when you passed it on
17:18Well, you said that haven't you
17:20How do you think i got in this chair?
17:23I have a quick question for you what do wombats do with their bottoms to protect against predators?
17:29Twerk
17:30That would be the right answer
17:40Not quite but so nearly the right answer that i had to give it to you
17:44What's amazing about their bottoms they consist of four bone plates which are fused together
17:49They're covered in a thick layer of cartilage and skin and fur and so on
17:52Very few nerve endings and what they've discovered is that there are crushed animal skulls sometimes
17:57Near the entrance to the burrow and what they think is that they twerk as it were with the bottom and squash the predator to death
18:08Gives face sitting a new meaning
18:13That is one hell of a way to go
18:20But most famous of course the thing everybody talks about it's the poo the poo is the thing they have all these other skills
18:27They have the most talented assholes i've ever heard
18:32In australia if you commit a sort of a federal crime you can choose there as a way to die
18:40To be twerked to death by a wombat yeah or kylie minogue
18:44No
18:48Okay moving along
18:51How far from here do you have to travel to find a marsupial in the wild well i know there's some in london zoo but that's not what
18:58No not the zoo it's got to be living in the world is it a special island it is on an island yes
19:02How far do we think a hundred?
19:05A hundred miles a bit further
19:06A hundred yeah it was about 250 miles we're talking about the isle of man so there have been uh wild rednecked wallabies on the isle of man
19:13Since some escaped from a local wildlife park in the 1960s
19:17Escape from the wildlife park and then you get to the edge and you're on the isle of man
19:22The other side we're still on the isle of man nothing they realize the best place here is the wildlife park
19:28In 2020 there were 1750 on the isle of man that's a lot it is a heck of a lot the other place you could find them you could have said scotland
19:36There's an island known as wallaby island in loch loman or inch corn corn island and they were let loose in world war ii
19:43By this amazing woman called fiona bride gore she was the countess of aaron and i love her
19:48Because as well as being a welfare advocate an exotic animal keeper and so on she was a very famous powerboat racer
19:55She was known as the fastest granny on the water and in 1980 she went over a hundred miles an hour on lake windermere
20:03What's she drinking while she did it i mean
20:06I'll have whatever she's on and her husband the earl of aaron had the most incredible name
20:10He was arthur cat and dyke strange david archibald gore
20:15And in a very british way known to his friends as boofy
20:18But i am slightly obsessed with him because he was at the same time the director of the daily mail
20:26And a passionate advocate for homosexual rights and he sponsored the sexual offences bill that legalized homosexual
20:33Sex between men in 1967
20:35It turns out that his brother who should have inherited the earldom the earl of aaron killed himself because he was gay
20:40And so he had really strong feelings about it and so well done boofy good man um yeah
20:49Anyway they're not just on an island in scotland or the isle of man uh between 2008 and 2018 there were 95
20:55Confirmed sightings of wallabies in other places in the uk
20:59And in fact the journal of ecology and evolution keeps a list called where's wallaby
21:06People foxes in london but if they were one of these i'd be pretty happy what's their main threat do you think the wallaby hugs
21:12Hogs
21:15There's my mum's friend intention my parents live in tasmania and um she's looking after tasmanian devils like baby ones
21:23And they don't hunt they find dead animals so at night she goes around with a axe and chops up dead wallabies to feed to them
21:29So i would say yeah my mum's friend
21:34That started off so wholesome
21:39I think she's called denise
21:41Right darling the main threat is humans probably hit by cars and then smashed to bits by your friend
21:45i think that's
21:47One of the things i like about wallabies the mothers are the most impressive multi-taskers so they can be suckling
21:52A newborn on one teat with one kind of milk have an older baby on the other teat with a completely different kind of milk giving it different nutrients
21:59And be developing another joey in the uterus and meanwhile the man's playing golf
22:04Yeah
22:07They're nature's first baristas
22:16That would be really impressive if you did a kind of steamed milk
22:24Not to only talk about my mum but she can actually do still and sparkling
22:27So when a wallaby is born this is incredible as soon as it's born it climbs up the mother's fur
22:36So it's in a near fetal state and it latches on to the teat and it has to stay there the teat swells
22:42And it has to stay there for in the next four months right can't let go to the point where if the mother dies
22:48They actually have to cut the teat off
22:50Otherwise it would damage the joey's mouth
22:51It has to stay in the joey's mouth and then they do surgery to remove it and bottle feed it so when do they put it in the pouch?
