Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 They've ruled our planet for over 400 million years.
00:07 A family of eight-legged freaks
00:11 that come in many weird shapes and sizes.
00:14 They thrive in the tropical jungle,
00:19 the desert wastelands,
00:21 and even underwater.
00:28 There are the carnivorous giants
00:30 that rise from their underground lairs to feast on flesh.
00:34 The predators, equipped with an arsenal of weapons.
00:38 Some are accomplished acrobats,
00:42 while others sling webs,
00:45 walk on water,
00:47 and even fly.
00:50 Finally, we'll reveal the monster that rules them all.
00:57 (dramatic music)
01:00 It's the biggest spider on the face of the planet.
01:03 For one night only,
01:07 grab front row seats to nature's real house of horrors.
01:14 - Crazy monster spiders!
01:19 - Come out of the cold
01:21 and step inside our little shop of horrors.
01:25 This is home to nature's real freak shows.
01:28 Here, everything goes bump in the night.
01:33 But first to the stage
01:34 is our collection of eight-legged freaks.
01:37 There's the femme fatale
01:40 that's 15 times deadlier than a rattlesnake.
01:43 The giant that's bigger than your dinner plate.
01:47 One pounces like a leopard,
01:51 while another catches its prey with a homemade net.
01:55 But our first arachnid is equipped with more weapons
02:00 than a SWAT team.
02:01 (screaming)
02:03 In the desert wastelands of Southern Africa,
02:10 food is hard to come by.
02:13 Out here, temperatures reach well over 100 degrees.
02:21 Only the toughest creatures survive.
02:23 The snatching spider, or solifuge,
02:27 is like nothing you've seen before.
02:30 It's equipped with an arsenal of bizarre weaponry
02:35 to hunt, track, and kill anything it can find.
02:39 Long, sensitive hairs detect the slightest movement
02:44 in the air from potential prey.
02:49 While strange sensory cups
02:52 press against the ground like tiny ears
02:54 and pick up the slightest vibration.
02:57 (explosion)
03:02 And its enormous chainsaw-like eating claws
03:05 are able to crush through scorpions.
03:08 This creature is a weapon of mass destruction.
03:19 But it's its sticky appendages
03:21 that give this arachnid its name.
03:23 At the tip of each front appendage
03:28 is a round, expandable organ.
03:30 This hairless suction device uses pressure
03:35 to catch and hold onto prey.
03:38 Once it snatches with these suckers, little escapes.
03:44 (explosion)
03:46 The snatcher is almost never seen out in the day.
03:53 But in the desert, this predator must risk the heat
03:58 to find food.
03:59 It frantically scans the area, picking up on any vibration.
04:09 (crackling)
04:12 Sometimes, if you stand still, the prey comes to you.
04:21 (clang)
04:31 (explosion)
04:36 (dramatic music)
04:38 Its legs stick like glue.
04:45 The snatcher needs to make the most
04:52 of the grasshopper buffet.
04:54 (crack)
05:04 (crack)
05:06 He has a brutal technique, but it ensures a meal.
05:19 With its prey snatched, it's time for its enormous jaws
05:31 to kick into action.
05:34 (crunch)
05:35 Like hydraulic pincers, they crush and slice,
05:39 turning the prey into a digestible mush.
05:43 With its belly now full, the snatcher must escape
05:49 the blistering heat until nightfall,
05:51 when the hunting will begin again.
05:56 The snatching spider might be a crafty hunter,
06:02 but there's a super predator out there
06:04 that doesn't need sticky feet.
06:06 It's the spider world's very own aerial assassin.
06:11 In this forest lives a small but deadly assassin.
06:23 The jumping spider is an active hunter.
06:33 (chirping)
06:35 While most spiders spin a web to catch prey,
06:38 this predator has a more direct approach.
06:42 Its extraordinary eyesight and jumping ability
06:50 are the reason it's to be feared.
06:52 The spider's capable of jumping over 30 times
06:58 the length of its body.
