- 7 weeks ago
Tracks the fierce, size-defying traits of micro-monsters in the wild. The episode focuses on the carnivorous Sonoran Desert grasshopper mouse, showcasing its incredible speed, venom immunity, and wolf-like howling....
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AnimalsTranscript
00:02What if I told you there is a secret world of tiny creatures
00:06with incredible powers beyond the realm of human imagination?
00:14When you realize the phenomenal abilities
00:16of these tiny little animals and what
00:18they're truly capable of, in comparison,
00:22we are just big, clumsy giants.
00:25I've devoted my life to unlocking the secrets
00:28of these miraculous mini-monsters.
00:31I'm teaming up with a scientist, friend,
00:33and we're going to the very edge of the world to find them.
00:35Which way? It's in the bush! I got one!
00:37Behind you, behind you. Did you get it?
00:38He's got me. Looks like a dinosaur,
00:40straight up from the dawn of time.
00:41That's the perfect killing machine right there.
00:45I'll show you, pound for pound,
00:47they stack up against any creature that ever roamed the Earth.
00:51Bite that. Oh!
00:53It destroyed my sensor.
00:55This is in the realm of superheroes.
00:58Size does not matter,
01:00especially when you're a little giant.
01:26This is beautiful country, and absolutely full of extraordinary animals of all shapes and sizes.
01:32Dude, we're in Africa, surrounded by ostriches.
01:36Look at this thing.
01:37Look at them go.
01:38Oh, look at this. A whole mob of warthogs.
01:43And that's just the beginning.
01:44That's the animals that are obvious that you see.
01:46But they pale in comparison to the mighty whip scorpion.
01:50What makes the whip scorpion so special?
01:52This guy is maybe the most gifted nocturnal predator on the planet.
01:59Today, we're scouring the wilds of South Africa on the search for a truly unique miniature monster,
02:05the whip scorpion.
02:08This little beauty is your worst nightmare come to life.
02:12The whip scorpion is actually not a scorpion, and it's not venomous.
02:16It's an ancient species of arachnid, and it comes with its own kind of terror.
02:22The whip scorpion has a mind-blowing, shape-shifting ability that allows it to strike from any angle
02:29with lightning-quick, devastating, club-like forelimbs that are covered in acid-coated spikes.
02:36It's a creeping death trap from which there is no escape, pulverizing its prey, melting it with acid,
02:44and then slurping it all up like a bad horror film.
02:49Billy and I want to put its remarkable traits to the test,
02:52so that we have more concrete data to explain why the tailless whip scorpion
02:57is one of the deadliest anguished predators in this part of the world.
03:06Ah, this is tough country.
03:08I promise you this.
03:09This animal, 100% worth the effort.
03:13Whip scorpions like to live in dark, insect-rich environments.
03:17But that means we're looking for caves.
03:20Here we are.
03:20We hit the rock zone.
03:22We have to hike up where we see these large clusters of rock formations.
03:26We're going to need to look for an entrance to a larger, fully enclosed cavern.
03:31It's not deep enough.
03:35Got something?
03:37No.
03:38It's too light.
03:39They're going to be deeper in the mountain.
03:40We need bigger rocks, bigger splits, or overhangs.
03:47It's super hot out here.
03:49You can fry an egg on any one of these rocks.
03:52Take a load off.
03:54Why can't whip scorpions just live in flat, comfortable grass?
03:57They know what they're doing when they hit up here.
03:59They've been called whip spires too, right?
04:01Yeah, their names get confused because they look like spiders.
04:04But technically, they're in their own separate group, amblipidid, which means blunt rump because
04:11it has no tail.
04:13And that's how they get their common name.
04:15A Taylor Swift scorpion.
04:17Did you say Taylor Swift scorpion?
04:19Taylor Swift scorpion.
04:21You're saying it again.
04:22Taylor Swift scorpion.
04:23Well, I mean, they're both very slim.
04:25One could argue they dominate their domain.
04:28I can see that.
04:30He totally said Taylor Swift scorpion.
04:33Let's just call it a whip scorpion.
04:34Keep it simple.
04:35Let's keep going.
04:36All right.
04:37We're in the right place.
04:38We just need a nice big split.
04:41It's too hot to stay on any longer.
04:44Look at that.
04:45You see that, mate?
04:46Yeah.
04:48This looks good.
04:48What do you reckon?
04:49Let's check it out.
04:51Oh, I don't know if you know this, but I'm actually a little bit claustrophobic.
04:55I'm a forest creature by heart, but seeking out a lethal ambush predator in a dark, tight, airless cave, that's
05:06not my idea of fun.
05:07It's unavoidable today, but I'm going to hate every second of it.
05:11Lead the way, big man.
05:17What do you think?
05:19This cave looks like it runs for days.