22:58No, it's in the pouch right. So the babies are in the pouch. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay
23:03Have you been to king island darling, which is north of tasmania? No, no, but i've been dying to go
23:12I want to go because wallabies outnumber humans by over 300 to 1
23:16So about 500 000 wallabies and about 1600 people i would absolutely love to go
23:21How do you think wallabies can tell if an animal is a threat do they look online?
23:26They smell the poo
23:28Yeah, so what they did was they fed dogs different meats and some of it
23:32They fed the dog wallaby and then they hid the faeces in the park
23:36And there were certain ones that they just wouldn't go near and in most particular they wouldn't go near the ones where the dogs had eaten wallaby
23:41That's hardly an effective way of knowing if someone's a threat
23:44That means you have to let the burglar in show him where the toilet is right
23:47Yeah
23:49After if you just
23:52Something smells fishy here
23:54Yeah, this smells like eating a playstation
24:02PlayStation 5 is a lot quicker, but the 4
24:05Makes you do cute poos, you know
24:08If you could choose what shape your poo would be, what do you think you would choose?
24:10Australia
24:11Oh
24:13I once had a
24:14Poppadom and I broke a bit off and then I looked at it and it looked like Australia
24:19It looked so like Australia I photographed it and put it on Twitter
24:23This is in the early days and social media was quite fun
24:25I said look at this poppadom it looks like Australia and quite a few Tasmanians got in touch said once again
24:32We've been ignored
24:35I mean you could have just put a bit of chutney near it
24:38Get another bit of poppadom added on this
24:40Yes, sorry, I thought you're gonna say and he found it in your faeces
24:43Completely untouched
24:48I think it would be remarkable if you could pass a poppadom for your entire body without it breaking
24:53Yes, that would be
24:55Challenge accepted
24:58I would probably do my phone number
25:02Your mobile number have you got a landline?
25:05043
25:06No, don't tell me
25:06No
25:09Now what w animal is this woman wielding?
25:14So we are not showing it we've eliminated the animal
25:19So a water beetle
25:21It is a kind of beetle
25:23Oh, is it Ringo Starr?
25:28This is a very famous statue as far as the Americans are concerned it is in the heart of enterprise Alabama
25:33And it was put up in 1919 and it's the bowl weevil
25:37Monument
25:38So they're tiny little beetles and they nest in cotton plants and they eat them from the inside out
25:43So the bowl is the fruit of the cotton plant and the weevil lays its eggs on the bowl like that
25:49One mating pair can produce about two million offspring in a single season
25:55Wow
25:56Wait, so those things were destroying plantations?
25:59Yes, they were
26:00Cotton plantations
26:01Cotton plantations
26:01I like them already
26:04They arrived in the us from mexico in 1892 and in just five years they had trunk cotton production by 50 percent
26:13Right on
26:13I mean they worked just through it like a dose of salts
26:16So why might the people of enterprise fall in love with the weevil when cotton was their livelihood?
26:22Put the price of cotton up
26:24Well, you're heading in the right direction. It's absolutely economic
26:27So their cotton crops were destroyed and they were forced to diversify so they started to grow peanuts and other crops instead
26:34And by the time the weevils had reached other parts of the united states
26:38They were already cornering the market in those new crops
26:41Oh
26:42Yeah, and so they put up a monument the bowl weevil monument and then the peanut weevil turned up
26:47Yeah, it's sort of interesting. I've been they have statues all over related to the weevil as major weevil as dr. Weevil
26:54They have a sir winston weevil
26:57That's sir winston weevil
26:59That's hideous. Yes
27:02What are the rules do you think of a weevil wrestling match?
27:05I'm going to start with a particular kind of weevil they're called giraffe necked weevils
27:10These are amazing look at that. Yeah, so what do you think why might they have a wrestling match?
27:15Mating?
