Inside Nature's Giants

8 June 2010

The award-winning series that gets under the skin of the largest animals on the planet returns to reveal the anatomy of some of nature's most successful predators, the Great White Shark, Lion and Tiger, and Python.

Most wildlife documentaries show how animals behave, but by exploring their anatomy, veterinary scientist Mark Evans, comparative anatomist Joy Reidenberg and a team of experts reveal how these creatures really work.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains how such distinctive beasts have evolved to thrive in their environmental niches, while biologist Simon Watt gets first-hand experience of the animals in action.

Highlights of the series include Joy Reidenberg coming face-to-face with Great White Sharks in a dramatic cage dive encounter, Simon Watt being squeezed by a live python, and the team making a dead lion roar by passing compressed air through its windpipe.

The series reveals amazing facts about these predators, including: just how powerful the Great White's bite really is, how pythons swallow whole prey as large as alligators and why male lion's have their distinctive manes.

 

1. Great White Shark

In the first programme of the series the experts travel to South Africa to dissect a Great White Shark.  Weighing in at almost a ton (900kg) - and nearly fifteen feet (4.5 metres) in length - this is the largest specimen caught in the country's shark protection nets since 2002.

Joy Reidenberg has dissected many whales, but has never ventured inside a Great White before. She uncovers the shark's incredible array of senses, including a unique ability to detect the electro-magnetic field given off by the Earth and other creatures.  And she braves a cage to see Great Whites close up in the water.

Mark Evans investigates the origins of the shark's infamous killing bite and, out at sea, a bite force test on a live Great White shows just how powerful those jaws really are.

Richard Dawkins explains how the teeth and jaws evolved from the shark's outer skin and gill arches.  While, using a massive tooth from a prehistoric shark, Simon Watt explains that there were once sharks three times bigger than the largest Great Whites - up to sixty feet in length!

During the dissection, the team reveal the gigantic organ that has played a key role in the shark becoming the biggest fish in the sea.  And the programme asks whether the animal's reputation as a man killer is really deserved.

 

2. Python

This week the experts venture into the swamps of the Florida Everglades in search of the giant Burmese Python. 

No-one knows for sure how snakes native to South East Asia ended up here, but theories include snake owners dumping pet pythons when they got too big and snakes escaping from reptile breeding centres in the wake of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Whatever the cause, the giant snakes are now thriving, with up to 100,000 believed to live in the swamps of Southern Florida, threatening some native species with extinction.  So there's been a call for a mass cull to stem the invasion.

Mark Evans and Joy Reidenberg meet local ‘python hunters' on the front line of the battle against these snakes.  At a swamp camp in the heart of the Everglades they join reptile expert Jeanette Wyneken to dissect two pythons captured in the cull - a 9ft male and an enormous 14ft female.

The dissection reveals the anatomy that allows pythons to sense, strike and squeeze their prey before they swallow it whole. They investigate the remains of the snakes' last meals and make an amazing discovery in the female - ovaries bulging with 40 egg follicles ready to be fertilised.

Richard Dawkins describes how snakes evolved from four legged lizard-like ancestors and biologist Simon Watt finds out what it feels like to be crushed by a python.

The dissection explores the science of slithering, the benefits of stretchy skin, and how a flexible jaw allows snakes to stretch their mouths around huge prey, including alligators.

The programme also discovers: how snakes have evolved their eyelids into a transparent set of ‘spectacles' and developed ‘infra-red goggles' which allow them to hunt warm-blooded prey in the dark, how snakes fit their organs into their long, thin bodies, and why snakes have forked tongues.

 

3. Big Cats

In the final programme of the series the experts look at two big cats - the lion and the tiger.  As well as dissecting the two species at the Royal Veterinary College, they travel to South Africa to see lions in the wild.

From the outside, the lion and the tiger look very different, but once their skins are removed, even the experts find it hard to tell the two apart. At a big cat rescue centre biologist Simon Watt traces the evolutionary history of the feline family, and comes face to face with a liger - a cross between a lion and a tiger - proof of how similar the two species are.

One of the most characteristic features of these magnificent animals - and something that distinguishes them from the small cats - is their ability to roar.  It's something that has intrigued scientists, so the team delve into the lion's throat to find the voicebox, and make a discovery that helps explain the way the vocal apparatus works like a trombone.

To test the theory, they pass compressed air into the windpipe and - to everyone's amazement - make a dead lion roar.  Meanwhile, in a South African game reserve Mark and Joy to see how wild lions react to pre-recorded roars of intruder males.

The team dissect the anatomy of how these deadly machines work - from the big cats' powerful forearms and retractable claws, to the powerful killing bite.  And Richard Dawkins explains the evolutionary arms race that has arisen between predators and their prey in the struggle to survive.

While the anatomy of the two species may be remarkably similar, the social lives of the lion and the tiger could not be more different.   They investigate the dynamics of a pride, which leads them on to explain why male lions have their distinctive manes.