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[Music] for kangaroos the greatest challenges come from within their own society for a male there's only really one key lesson to learn in his life they get to the top he must become a fighter the battles are so brutal the males need years of training to prepare the effort is worth it because a champion fighter wins privileged access to the females this Meadow is a boot camp for aspiring boxers training starts as soon as a youngster is out of the pouch its mother is a handy opponent for a young Joey learning the basics but he soon off in search of more sparring partners the other grown-ups are not so tolerant of this lightweight [Music] [Music] this male alone rules the meadow [Music] he stands eight feet tall his muscles hardened by years of sparring today a challenger for his title has come forward full-blown fights are so dangerous they're not entered into lightly but when two males square up it's time to clear the arena anything goes in these power struggles I doubting is entirely within the rules so is kicking below the belt the dominant male skill is already telling [Music] the stakes are high they risk broken bones and internal injuries suddenly it's all over the champion has beaten off the Challenger at least for now [Music] the tiny wonder that I've come halfway around the world to find the blue ringed octopus the ones that have found here around Sydney are called blue lined octopus because all running down the surface in the mantle you can see a great big long neon light oh look at that bright bright color change gorgeous and but they're still in the blue ringed octopus group and to show you how it got its name all I need to do is agitated it very slightly and you should see the plainly coloured animal take on incredible agitated colors bright neon blue circles look at that wow it's just electric these are classic warning colors and they're obviously used to intimidate animals that might want to feast on a blue ringed octopus that would be a very very bad idea because this is one of the most toxic creatures on earth the glorious neon flash colors tell other predators to just swim on by in Australia scientists are trying to increase marsupial numbers using artificial insemination or AI they've started with koalas because they're easy to handle and breed well they hope to perfect the methods to help rare marsupials in the wild like grim pea the hairy-nosed wombat so how do you do AI well first you have to collect some sperm and to do that you go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane what you're witnessing here is the courtship behavior of Australia's national icon the Koala this here is Titan and he's marking his territory though this scent plant because it's been put in with the girls if he plays his cards right today could be his lucky day koalas are normally quiet creatures but things are about to change Titan has to go in and excite the females only then will people Poole know if any of them are ready to mate they want to collect Titan sperm the problem is at the moment he's really taking his time has to introduce what's called teaser male face to face so we know she's in she's definitely carrying on he's interesting so can Liam get the girls going [Music] with young hot-blooded Liam displaying the enclosure reaches fever pitch head bobbing bellowing and scent-marking [Music] [Applause] meanwhile Titan just sits back Paula nearly one of the females is ready but sorry Liam its Titans but remember this is artificial insemination so his sperm has to be collected Steve Johnston has pioneered this technique this is where the science comes into it well it's not too much science it's basically just flipping some spam from the Nile and getting in between em so you're the awful person at the crucial moment snips in there absolutely the koalas seem to have no idea their nuptials are about to be interrupted Steve gets in between them to collect Titan sperm in a device made partly from the top end of a cricket bat he thinks completely that it's a female that he's doing the job on thanks coming here we go it's just a very normal mating behavior in koalas I mean and that will stabilize a female will he inseminate sir so that's perfectly normal [Music] it's finally time to artificially inseminate one of the females called beta the process is painless the sperm is simply squirted into beta if the AI is a success in 35 days time a tiny baby koala will make its way into betas pouch the team will be one step closer to helping rare marsupials like grim P I thought it looked crude but Mark said that if you control the crocodile with ropes you allow it to go into its natural attack role which will exhaust the thing from yesterday saying that crocodiles you know I didn't like them what have you you know it must be pretty daunting for an animal to be locked in the pen like that for a while and then for 20 big men to come in and attack it or not attack it but get it rope it roll it must be pretty scary for me I think that Mouse could easily kill me easily kill me only once it's tired out is it safe to do something about that mouth now can you jump on it it's amazing to think the cover in its eyes and sitting on it actually calms the thing down enough to take its mouth shut it's just basically to take that's enough to secure its jaws mart was on a bit of a mission to change my mind about these crocs Natalie if you want to come in and take Bill's place on the machine let's see I'd like you to stay on the legs if you're up there you can actually feel it really animal you guys comfortable yep okay the SEC's coming off his eyes I can't so any movement absolutely still okay now what's he doing there [Laughter] part of my team's job was to do a population study about the sexing nearly barely doing this study mark has handled enough crocodiles to know what makes them fleet and sexing them apparently doesn't faze them and you tailed by the size yeah so give me the hint already okay so that's the vent thing yeah what you're gonna do is you gonna force you you hear nothing into that yeah keep on forcing it and at some stage here you're gonna feel a really solid like you're talking your finger oh yeah oh it's a bit big so this is actually a mile is it through mama this would expect bigger [Laughter] [Music] we get him up here and he's not the strain of his head they're just ten years ago a crop like this one would have been shot at least now he faces some kind of a future being a fertile male he was being sent off to become a breeder in a crocodile farm then something really strange happened I locked into that trailer and I swear the crocodile right back at me I had made eye contact with an 11-foot predator someone said to me when I asked about a crocodile if they like them or not I don't really like and by overlong respectful and I do believe I agree with that phrase respect is there any way I think but although Stella is inundated with Roos and wallabies none of them take up as much of her time as young wallaby Neal [Music] he's an orphan from a car accident where his mum was killed and nails been with us one week Neil is just one and a half months old in the wild he'd be around nine months before he left his mother's pouch he doesn't have a second coat he's just got the light top coat that he has while he's in his mum's pouch we do call them little Velvets I'm covering his eyes and little bit in Mom's pouch it's a bit it's darker than here he's getting a bit used to it so it's not too stressful in the first three days here he cried out at nighttime for his mum that's heartbreaking to listen to him call out for his mum what we do then is we picked them up and I put him in the bed with me so he can feel my heartbeat the moment I picked him up and cuddled him and held him next to my heart the crying stopped because they developed for so long in the pouch the beating of their mother's heart is deeply comforting for baby marsupials research shows that maternal nurture physically changes brain chemistry and alters the way a youngsters body responds to stress without this closeness and reassurance orphans have been known to die of anxiety but with new animals arriving all the time Stella can't always be there for Neil and he urgently needs a companion the same size and age who he can hang out with [Music]

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 314,996

Keywords: bbc documentary, bbc, bbcearth, bbc earth, australian animals documentary, deadly australian animals documentary, australian animal compilation, kangaroo boxing match, kangaroos fighting one another, koala rescue, australian crocodile handling, australian crocodile documentary, blue ringed octopus, baby wallaby, baby wallaby adoption, australian animals

Id: vdkeQLsoUE0

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 16 2019