Human beings have adapted the world around
us to suit our needs. It is our intelligence that allowed us to
learn tool building, agriculture and language and so become far advanced than any of our
fellow creatures. But, that’s not to say that some animals
don’t have wonderful abilities that we can only begin to marvel at. Thanks to the work of medical science and
nutrition, we are living longer and longer, with life expectancy increasing by 1 year,
every 5 years. We are able to survive some pretty extreme
places on earth but we have nothing on a little guy called a Tardigrade. Also known as Water Bears, or the super cute
name “Moss Piglets”, these segmented micro animals are typically 0.5 millimetres in length
and can be found in virtually every environment in the world. Their ability to survive is, to be honest,
utterly ridiculous. They are the supermen of the animal kingdom,
if Superman was a tiny 8 legged bear made of pillows. Think Canada is cold? Well these bad boys can manage at -272°C,
that’s only 1 degree above absolute zero, where everything, right down to the nuclear
level, stops moving. Of course, they don’t just put on a hat
and get on with their shopping, they are in a state of cryptobiosis – like the deep
hibernation you see in sci-fi films. And they can only last at these levels for
a few minutes. But bring the heat back up and they’ll be
out and about again, getting up to mischief. If they fancy a bit of sun after a winter
snooze, then you can crank it up to 150°C and they’ll still be knocking back the margaritas. They can take pressure 6 times what you’d
find at the bottom of our deepest ocean and can handle doses of ionising radiation so
high, that just a fraction of a percent of it would turn us into dribbling mutants while
our cells collapsed. They can even survive in space for almost
2 weeks and can survive without food or water, for over 30 years. They would probably prefer not to though. But if you want real immortality, then scientists
are now looking at the Scarlet Jellyfish. Its gelatinous body may not offer much protection
but it has an incredible trick. If it’s injured, it sinks to the sea floor
and returns to its juvenile state, called a polyp. From here, it regrows back to an adult jellyfish,
with the slate wiped clean, effectively granting it biological immortality. The whole process takes about 2 months. So maybe one day, if you break a leg or two,
you just have to pop back to kindergarten for a few semesters whilst you regenerate,
it might help improve your terrible handwriting as well. When we think about light, we think about
what we can see. But the visible spectrum is actually a very
small part of the wider range. And even within the visible spectrum, our
ability to separate colours is actually quite limited. In the back of your eye, the retina, you process
the light through cells called photoreceptors. There are two main types; rods and cones. The rods process just black and white so they
work well in low-light situations and they make up most of your peripheral vision. You’ll notice that you don’t see much
colour around the edges of your vision. You’re doing it now, aren’t you; trying
to look out the side of your eyes? In the middle of the retina, where most of
the light comes in, you have a higher concentration of cone cells. Cone cells process colour and there are three
types; one for long, medium and short wavelengths. This is all a colour is, a different wave
length. Long are reds, medium are yellow and green
and short are blue. The Mantis Shrimp has 12 different cones. If we had eyes like this, we would be able
to see huge differences between every shade. It would make arguments over what colour to
paint the bedroom last for a lifetime. It’s bad enough that there’s paint called
elephant breath, just imagine if there were 46 different shades of it. But, oddly, shrimps’ colour perception is
not much better than our own since they don’t have the brain power to decipher all that
information. Their amazing eyes just do most of the work
so their little brains don’t have to. That is not the only quirk of their evolution
though. Like their cousin, the Pistol Shrimp, they
can punch so rapidly with their claws that they have been known to smash aquarium glass. Finally, on vision, the Pit Viper may have
slightly worse colour detection than we do but, they have evolved a new sensor pit, between
the eyes and the nostrils, that allows them to see infra-red light. This means they can spot prey and be warned
of predators, no matter how dark it gets. The benefits of technology mean that we can
enhance or replace many of our body parts. But these are man-made, these kind of mechanics
don’t occur naturally, do they? This is the Issus Leafhopper. It’s a small, plant-sucking bug and it has
evolved functioning mechanical gears. This allows it to jump extremely rapidly. It may only move at 5 m/s but it accelerates
in under a millisecond, at a force of over 500 g’s. To give you some context, one g is the normal