07:01 (thud)
07:02 That's the equivalent of a human jumping over
07:05 half the length of a football field.
07:08 It's so powerful that like a bungee jumper,
07:16 it needs to lay a safety line to stop it
07:19 from overshooting its mark.
07:21 By contracting muscles, fluid is pushed
07:29 into the spider's legs.
07:31 Like a hydraulic piston, the change in pressure
07:34 causes the legs to extend rapidly,
07:36 firing the spider into the air.
07:41 This female is on the prowl.
07:49 The jumping spider's eight eyes are optimized for hunting.
07:59 Her enormous forward-facing eyes judge distance,
08:03 while her side and backward-facing eyes see movement,
08:06 allowing her to see almost 360 degrees.
08:10 A dead lizard is attracting flies.
08:16 The drones try to scare her off,
08:24 but she's not budging.
08:28 (droning)
08:30 Sometimes, things just don't go according to plan.
08:40 The spider only weighs a fraction of an ounce,
08:47 and the breeze is blowing her off course.
08:51 (droning)
08:53 She must recalculate wind direction and distance.
09:17 Her dagger-like fangs hook on for dear life,
09:21 while the quick-acting venom gets to work.
09:25 Killing is all in a day's work for the jumping spider.
09:37 While some spiders pounce on their prey,
09:43 the frightening web-slinger throws a net over its victims,
09:47 stopping them in their tracks.
09:49 This collection of spiders gets even creepier
09:59 thanks to the web-slinger, or net-casting spider.
10:03 Its enormous eyes and skinny legs
10:12 make it a living, breathing skeleton.
10:15 (chewing)
10:17 It's happy to eat last night's meal in daylight,
10:21 but this predator will only hunt in the dead of night.
10:25 This female has found a low-hanging twig to hunt from.
10:43 She'll use a web to catch prey,
10:46 but it's not the web you know.
10:48 She teases strands of silk,
10:53 and weaves a net of highly elastic, non-sticky silk.
10:59 She's stationed herself three inches above the ground,
11:11 close to passing insects.
11:13 This freaky spider is going to use this web as a net
11:20 to sling over insects that scuttle below.
11:23 She taps her legs on the forest floor
11:30 to measure her exact distance from her target.
11:32 (chewing)
11:38 (siren wailing)
11:41 She stretches the web to three times its relaxed size.
11:46 The wider she stretches the elastic threads,
11:52 the more entangled her prey will become.
12:07 Because the silk's not sticky,
12:10 throwing it with the right amount of force is critical.
12:13 Failed attempts lead to a grubby, dysfunctional net.
12:20 It's of no use to her now.
12:23 She'll have to start again.
12:27 (suspenseful music)
12:30 (suspenseful music)
12:59 The elastic silk tightens around the cricket.
13:01 The more it struggles, the more entangled it becomes.
13:08 Venomous strikes finally paralyze it.
13:14 The cricket is going nowhere.
13:21 So the web slinger leaves to continue her assault
13:26 on the insect world.
13:28 (suspenseful music)
13:31 While the web slinger spider weaves its own deadly net,
13:37 there is another incredible spider
13:39 that catches its prey by running on water.
13:42 This is the fishing spider.
13:47 This spiky-legged spider haunts fish pond residents
13:53 the world over.
13:56 Its good looks are enough to scare you to death.
13:59 But it's its legs that are truly freaky.
14:08 This bizarre arachnid not only walks on water,
14:14 it can read the underwater world with its legs.
14:22 Millions of tiny spikes detect vibrations
14:26 on the water's surface.
14:27 It can accurately judge where the movement is coming from
14:34 and even what prey item it is.
14:39 (suspenseful music)
14:45 A male lives in this section of the pond.
14:52 And it's full of food.
14:54 His back legs anchor him to the shore
15:07 while his super powered feet get to work.
15:12 Every little vibration is assessed.
15:21 (suspenseful music)
15:24 The fish was just out of reach.