27:16Go away. It's gonna be mate. Yes, absolutely. It's mate. That's how I met my wife. So I
27:22I have to fight seven weevils
27:25The males beat each other basically with their elongated necks
27:28This is in the Madagascan rainforest and what I like is the female is the referee
27:32She decides which one was the winner and then she mates
27:36With the winner. I think this sounds like newcastle city centre on a Saturday
27:41We're gonna show you weevil porn now
27:44So there's the female she's just sitting there waiting and there's the males
27:47So you get him off where he's trying to get him off trying to get him off
27:50What happens is the smaller male will sometimes hide during the mating process and if the male that's mating gets distracted
27:57He sneaks in he sneaks in
28:04They know you're showing this it seems a bit private. It's from a specific website that I had to pay
28:09The walrus videos are the most popular ones of all the insect videos they've got
28:17There are also granary weevils these live exclusively in places where humans store cereal crops
28:24They've never been found anywhere else so they have been found in egyptian tombs dating to 2300 bc
28:31Where they at all of the grain that was destined for the pharaoh's afterlife
28:35Oh, no, I know where's my grain yeah, what's happening so we yes you anubis
28:41You jackal-headed bastard
28:46Can I say that's one of the best references i've ever heard on this show
28:49Oh
28:55Now be prepared for this i have chickens for you please bring on the chickens
29:07This is jane with chicky menage
29:10And this is carl with hennifer aniston
29:13So what i want you to try and do guys i want you to try and make your chicken blush
29:20Okay, i can see your privates
29:26Everyone can on television
29:29Mine's coming over because it's eating all it's eating
29:35This is bringing back my childhood
29:37You're trying to make the blush okay
29:39How can you tell if it's blushing you really can they turn red as a result of emotion so you would think that was limited to humans
29:46But chickens do it as well i can do that but i need some onions some garlic
29:53I mean i'm like a chicken whisperer
29:57That would have been embarrassing
29:59But if you look at this picture this picture is the same chicken the chicken pale and then the chicken blushing and they flush
30:07What do you want more i've got some hang on
30:09I've got some here look they've got loads
30:10Okay baby don't
30:11Don't poo on my cards
30:15If that's not embarrassing i don't know what is
30:16There we go how's that
30:19These are rescue chickens is that right they've been they've been rescued from a life on a bathroom farm
30:23KFC
30:24So they they're very content
30:28What the hell
30:29So they blush by sending blood to their wattles as well as to their cheeks when they're scared or excited
30:39And the redder the chicken the more overwrought they are
30:42Oh, we don't want to make them overwrought
30:49Look out predator
30:52Run, run for your life
30:56Where's it going?
30:57Going down the hill
30:59No, no, no, no.
31:01No, no, no, no, no. Wait.
31:03Thank you very much.
31:05This is Jeff and, um...
31:07APPLAUSE
31:11Colin Jane and our lovely chickens.
31:19If you look at this picture, you really can tell,
31:21it's the same chicken.
31:23You can tell something about their emotion.
31:25And one of the things they discovered is that the stressed ones,
31:27they blush deep red, so the one in this picture on the right
31:29has been accused of something, I think, probably.
31:31Or it could be excited because they blush too,
31:33but not quite as much.
31:35Anyway, why might you do this?
31:37Why might you research this and find out what they do...
31:40You've got a grant.
31:47I mean, if you're concerned about animal welfare,
31:49you might think, I don't want a red-faced chicken, something's up.
31:52Absolutely right, you just want to check that they're OK.
31:55And you could also do this with turkeys.
31:57They do a rather similar thing when aroused,
31:59if I can use that expression.
32:01Well, they're gorgeous, aren't they?
32:03Aren't they? But sometimes they go blue.
32:05When they're holding their breath.
32:07LAUGHTER
32:08But turning red, you get it in other birds.
32:10They did a study recently into macaws blushing,
32:14and they found that they only turn red
32:16when they're getting human attention.
32:18And as soon as the human turns their back,
32:20they return to a normal colour.
32:22And the current theory about it is,
32:24it's their equivalent of smiling.
32:26I know!
32:28There's a ring that can do this, I believe.
32:30Depending on what your emotion is, it actually changes colour.
32:33LAUGHTER
32:35Blushing in poultry is particularly obvious in the wattles,
32:38that's those hanging flaps of chins skin,
32:41but what is a wattle actually for?