gravity you feel on earth. An astronaut leaving earth experiences about
3 g. So what is the point of these biological cogs? What purpose do they achieve? Well the power comes from both legs and at
such an incredible acceleration, that if there was a tiny difference between them, it would
be impossible to control the direction. Imagine if astronauts were in a rocket with
two engines and each were firing at different power levels; Houston, we have a problem. So, to ensure that the Leafhoppers aren’t
constantly crashing into walls, head-butting people in bars, or accidentally committing
suicide, the gears act to perfectly synchronise their leaps. The cogwheel turtle also has an obvious gear
shape that has grown naturally, but it has no mechanical purpose. It just looks like he’s listened to too
much Marilyn Manson. Look at this guy (show image of guy in camo-trousers). I know, where are his legs? They’re completely invisible. Now, our level of camouflage is pretty lame,
but there are creatures out there that can change shape and colour in an almost magical
way. Firstly, there is the chameleon of course,
everyone’s favourite hide and seek contestant. They can change colour and pattern in order
to send messages, such as aggression or submission, as well as camouflage. They sometimes use it as a way of controlling
the heat they absorb too. How does it work? We used to think they just had amazing control
of the colour pigments in their skin. But it turns out to be far smarter than that. In the past couple of years we have discovered
that one of the layers of their skin is made up of a lattice of crystals called guanine. We all contain guanine as it is a nitrogen
based compound that is one of the bases of DNA and RNA, so, pretty important stuff. Chameleons can stretch this lattice layer
so it reflects light differently. When the lattice is excited, it stretches
and this reflects longer wavelengths, such as yellows, oranges and reds. In a relaxed state, it reflects the shorter
wavelengths, the blues and greens. Their skin also has a yellow pigment which
is why their base colour is often green, since the relaxed lattice gives off blues and this
mixes with the yellow pigment to create green. A far prettier colour changing animal is the
Golden Tortoise Beetle. They look like jewellery most of the time
but not only is their metallic gold colouring pretty spectacular, they are very rare in
the insect world as they can change colour. The layers of their shells contain nano-grooves,
that are normally filled with a light red liquid that gives them their golden shine. When this liquid is drained, the lower, darker
red layers become visible so, when you watch them, they turn from gold to red. This happens when they are agitated, and often
during sex, just like us humans, but it’s believed to have another benefit. Red shelled bugs, like ladybirds, or ladybugs
in the US, aren’t popular food for birds. So maybe the Golden Tortoise Beetles are mimicking
this to avoid being lunch. Even their gold colour could make them hard
to spot, as the bright reflection would throw off their avian enemies. Now colour is one thing, but the mimic octopus
can transform its whole body to look like a wide range of other local creatures. It impersonates sea snakes and jellyfish,
amongst other things, so that its predators avoid it. And it also uses impersonation to catch its
own food, sometimes walking like a crab so it can attract a mate and then pouncing before
the crab realises it’s too late. Aquatic tinder is a scary place – “Free
for a drink tomorrow? Okay, but promise me you’re not secretly
an octopus?” Opossums find the world in general a scary
place, which is why they are famous for thanatosis, or “playing dead” to you and me. But when real danger strikes, they have a
nifty trick up their scruffy little sleeves. Opossums can immunise themselves against toxins
such as snake venom and plant stings. They produce a protein called the Lethal Toxin
Neutralizing Factor, LTNF for short, that does exactly what its name suggests, neutralises
toxins. For snake bites, this means they can counteract
both the part that stops your heart and the haemorrhaging part, which makes you keep on
bleeding. For humans, the current way of dealing with
a snake bite, is through anti-venoms. You have to take a sample of each specific
snake’s venom and then inject a small dose into another animal, such as a goat or a horse. Then, we can extract a serum and use it to
fight the poison when a human is bitten. This procedure is far from perfect as you
need to keep a range of different anti-venoms and often these are only at major hospitals. And, I may be wrong, but you probably won’t
get attacked by a snake in a hospital, they’re more of an outdoorsy type. So naturally research into this opossum protein
could be very valuable as it’s already been shown that mice can be injected with it and