15:29 Walking on water is one thing,
15:32 but this incredible spider can also breathe underwater.
15:36 The waterproof hairs around the spider's abdomen
15:43 create an air bubble.
15:44 Its lungs look like the stacked pages of a book.
15:49 And draw the oxygen from the bubble.
15:52 This incredible adaptation allows the fishing spider
15:58 to breathe underwater.
15:59 The fish may have been scared
16:02 out of the spider's hunting zone,
16:05 but now they're in the shallows.
16:07 (suspenseful music)
16:10 (suspenseful music)
16:13 The fishing spider injects paralyzing venom into the fish,
16:36 which slowly turns its insides into a nutritious soup.
16:41 This prize catch is something worth bragging about.
16:50 Some arachnids are equipped with deadly venom
17:00 while others dance for a living.
17:04 But one spine tingling spider
17:06 builds one of the most impressive webs on the planet.
17:10 - Spider.
17:12 - The engineering spider or golden orb
17:26 has spent over 160 million years
17:29 haunting tropical areas across the globe.
17:33 (suspenseful music)
17:35 But it's its web that is most terrifying.
17:38 Its segmented legs and inward pointing ends
17:45 are responsible for weaving gigantic silk traps
17:49 that ounce for ounce are stronger than steel.
17:52 They're so strong that even small birds and bats
17:57 have been caught in them.
18:01 The glittering golden silk is a lure to good fortune,
18:05 but it's a trap, a planter of the living dead.
18:13 The engineer's web is one of nature's
18:19 most high-tech inventions.
18:21 And this spider is not armed
18:26 with just one silk producing gland,
18:29 but seven.
18:30 Each gland produces its own unique silk.
18:37 They make tough silk to protect their eggs,
18:40 a soft silk to wrap up their prey,
18:43 and they can even produce a cabling silk
18:45 for structural support for webs.
18:48 However, what's truly fascinating
18:51 is how this silk is produced.
18:53 It's stored as a liquid in each gland.
18:58 As the spider contracts its muscles,
19:01 it forces the liquid silk out through hundreds of tiny tubes.
19:06 The muscular force turns the liquid
19:08 into a solid silk strand.
19:10 These individual strands twist and plait together
19:15 to produce one super strong cord.
19:19 (suspenseful music)
19:22 (suspenseful music)
19:25 The female builds the entire web on her own,
19:32 while a potential mate freeloads.
19:35 He'll take advantage of any leftovers caught in her trap.
19:40 But he's 10 times smaller than her, so must tread carefully.
19:51 (suspenseful music)
19:54 The tips of her legs are connected to strands
19:58 that radiate in eight different directions.
20:00 Through vibration, she has a 360 degree radar
20:07 over her entire web.
20:09 (suspenseful music)
20:12 When prey hits,
20:14 it's as good as dead.
20:19 (suspenseful music)
20:22 Once prey hits her web,
20:27 the engineering spider is on it in an instant.
20:32 It's paralyzed with venom
20:39 and wrapped alive in soft, preserving silk.
20:42 (suspenseful music)
20:46 (suspenseful music)
20:49 She hangs each coffin at the center of the web
20:53 with strong cementing silk.
20:55 This meal will stay fresh for hours in its tomb-like casing.
21:03 (suspenseful music)
21:07 (suspenseful music)
21:10 One by one, the spider wraps her prey alive
21:27 in their gold coffins,
21:30 while the male hangs on for the ride.
21:34 (suspenseful music)
21:37 The engineering spider's complex web delivers every time.
21:44 And an afternoon of feasting awaits.
21:51 Spiders have taken over the treetops and the jungle floor,
21:59 but the next unbelievable spider
22:01 spends its entire life underwater.
22:04 The fishing spider lives on the surface of the water,
22:12 but the scuba spider breaks all the rules.
22:17 It's the only arachnid known to live exclusively underwater.
22:25 It has no fins or gills,
22:29 but this amazing spider doesn't need them.
22:32 It builds its very own submarine air supply.
