Natural World

Life on Earth.

Stunning...

..spectacular...

..and diverse.

LEMUR HOWLS

Endless forms, startling and beautiful.

Some animals amaze us with their speed...

..their strength...

GORILLA GROWLS

..or their intelligence.

Whilst others fascinate us by, well, being a bit odd.

Creatures that don't normally grab the limelight.

Unconventional

and unusual.

Not the big stars, more the character actors.

Let me introduce you to nature's misfits.

I want to show you the extraordinary and rarely seen lives

of these evolutionary oddballs.

Their strange habits, their astounding forms

and the hurdles

they have to overcome.

It's time nature's misfits got the credit they're due.

Before we get going, let's be clear on what makes an animal a misfit.

For some it's because they appear ill-suited to their habitat.

Others have become so highly specialised in one way

that they seem disadvantaged in others.

But first we'll meet the misfits that stand out

because they're different from the rest of their animal family.

So how do these oddities manage to survive?

Could it be that being different can actually give you an edge?

Changqing in China.

In these snowy hills lives a confused creature.

RUSTLING

A giant panda.

Pandas are bears.

Close relatives of grizzlies and polar bears.

And, of course, bears are ferocious carnivores.

But not the panda.

They have turned their back on their meat-eating past...

..and gone veggie.

99% of their diet comes from a single plant.

Bamboo.

Making them a non-meat-eating carnivore.

A true misfit.

In the depths of winter, most bears would be tucked up hibernating...

..but not the panda.

The problem is bamboo contains so little energy that pandas

simply can't build up the fat reserves required to hibernate.

Instead, they endure the long freezing winters...

..forcing down bamboo even when it's frozen stiff.

That's what all the nose twirling is about.

They're breaking up the ice.

A panda must eat up to 18 kilograms of bamboo a day...

..requiring them to feed continuously for 16 hours.

This colossal consumption does have an inevitable consequence.

Pandas have to answer the call of nature 40 times a day.

Giant pandas are so dependent on bamboo

that it affects every aspect of their lives.

It even helps explain their relaxed attitude to reproduction.

Spring.

Mating season for pandas.

This female is on heat...

..which has aroused the interest of a male.

She's only fertile for a few days and just once a year...

..so she needs to get on with things.

PANDA GROWLS

That wasn't the response she was hoping for.

She decides to give it another go

PANDA GROWLS

Things aren't going well.

They both know why they're here

but just can't seem to settle their differences.

Now he gingerly approaches her.

Finally it happens.

It's little wonder pandas have acquired

such a dubious track record for procreation.

But there is purpose to all this.

Pandas are so reliant on bamboo

that if their numbers were ever to dramatically increase

there might not be enough food to go round.

Being slow breeders means they can survive

whilst relying on just one food source.

It all comes back to their veggie and very un-bear like diet.

For our next misfit, it's not their diet that marks them out

as different but their size that makes them stand out

from the rest of their kind.

Vivid colours,

incredible eyes...

..and a lethal weapon of a tongue.

You've got to love chameleons.

But there's one chameleon that is distinctly different.

It's down there, bang in the middle of that big leaf.

Meet the minute leaf chameleon...

..one of the smallest reptiles on the planet.

Found only on one island off the coast of Madagascar,

it's a lizard the size of an ant.

Being this small is tough.

The world's a very dangerous place

when you can be mowed down by a millipede.

When it comes to finding a mate,

being a miniature misfit can make things rather complicated.

This is a male minute leaf chameleon.

He's constantly keeping an eye out for a partner

but, being so small, he rarely bumps into any others of his kind.

Should he find a potential mate, he has to make the most of it.

A female.

It's an opportunity he can't let slip away...

..so he makes his move.

This might not look very fast...

..but in chameleon terms this is a sprint -

a reckless headlong dash.

And it nearly ends in disaster.

It'll take more than that to put him off his stride.

He's back on track.

Finally, he catches up with the larger female.

Gently, he climbs aboard.

And here he'll stay.

Leaf chameleon lovers have to stick together

as they so rarely meet one another.

Being miniature means leaf chameleons can specialise

at feeding on all the tiny insects in the leaf litter -

food which is out of reach for other chameleons.

They're not the only misfits that benefit by doing things differently

from the rest of their kind.

Purple frogs from India are one of just a handful of frogs

that live and feed underground, a bit like moles.

They only ever pop up to the surface for two weeks a year to find a mate.

So there has to be some frog speed dating.

Flying lemurs have independently evolved wings.

Technically they're gliding, not flying.

And while they're certainly not lemurs...

..it's still one hell of a trick.

Flying fish are definitely fish.

They take to the air to avoid underwater predators...

..gliding up to 400 metres.

Sometimes, being a bit different works brilliantly.

Other times, it can be risky.

High in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia,

lives an unlikely looking creature

which seems to have lost all sense of self preservation.

This is the only place in the world where you find big-headed mole rats.

They've not got high opinions of themselves...

..just very large heads.

It's the big-headed mole rat's lifestyle

that qualifies them as a misfit.

There are 36 different species of mole rats...

..all specially adapted to live underground.

But the big-headed mole rat is different.

They're the only one of their kind that always feeds above ground.

But round here that's not necessarily a great plan.

These mountain plateaus are home to Ethiopian wolves.

Unusually for a wolf, they rarely hunt in packs.

They're specialist rat catchers...

..and work best as solitary hunters.

Big-headed mole rat senses

are designed for their old burrowing lifestyle.

Feeble eyesight...

..and poor hearing.

Above ground, they're sitting ducks.

A very close shave.

With the mole rat's determination to forage above the ground,

they could really benefit from having a sentry -

a look-out to check the coast is clear.

And that's exactly what these are.

Moorland chats.

Expert foragers on these high mountain plateaus.

They hang around the mole rats...

..feeding on any bugs and worms dug up in their spoil heaps.

In return for this easy meal,

the chats keep an eye out for troublesome wolves...

CHAT TWEETS

..alarm calling if they come too close.

By choosing to feed above ground,

big-headed mole rats have turned their backs

on millions of years of evolution.

For this misfit, being able to get direct access to rich grass

must outweigh the risk of being preyed on.

But sometimes there appears little logic

as to why an animal has evolved to be different

from the rest of its animal family.

The primeval forests of New Zealand.

Amongst the undergrowth, something stirs.

A parrot,

but a parrot unlike any other.

This is the world's heaviest and only flightless parrot.

But that's just the start of its misfit credentials.

For this is a kakapo.

Kakapos can be surprisingly nimble on the ground.

But that's no use to them when their favourite food is up in the trees.

Reaching it isn't as easy as it perhaps should be.

They awkwardly clamber around...

..relying on their bill as an extra claw.

It's all a bit embarrassing really...

..for a bird.

Kakapos evolved to be flightless

because there were no ground predators on New Zealand.

When the first settlers arrived on these islands,

their ships also contained cats, weasels and rats.

When threatened, the kakapo's principle defence mechanism

is to stand very, very still.