32:44Marketing cornflakes.
32:46LAUGHTER
32:50I'm getting a wattle.
32:52You're getting a wattle?
32:53Well, it's just, you know, you get to a certain age.
32:54I thought you were saying,
32:55I'm getting one, like, you're going to get them added.
32:58Yeah, I'm going to go to Turkey.
32:59Get a turkey one.
33:00LAUGHTER
33:01Why do people get cosmetic surgery like that?
33:03Like, why doesn't someone just get a really long nose?
33:05Well, I think people do do weird things.
33:07Isn't there some guy in Japan
33:08who's made himself look as much like a dog as possible?
33:10There is a guy in Australia who got it done
33:12and he had his whole body tattooed green
33:14and his teeth sharpened so he looked like a lizard,
33:16and apparently he regrets it.
33:18Really?
33:19LAUGHTER
33:20LAUGHTER
33:22He looked in the mirror and his tail just fell off.
33:26LAUGHTER
33:28It must be to attract the opposite sex.
33:31That's exactly right.
33:32So, along with the comb on a rooster,
33:34the chicken's wattle gets bigger and redder
33:37as the animal gets more testosterone.
33:39What about in Wallace and Gromit
33:40when the penguin puts a glove on its head?
33:42LAUGHTER
33:43It's one of my favourite things that's ever happened in film.
33:46And then everyone thinks it's a chicken.
33:48You know, I've got a 12-year-old friend of mine
33:51and I said to her, I said,
33:52have you been watching any films over Christmas?
33:54And she said,
33:55oh, I loved that film about the gay couple.
33:57They were drinking a lot of tea and talking about cheese
33:59and I said,
34:00are you talking about Wallace and Gromit?
34:02LAUGHTER
34:04And she said, yes.
34:05I said, what made you think it was a gay couple?
34:07She said, no, he keeps going.
34:09LAUGHTER
34:10So now, our sign for anybody we think might be gay,
34:21we all go...
34:22LAUGHTER
34:23Anyway, the wattle is very important.
34:25It kind of literally tells them where they are in the pecking order.
34:28If you've got a bigger wattle, then you are superior.
34:30If you took all of the chicken's wattles away,
34:33nobody would know where they stood.
34:35Now it's time to wander into the belly of the beast
34:38we call general ignorance.
34:39Fingers on buzzers, please.
34:41Which animal has the largest testes?
34:45The Nigerian male.
34:46Sorry, I...
34:55But in second place, some kind of whale.
34:57OK, what kind of whale?
34:58The blue whale?
34:59BUZZER
35:05Never say blue whale.
35:06No.
35:07Never ever say blue whale.
35:08So you think you're the wrong kind of whale.
35:09Anybody?
35:10Another kind of whale.
35:11That's the wrong whale.
35:12BUZZER
35:13BUZZER
35:16That's the wrong whale and we want the...
35:19Right whale.
35:20The right whale.
35:21Alan gets a point is exactly right.
35:23LAUGHTER
35:24APPLAUSE
35:26They have the largest testes on earth they can weigh up to 500 kilograms each.
35:40What?
35:41Would sperm be so big that I personally could ride on it?
35:47Having larger testes doesn't necessarily mean you have larger sperm.
35:51In fact, having larger testes makes you more promiscuous because what happens is you give
35:55a little bit of your sperm to many more partners and that's why you have large testes.
35:59I'm afraid, Sandy, that wasn't my question.
36:01Can I ride on one of the sperms of this whale?
36:06No.
36:07But what are the advantages of having such huge balls?
36:10Really?
36:15Well, I mean, you'd have to ask the tuberous bush cricket, OK?
36:19These are the largest testes in the world for its size.
36:22It represents 14% of its body mass.
36:25Now, can I just say, they don't hang out like that, OK?
36:28They're normally internal.
36:29These have been taken out and unrolled, all right?
36:32Why would you do that to it?
36:35I know.
36:36So the right whale is only about 1%.
36:37Why is...
36:38Who's that in the photo?
36:39This man?
36:40Why is he smiling like a...
36:41He's smiling like he just got paid.
36:43I know.
36:44You dirty prick.
36:46LAUGHTER
36:47If one of you boys had testes that size...
36:50If...