22:38 This bubble is its lifeline,
22:44 its homemade scuba tank.
22:47 To construct the bubble, this male swims to the surface
22:54 and pops his butt into the air.
22:56 (suspenseful music)
22:59 Like the fishing spider, the air bubble around his abdomen
23:04 allows him to breathe through his book lungs.
23:07 This odd crab-like swimmer
23:14 collects several bubbles from the surface
23:16 to create a large reservoir of oxygen.
23:19 This is the spider's sanctuary,
23:24 where it will feed and rest.
23:26 Thanks to evolution, it has been given the tools
23:40 to conquer an entire ecosystem.
23:43 This spider freak show is full of surprising characters.
23:54 While one spider lives underwater,
23:57 another deadly arachnid hunts from beneath the ground.
24:01 This is the baboon spider,
24:13 a five-inch monster that lives in an underground lair
24:21 for most of its life.
24:22 (birds chirping)
24:25 It's shy and secretive by nature,
24:27 but it has a dark side.
24:32 It gets its name from its enormous size,
24:41 its hairy body, and the baboon-like pads
24:45 on the end of each leg.
24:47 (suspenseful music)
24:50 Its many eyes operate like a built-in periscope,
24:57 surveying the surroundings of its burrow.
25:00 But its frightening looks aren't the worst of it.
25:05 (suspenseful music)
25:08 What prey doesn't know is that its secretive hideout
25:27 doubles as a deadly murder weapon.
25:30 (suspenseful music)
25:33 When it's not hungry, the spider spins a seal
25:39 at the entrance to its lair.
25:41 This prevents falling prey from disturbing her beauty sleep.
25:48 But when it's time to eat,
25:53 the burrow becomes a high-tech booby trap.
25:57 (birds chirping)
25:59 The entrance is lined with strands of silk
26:02 that travel into the burrow and operate like tripwires.
26:06 When moving prey triggers the wires,
26:12 vibrations will be sent down the burrow
26:14 and alert the spider to a possible meal.
26:17 She can distinguish between the vibrations
26:21 of a pesky ant and a meaty cricket.
26:26 (suspenseful music)
26:29 A wire's been triggered.
26:31 It's time to feed.
26:36 This cricket's made a fatal error
26:45 by triggering the baboon spider's tripwires.
26:49 (suspenseful music)
26:54 (suspenseful music)
26:57 The baboon spider is a calculating killer.
27:07 Another tripwire has been set off
27:16 and the opportunistic hunter returns to the surface.
27:22 Many legs means many vibrations.
27:25 (suspenseful music)
27:49 From straight out of the ground,
27:51 the centipede meets its gruesome death.
27:54 Over a foot below the surface,
28:02 the baboon returns to its solitary confinement
28:05 to feast on its prey alive.
28:11 This underground killer doesn't come out of a horror story.
28:18 It's nature's real life nightmare.
28:21 Some spiders live in dungeons while others use weapons,
28:29 but few creatures are as hair-raising as the alien spider.
28:36 No other name could describe this spooky arachnid.
28:46 The alien spider would look more at home on the moon
28:50 than on planet Earth.
28:51 During the day, a flat body allows it to crawl
28:57 into dark nooks and crannies,
28:59 and its pincers can grow to twice the length of its body
29:04 and are tipped with wolverine-like claws.
29:07 The alien spider, or whip spider, doesn't have venom,
29:15 so it grabs its prey with its pincers
29:18 and impales it with its fiendish spikes.
29:21 At night, the alien spider shows its true colors.
29:30 Long sensory whips probe the air
29:43 and pick up vibrations from moving prey.
29:46 The only thing creepier than an alien spider
29:56 is an alien spider with babies.
30:02 These mini-translucent aliens will live on the female's back
30:10 until they develop their very own armor plating.
30:14 After their first molt,
30:18 the green sprouts turn into fully-formed arachnids,
30:22 equipped to terrorize the dark corners of the insect world.