develop similar self-immunisation skills to the opossum. A human ready version may not be so far away. Let’s just hope it doesn’t make us all
play dead too, the streets would be littered with people falling over every time a car
horn sounds. Self-immunisation is one thing but our next
creature takes it to a whole new level. This baby-faced little salamander is called
the Axolotl and it has an astonishing ability to regenerate whole body parts again and again. Many other salamander types have some regeneration
ability, such as their tails, but these guys can grow back whole legs, spines, and even
parts of their brain. And there’s not even any scarring, it’s
just like reloading from a save point in a video game. Lost your leg in a bike accident? No problem, just reboot. They’re also over 1000 times more resistant
to cancer than mammals are, so they’re a pretty healthy bunch. They also never smoke and only drink in moderation. There is actually a reason for their babyish
face. They are one of a few unique species since
they exhibit neoteny. This means that they don’t go through a
change to reach adulthood, or sexual maturity to be more precise. Most animals have a metamorphosis that changes
their shape, colouring and physical characteristics. A human adult isn’t just an inflated baby,
the proportions are all different. The head shrinks in comparison to the body,
limbs lengthen, body hair grows and so on. The same is true for most species; just look
at tadpoles becoming frogs, larvae becoming flies and seahorses growing into full sized
horses. I’m not sure about that last one actually. But the Axolotl stays the same, it just gets
larger. Most salamanders leave the water and grow
fully developed lungs but the Axolotl stays in the water and that pretty frill around
its neck is its gills. They do have rudimentary lungs but they don’t
really use them. Scientists have found that you can induce
a change into adulthood in axolotls, where they become terrestrial salamanders. It’s done by injecting iodine into their
thyroid gland. Whereas, us humans are forced to grow up by
being sent to our rooms and not allowed to have any ice cream. What ability do you think ties all of these
animals together? Any guesses? Are they super-fast? Super-smart? Do they look good in denim? Are they great at doing Sudoku? Give up? Their special skill is electroreception. They have the ability to detect electrical
fields and to use them as a sense, much like we use hearing and vision. It’s almost exclusive to aquatic animals
since water, especially salt water, is a far better conductor than air. But bees use electrical fields and charge
in a very unique way. Plants are usually negatively charged and
bees can become very positively charged. We’ve seen them produce voltages of 450
volts during tests. This happens because they collide with dust
particles and small molecules as they fly. The collisions knock away electrons and leave
positively charged particles stuck to the bee. Their waxy cuticles are very well insulated,
meaning they can build up a surprising amount of charge. This creates certain benefits. Firstly, they become “stickier” since
they attract the negatively charged pollen particles. But, incredibly, they also develop a communication
with the plants and we believe they can read which flowers have recently been visited by
other bees, due to the change in their electric field. It’s basically floral advertising, so bees
can bumble around, looking in the shop windows to find what they want, without having to
go in to every store. And the electro bee magic doesn’t end there. Uwe Greggers, a neurobiologist from the Free
university of Berlin, has been studying the famous bee dance. We’ve known about their little waggle since
the 1920’s but Greggers now thinks that the bees are actually creating a change in
the electric field which other bees read through their antennae. Right now, all we know is that they CAN do
this, we don’t know for sure if they really are. Their dance still remains a mystery. The platypus is part of a group of egg laying
mammals, called monotremes, and they are the only creatures in the entire class known to
electrolocate, aside from one species of dolphin. These weird little duck faced otter monsters
close their eyes and ears when they dive and use this sense to detect the electric currents
produced in the muscles of its prey. This is why their heads sweep side to side,
like a sensor. They also have ankle spurs that produce venom. When you combine it with their egg laying,
it begins to seem like someone got very confused when they were putting the platypus together
and just grabbed whatever parts they could find. With all these amazing abilities, you might
be sitting there feeling jealous of the animal kingdom and all its wonders. Why can’t we jump like lightning, heal ourselves
and see in the dark? It’s just not fair. So, to make yourself feel better, go play
on your iPad, loudly, in front of your hamster and tell him that he can’t have a go because
he’s stupid.