36:51If...
36:52LAUGHTER
36:53It'd be like having the weight of a microwave between your legs.
36:56That would be...
36:57Yeah, it's hard sometimes, you know, but...
36:59LAUGHTER
37:00My testes are actually very small but I've got a lot of them.
37:03It looks like a...
37:04Well, it's full of a bunch of cramps.
37:06LAUGHTER
37:07OK.
37:08LAUGHTER
37:09I mean, the thing is, you say that to me and I think,
37:11Oh, maybe some of them come like that.
37:12What do I?
37:13LAUGHTER
37:14Anyway, the right whale, they're all internal, which is a problem
37:17because you think the bodies would be too hot to make viable sperm,
37:20but they have this special system of blood vessels
37:23which allows for warmer and colder blood vessels to pass by each other
37:26and share the heat so they can get them down to the right temperature.
37:29Anyway, I can show you this.
37:31Right whales, because they've got this very large testes,
37:33they produce four and a half litres of sperm in one go.
37:38OK?
37:39Erm, and that...
37:41Is that much?
37:42LAUGHTER
37:43Oh, wow.
37:44That's a lot, isn't it?
37:45Yeah.
37:46Bleh!
37:47LAUGHTER
37:48LAUGHTER
37:50Now, you'll know this, my darling boy.
37:53Where are dingoes from?
37:55Peckham.
37:56LAUGHTER
37:57Where is it from?
38:00Oh, Africa.
38:01It's always Africa.
38:02That's right!
38:03LAUGHTER
38:04South East Asia.
38:05Ah!
38:06Probably arrived in Australia three to eight thousand years ago.
38:08You see dogs like that all over Bali.
38:11Bill Bailey normally brings a couple home.
38:14LAUGHTER
38:15Does he really bring them to deca?
38:16Yeah, I'm not even joking.
38:17From a dog's who is found in this street in Bali.
38:19No, that's...
38:20Only Chris who does it.
38:21Then they get them home to Hammersmith,
38:23and they're fucking mental.
38:25LAUGHTER
38:28And what they do, when times are hard, they get eaten.
38:31What, in Hammersmith?
38:32No.
38:33LAUGHTER
38:34Not a lot of people know that they also live in burrows.
38:38Dingoes.
38:39This one's about just emerging there.
38:41LAUGHTER
38:44So he would have laid just a few eggs and then slowly emerging.
38:47Mad dingo boy is right behind him.
38:50LAUGHTER
38:51With his map.
38:53American visitors John A. Wheeler was the first to imagine tunnels
38:56through space-time.
38:57He named them after the holes dug by an animal beginning with W,
39:01and he called them...
39:02Wormholes.
39:04Uh-oh!
39:05LAUGHTER
39:06So this is him hanging out with other clever theoretical physicists.
39:12He first wrote about what we now call wormholes in the 1950s,
39:16but he called them woodchuck holes.
39:19Does anybody know what a woodchuck...?
39:21Yeah, no one chuckled a woodchuck chuck.
39:23How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
39:26I don't know.
39:27LAUGHTER
39:2810.
39:29LAUGHTER
39:30And he also popularised the term black hole,
39:33which we talk about in space, in the 1960s.
39:35Before that, it was called a completely collapsed gravitational object.
39:39The black hole's better, don't you think?
39:42Anybody know how a wormhole works?
39:44In Star Trek here, when they go through it, they end up in another place
39:48because it lives through the space-time continuum.
39:50Yes.
39:51And they end up in the same galaxy where the Cardassians are,
39:54or sometimes the Ferengi.
39:55LAUGHTER
39:56Now, the Ferengi don't really get on well with the Vulcans.
39:58A lot of people mistake Vulcans for Cardassians,
40:01and then there's, like, this artificially created species
40:03called the Jem'Hadar.
40:04Now, the Jem'Hadar...
40:05LAUGHTER
40:06They're warriors, but, like, they don't...
40:08Like, they're not like the Klingons.
40:10Klingons have, like, a really interesting culture,
40:12and also they were only portrayed by ethnic minorities,
40:14so, like, they were the first woke aliens, right?
40:17LAUGHTER
40:18So, what was the question?