30:28 This frightening arachnid should come straight
30:34 out of a sci-fi film, not the natural world.
30:38 (dramatic music)
30:41 A spider has evolved for almost every habitat on the planet.
30:49 While some live underground and even hunt underwater,
30:53 there is one spider that lives in sand dunes
30:56 over 600 feet high.
30:59 The cartwheel spider looks a lot like many other spiders,
31:08 but this one has a unique acrobatic talent.
31:11 Out in the Namibian desert,
31:17 there is danger around every corner.
31:20 So a burrow beneath the boiling sand
31:24 is its best chance of survival.
31:26 The silk-lined bunker will extend over a foot down
31:35 and protect the spider from the harsh desert sun.
31:39 But it's not just the heat this spider's escaping from.
31:43 This pompalid wasp is on the hunt for a cartwheel spider.
31:48 It doesn't want to eat it.
31:53 It wants to lay a single egg inside it.
31:57 When its larva hatches,
32:01 it'll have a fresh cartwheel spider to feast on.
32:05 (dramatic music)
32:08 The spider does the finishing touches to its hideout
32:12 just in time.
32:15 The wasp senses movement.
32:35 The wasp only needs to sting him once.
32:38 The spider makes his getaway
32:50 and pulls out his trump card.
32:53 By folding its legs into spokes,
33:00 the spider turns into a wheel
33:02 and cartwheels down the dune at 20 turns a second,
33:06 leaving the wasp in its dust.
33:10 Evolution has given the cartwheel spider
33:16 a helping hand in its desert environment.
33:19 But it's not going to test its luck out in the open.
33:24 Some have been given size instead of speed,
33:30 while others walk on water.
33:33 But this spider has evolved venom so potent
33:37 it could kill you.
33:38 - Crazy monster.
33:42 - Tiger.
33:43 - This femme fatale needs little introduction
33:50 on our freak show stage.
33:52 (gentle music)
33:56 (sword clinking)
33:58 The black widow is named after her tendency
34:04 to kill and eat her partner after mating.
34:08 Her piercing fangs have ended many a man's life.
34:25 And a threatening red hourglass on her abdomen
34:28 is the trademark of danger.
34:32 The black widow's venom is thought to be 15 times
34:40 more potent than some rattlesnake species.
34:43 But because she injects less of it,
34:46 humans can survive her bite.
34:49 And it's no wonder she's so feared by the males.
34:56 The female has much larger fangs and venom glands.
35:00 This female hasn't eaten for weeks.
35:08 She's had other things on her mind.
35:13 She's just laid hundreds of eggs in this incubated egg sac.
35:21 (gentle music)
35:24 Soon, hundreds of miniature spiders will enter the world
35:32 to continue the black widow legacy.
35:35 With her most important job complete,
35:39 it's time to eat.
35:42 (gentle music)
35:45 She hides behind an overhang, ready to attack.
36:05 (dramatic music)
36:08 She restrains the cricket with silk
36:19 before paralyzing it with venom.
36:21 Cells lining her venom glands
36:25 produce her potent neurotoxic venom.
36:28 These cells disintegrate to release a toxic concoction
36:33 into the gland.
36:35 (dramatic music)
36:38 When the widow strikes, muscles around the gland
36:43 contract to force the venom out through hollow fangs.
36:46 The venom shuts down the cricket's nervous system.
36:52 But she doesn't eat her prey straight away.
36:57 She stores it, letting the venom's
37:02 additional digestive enzymes get to work
37:06 while she continues to hunt.
37:08 Weeks after laying her eggs,
37:19 hundreds of miniature spiders come to life.
37:30 But they're harmless for now.
37:32 It's only when they become adults
37:36 that the females will be as lethal as their mother.
37:39 The black widow male may get killed just for showing up,
37:46 but in Australia, another male is walking the tightrope
37:50 with his song and dance.
37:58 Out of the sandy earth emerges a spider so tiny
38:02 that eight of them could fit on your thumbnail.