05:21I hate this stuff.
05:29How's it looking?
05:31A little tight, not going to lie.
05:33Oh, yeah, it's cozy.
05:36The best way to find this stealthy critter is to identify its prey.
05:41These little monsters feed on crickets and other insects, even other arachnids.
05:47And these tend to be found on vertical spaces away from the entrance to the cave.
05:52So what we need to do is head deeper into the main cavern.
05:56If we can get down this ledge to the next level, I think we can easily go as deep as
06:00we need to be.
06:01This cave's got to be warm, or we're not going to find any bugs at all.
06:04Very few insects and arachnids can survive cold weather.
06:08They thrive in temperate or warm conditions.
06:11So this is absolutely perfect with Scorpion territory.
06:31Looks like the path branches up ahead.
06:33You head down that way, because that looks small, and I will take this far easier-looking route.
06:39Copy that?
06:40Stay in voice contact.
06:42All right, have fun, man.
06:43I will not have fun.
06:55I am definitely leaving some skin in here.
06:58Oh, God.
06:59Okay.
07:01In the eye.
07:05It's just getting tighter and tighter.
07:07Your ear smells really musty.
07:20These things are so flexible.
07:23They can curl up into any of these little crevices in here and just hang out for the rest of
07:27the night.
07:31These caves are pretty cool, huh?
07:33God, I hate him right now.
07:38That's the thing about these things.
07:40You think it's all rock, but it's not, you know.
07:44It's layers of rock and dirt.
07:47Billy would love that.
07:49And the fear I have in my money is that if you dislikes even the smallest thing, a whole section
07:57of it can come down on you.
08:00One of the world's most famous spelunkers, speleologists, whatever you call them, set in a world record, just kicked his
08:07heel on a floating boulder behind him, clutched his legs.
08:10They pulled him out a week later.
08:12He was a corpse.
08:18Look at that.
08:19Look at that.
08:20It's actually a hole.
08:25And this, I bet you, that's what I'm talking about.
08:35I hate this.
08:36I just want to find these old guys and get out of here.
08:43Oh, hello, look at that.
08:44See that?
08:45You see that?
08:46That is exactly the kind of little tiny insect that a Whip Scorpion would be eating.
08:51That's males on wheels right there.
08:53We follow him.
08:53It should lead me right into the Whip Scorpion's hunting grounds.
09:00Oh, I know you're there.
09:02They'll see me.
09:03I just can't see them.
09:06Oh, great.
09:08Oh, I didn't.
09:15Whoa.
09:19Oh, my God.
09:20Look at that.
09:24You getting this?
09:25You getting this?
09:26Hey, what you got?
09:28I found him.
09:30Woo.
09:30I'm going to get this guy.
09:32Bring me the box, mate.
09:33Hold on.
09:33Look at that.
09:35This is a true monster.
09:44Oh, see that?
09:46You getting this?
09:47Bring me the box, mate.
09:50I got him.
09:51Come on now.
09:52Come on now.
09:54Oh, he's got a good grip on that rock.
09:57Here we go.
09:59Oh, damn it's that hard.
10:02These claws, they're really sharp.
10:05Hold on.
10:06Hold on.
10:07Look at that.
10:09The fearsome Whip Scorpion.
10:13Check out these creepy as hell legs.
10:16This guy is a nightmare.
10:17I really want to get a good look out in the daylight.
10:20Yeah, dude.
10:21Let's get out of here.
10:25That was hell for me.
10:29I want to see it.
10:30All right.
10:33Oh, man.
10:34Everything you've ever been afraid of in the dark, this is it.
10:38This is a true monster.
10:40Those claws.
10:42Oh, he's feisty.
10:45He's throwing punches.
10:46Look at him go.
10:47Those things are sharp.
10:50Look at all those spikes in there.
10:52That is just a horror movie right in front of your face.
10:54Okay, so I'm seeing what looks like some kind of fluid on the claws.
10:59That's digestive enzyme.
11:00That's acid, mate.
11:01Those are giant, spiky claws dipped in acid.
11:05When hunting, it spits up acid onto the spikes of its pedipalps.
11:09These are massive, four-limb-like structures that end in a gigantic, spiky hand.
11:14A strike from those spikes will inject pure acid directly into the target.
11:19And that means the prey is already being digested while it's still alive.
11:26This guy, 400 million years of adapting to be just a mean, vicious, eight-legged nightmare.
11:34You're not wrong.
11:35But he has one more superpower that you don't know about.
11:39And it comes down to those extraordinary modified legs shaped like a buggy whip.
11:44And that's where he gets his name.
11:45This puts the whip in whip scorpion.
11:47There are seven different senses in those modified legs.
11:52No way.
11:52Vibration, sound, chemical signature, smell.
11:56It doesn't have to see you to know you're there.