40:19LAUGHTER
40:21APPLAUSE
40:23If you wanted a sense of what going into a black hole is like...
40:29LAUGHTER
40:31Black holes are the best holes.
40:33LAUGHTER
40:36APPLAUSE
40:39So, it's caused by extreme gravity bending spacetime so much
40:43that it turns back on itself and it makes a tunnel,
40:45and that allows you to travel from one part of the universe
40:47to the other.
40:48John Wheeler once said, which I like very much,
40:50if you haven't found something strange during the day,
40:53it hasn't been much of a day.
40:55How many limbs does a starfish have?
40:58I think this is a trap.
41:00Yes, it is.
41:01I don't think it has any limbs.
41:03I think it's not.
41:04Is the correct?
41:05Yes.
41:06APPLAUSE
41:07I feel my work with you, Grasshopper, it's done.
41:08LAUGHTER
41:09So, what does it look like?
41:10It looks like a star, but it doesn't really look like a star.
41:11Doesn't really look like a fish, either.
41:12No.
41:13So, how many legs does it...
41:14You know, if it just looked, right?
41:15How many have we got?
41:16One, two, three, four, five on the one.
41:17OK, so it looks like five legs sticking out from a central torso,
41:18and so...
41:19They're actually penises.
41:20LAUGHTER
41:21No, it's all head.
41:22So, what happened is scientists looked at it and thought,
41:24well, where's the head?
41:25So, they started looking for the head gene and the torso gene and so on,
41:27and the truth was completely the opposite to what we've all assumed.
41:30The head...
41:31The head...
41:32So, what does it look like?
41:33So, what does it look like?
41:34It looks like a star, but it doesn't really look like a star.
41:35It doesn't really look like a star.
41:36It doesn't really look like a star.
41:37It doesn't really look like a star.
41:38It doesn't really look like a star.
41:39It doesn't really look like a fish, either.
41:40So, how many legs does it...
41:41You know, if it just looked, right?
41:42How many have we got?
41:43We're looking for the head gene and the torso gene and so on,
41:46and the truth was completely the opposite to what we've all assumed.
41:49The head gene was absolutely everywhere.
41:51It was even in the tips of the arms.
41:53The torso was completely missing.
41:55The starfish is all head and no legs.
41:57So, that's just one big face?
41:59When we were talking about the walrus,
42:00we talked about a definition of the leg as an organ of support
42:03and locomotion for the animal body.
42:05What it does have is how many feet, do you think?
42:0810,000.
42:09You're very close.
42:1015,000 around feet.
42:11Wow.
42:12Tiny tube feet, which are all over the body.
42:15There we go.
42:16Look at that.
42:17Tiny, tiny feet.
42:18So, it's basically all head and lots and lots of feet,
42:22but it does have an anus in case anybody was worrying about it.
42:26Is that the thing in the middle or is that the mouth?
42:28The mouth is at the centre of the underside, yeah.
42:30So, it shits out of its head.
42:32It's the centre of the upper side of the body.
42:34They eat by dropping their stomach out of their mouth.
42:38They wrap it around the food.
42:40They digest it externally and then they pull the whole stomach
42:43back into the mouth.
42:44And then they poo it out the top of their head?
42:46Yeah.
42:47Wow, what a laugh.
42:48I know, I know.
42:49That's starfish for you.
42:50All mouth and no trousers.
42:52Now, let's see who's the biggest smarty pants
42:54and take a look at tonight's scores.
42:56So, our winner tonight.
42:58Oh, I'd like a duck to water.
42:59With minus two.
43:00It's Alan.
43:01CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:02Minus two.
43:03In second place, still the cat's whiskers with minus nine, Sam.
43:04CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:05In third place on a wild goose chase with minus nine, Holly.
43:09CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:10And last, the world might be your oyster, but this one's gone off.
43:15With minus 28, Naveel.
43:17CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:19That's it for this edition of QI, thanks to Sam, Naveel, Holly and Alan.
43:30And I leave you with this from Bob Hope.
43:33That's it for this edition of QI.
43:42Thanks to Sam, Nabeel, Holly and Alan.
43:44And I leave you with this from Bob Hope.
43:47My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the lyre.
43:51I went steady with a woodpecker until I was 21.
43:54Thank you and good night.
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