12:01In fact, there's many extraordinary abilities that we can examine quickly in our mobile lab.
12:06And then we can return him into his element in a matter of hours.
12:10I'm excited to see this guy up close.
12:12Let's go.
12:15The whip scorpion has a reputation for being one of the most lethal ambush predators in the world.
12:21Seeing this guy up close, he's definitely intimidating.
12:24But now we're going to put that reputation to the test.
12:27We're going to test the whip scorpion's shape-shifting ability.
12:30The strike speed of its acid-soaked forearms.
12:35And the crushing force of its death grip.
12:40And my guess is the data will prove that this little guy is a real-life monster.
12:46Okay, so first things first, we want to get his weight.
12:50Whoa.
12:51He only weighs 0.075 ounces.
12:53That is a feather.
12:55Especially because this guy looks like a little scissor lift.
12:58I mean, the range of motion on this guy is incredible.
13:01They're purpose-built to adapt to any space as needed.
13:04We need to test just how he can strike his target from any angle with maximum force, even in tight
13:11spaces.
13:12So I built this little contraption where we can test that out.
13:16How's it work?
13:16We're going to put him in here, and then we're slowly going to lower this platform over different heights.
13:22So we can see how flexible this guy actually is.
13:28This test is like a scientific game of limbo.
13:31We're going to start at the height of 3 inches, which is about the whip scorpion's maximum height.
13:37And we're going to lower that height progressively three times to see just how compressed the whip scorpion can become,
13:44which is exactly what he does when it's in ambush mode.
13:47Let's start with a baseline.
13:49The height is 3 inches.
13:51Uh-huh.
13:52He's got a lot of space, so let's see what he can do.
13:54Okay, here we go.
13:58Oh!
13:59Oh!
14:00Okay, okay.
14:01So what I'm seeing here, he is raising his center of gravity to ensure that he can strike his target
14:07with maximum force.
14:09Okay, so now let's see what happens when we cut his space in half.
14:12Okay.
14:13Let's lower this to 1 1⁄2 inches.
14:15Let's see what he's got.
14:16All right.
14:21Whoa!
14:23His response to this is just phenomenal.
14:25His room to work just got cut in half, but he's still just as flexible.
14:30He's filling the space to get maximum leverage every time.
14:35Let's take it way down.
14:37All right, I'm with you.
14:39Three quarters of an inch.
14:42He is hunkering down.
14:45Ready?
14:45Yep.
14:46There we go.
14:48Oh, there it is.
14:49Wow.
14:50The whip scorpion just shrank down from three inches all the way down to three quarters of an inch,
14:56and his claws still have the same dexterity as he did when we first had it at the highest level.
15:01He is designed for close-quarter combat.
15:04That means he can scale down and squeeze into pretty much any nook and craddy in order to hunt down
15:09and kill his prey.
15:11Nothing in the natural world has that kind of shape-shifting ability.
15:15Oh, man.
15:15I'm not talking about a crouching tiger or an inflated puffer fish.
15:20I'm talking about extreme expansion and compression.
15:24You need to look at the mechanical world for that kind of scalability.
15:28Large machines built specifically to move up and down in scale, like, say, a spider excavator.
15:35Imagine we scaled up our whip scorpion to the height of a spider excavator.
15:39That's 288 times the whip scorpion's original height.
15:44And then let the two demolish a seven-story building.
15:48The excavator could grow from 18 feet to 32.
15:51That's not even twice its original height.
15:54So it could rip into everything from the ground level to the third floor.
15:58But the whip scorpion could swell from 18 feet to 71 feet.
16:03That's four times its original height.
16:05And it would absolutely raise the building to the ground.
16:09That's a truly Frankensteinian transformation.
16:14When you see this guy get this small, but he still has all this flexibility,
16:19and he can maneuver to attack prey, that's an amazing range of articulation.
16:24At the same time, those claws look really fast.
16:27They are.
16:28Watch your hand.
16:29Ooh, that is sharp.
16:30The whip scorpion is built for high-speed attack.
16:33Oh, its strike speed is so phenomenal.
16:36When it attacks its prey, it can bring terrible force to bear upon it.
16:48The whip scorpion just shrank down from three inches to three-quarters of an inch,
16:53and its claws still have the same dexterity.
16:58That's an amazing range of articulation.
17:01At the same time, those claws look really fast.
17:03They are.
17:04And that's why they're such efficient hunters.
17:07The whip scorpion is built for high-speed attack.
17:11Its lightning-fast spiny forelimbs give it a big advantage over other ambush predators.
17:16It was a very little safe area.
17:18It's basically behind the eyes and over the back.
17:20But what's surprising is you think these are like stiff little wooden pegs, but they're not.
17:24They're actually really well articulated, both in what you would call an elbow and a shoulder.
17:30They can go down and they can go up.
17:33Oh, man.
17:33So he actually could get you up here.
17:36Get me down here.
17:37Ow!
17:39They are really sharp.
17:41And let me tell you something else.
17:42Ow!
17:43And he get me up there, too.
17:45Oh, man.
17:46He actually got you.
17:47Yeah, he did.
17:47Look at that.
17:49It's just, ow.
17:50It's like little tiny needles on his pedi palps.
17:54And they puncture my skin quite effortlessly, but it stings more than it looks.
17:58It's more than just a pin strike.
17:59This guy's basically got two Venus flytraps constantly chomping at stuff.
18:04Yeah.
18:05Or two giant grizzly bear paws with five, six-inch claws covered in acid.
18:09Well, I'm glad that he likes you a lot more than he likes me.
18:12He dislikes me less than he dislikes you.
18:16I'm ready to see just how quick he can strike his prey.
18:19Let's do it.
18:24Here's one of those grubs.
18:25Sorry, little guy.
18:29This is going to end badly for somebody.
18:32Oh, boy.
18:35Oh, there you go.
18:37Oh!
18:38Wow.
18:39That was fast.
18:41Less than a blink of an eye.
18:42Check this out in slow-mo.
18:44From the time that his forearm opened to the time it made contact was 0.006 seconds.
18:52The distance between his pedipulps and the millworm, approximately four inches, which means he struck his target at 38 miles
19:01per hour.
19:02That's a bullet out of a gun fast.
19:05That speed ensures that the Whip Scorpion has a wide smorgasbord of prey to choose from.
19:12But speed is only half of the kill equation.
19:15For the Whip Scorpion, it's the crush power.
19:19That powerful crushing force of those giant spiky forelimbs.
19:23That is what actually is fatal.
19:26I mean, that is truly a death trap right there.
19:29We've got to test that.
19:30I want to see just how much crush force a Whip Scorpion can generate relative to his mass.
19:35Let's do it.
19:37I got this pull force sensor.
19:38We're going to let him latch on to this electrical wire.
19:41We'll be able to know how much force he's actually pulling back, and we'll be able to get a reading.
19:46I like it.
19:50Bring the pain, little guy.
19:51Bring the pain.
19:52Boom.
19:52He's got it.
19:52I'm collecting now.
19:54He's pulling.
19:55He's pulling.
19:55I can feel it in my hand.
19:58Here it comes.
19:58Here it comes.
20:00Got it.
20:00He's got it.
20:01He's got it.
20:01He's got it.
20:01He's pulling.
20:02He's pulling.
20:02Oh!
20:05Oh!
20:06There it is.
20:08Okay.
20:08What'd you get?
20:10This featherweight of 0.075 ounces just gave a one-armed bear hug.
20:16With 0.1 pounds of force.
20:19That's nearly 22 times its mass.
20:22And double that for both arms.
20:25That big arm action is like a North American grizzly bear.
20:29Yeah.
20:29I mean, could you imagine if the whip scorpion was actually the size of a bear?
20:35Let's bulk up our scorpion to 800 pounds, which is the mass of an adult male grizzly bear.
20:41Now, if they went head-to-head in a crushing competition, it would be quite the epic battle.
20:47The grizzly has a crush force four times its body weight.
20:51That's a powerful 3,200 pounds, enough to squash a 55-gallon drum like a soda can.
20:59The whip scorpion, on the other hand, with a crush force 44 times its mass, would generate more than a
21:06whopping 35,000 pounds.
21:09With that kind of force, it could squeeze an industrial 500-gallon propane tank into pulp.
21:16Crushing force like that guarantees there's no escape for his target.
21:21Add to that the liquefying acid, and you can see how this micro monster could turn tables on even far
21:27larger predators that make the mistake of attacking him.
21:31I gotta say, whip scorpions are an engineering marvel.
21:35Their crush force is phenomenal.
21:38They've got a remarkable strike speed.
21:41And they can adapt to any space as needed.
21:44In those rocky caves?
21:45I mean, they're absolutely unstoppable.
21:48It's a perfect cave predator.
21:51Speaking of, we should probably get him back to his kingdom.
21:54Yeah.
21:55It's time to take him home.
21:56Let's do it.
21:59Oh, this looks perfect.
22:02You little monster are amazing.
22:04Give you back the freedom that was always yours.
22:07Continue to rule these caves.
22:10See you, little guy.
22:11This whip scorpion, highly discomforting.
22:14I'm going to have nightmares.
22:16Oh, hell yeah.
22:17So which would you rather face?
22:19An 800-pound grizzly bear or an 800-pound whip scorpion?
22:23I would rather be smothered in honey and live in a forest full of bears than be face-to-face
22:28with a whip scorpion of that size.
22:30Ha, ha, ha.