38:05 The peacock spider is a type of jumping spider with a twist.
38:16 These bachelors are on the hunt for females,
38:23 and their search takes them into enemy territory.
38:28 There's only one female here.
38:31 So once they've sized each other up, it's time to fight.
38:39 (dramatic music)
38:42 Once the competition's been scared off,
39:01 the hard work begins.
39:03 (trumpet music)
39:07 Approaching a single lady is a risky business.
39:11 She'll attack if she's not in the mood.
39:16 So the male peacock spider
39:20 has had to take his courtship efforts up a notch.
39:23 Lights, camera, action.
39:28 (dramatic music)
39:31 (upbeat music)
39:34 Electric colors mesmerize the female.
39:40 This is the spider world's very own bird of paradise.
39:47 The dance seems to have worked.
39:59 (birds chirping)
40:01 When it comes to peacock spider romance,
40:04 it's not always about size.
40:06 It all comes down to the best dance moves.
40:10 We've seen the creepy crawlers, the deadly assassins,
40:17 and the expert hunters, but one spider rules them all.
40:22 It's the biggest spider on the face of the planet.
40:27 It's the mighty goriath bird-eating tarantula.
40:31 In the damp Amazon rainforest lives a spider so big
40:43 it'll cover your dinner plate.
40:45 Its body is covered in hair
40:52 and its fangs are longer than a lion's claw.
40:56 (birds chirping)
40:58 This behemoth is the subject of myth and legend,
41:08 with only a few having ever been seen in the wild.
41:13 The goriath bird-eating tarantula
41:20 is a feared spider for good reason.
41:24 (thudding)
41:26 It has a leg span of 11 inches and weighs over six ounces.
41:31 It's so big it feasts on mice and even birds.
41:38 It's an ambush hunter, so it lays low in dark corners.
41:51 (birds chirping)
41:53 But out in the jungle, even this giant has enemies.
42:00 The goriath isn't going to take its chances
42:07 with this rodent, and its best form of defense is attack.
42:12 When provoked, the goriath brushes his abdomen.
42:19 (thudding)
42:21 Releasing thousands of hair-like bristles into the air,
42:24 thousands of mini-harpoons fly through the air
42:28 towards the attacker.
42:30 Each menacing bristle is sharply pointed
42:34 with hooked barbs on one end.
42:38 The harpoons hook into the predator's flesh,
42:44 causing severe pain and itching.
42:47 (thudding)
42:49 With the threat warned off, it's back to hunting.
42:54 Retractable claws help the goriath climb up any surface.
42:58 When the day draws to an end, the jungle comes alive.
43:11 (birds chirping)
43:15 (dramatic music)
43:17 And almost everything is on the goriath's menu.
43:21 Its eyes are small and ill-equipped for nighttime hunting,
43:32 so it relies on its most fine-tuned sense.
43:36 Touch.
43:39 Thousands of hairs along its body
43:43 allow it to detect prey by feeling for vibrations.
43:46 Just ahead is a gecko.
43:53 The reptile seems unaware that it's just inches away
44:00 from the world's biggest spider.
44:03 (dramatic music)
44:05 (goriath screeching)
44:33 As the goriath's enormous fangs sink into the gecko,
44:37 paralyzing venom is injected into its bloodstream.
44:40 Very quickly, the gecko's organs shut down
44:52 and the venom's enzymes start digesting it
44:54 from the inside out.
44:57 (goriath screeching)
45:00 It's a gruesome way to die.
45:07 But then again, the most fearsome spider in the world
45:13 wouldn't have it any other way.
45:25 Our family of eight-legged freaks
45:27 has many weird and wonderful adaptations.
45:30 From arrow shooting and walking on water,
45:34 to disco dancing and slinging webs.
45:37 From the aliens and jumpers
45:41 to the cartwheelers and hunters, beware.
45:45 This motley crew of critters always has an eye on you.
45:52 They're nature's real-life freak show.
45:55 Spiders.
45:59 Spiders.
46:00 (dramatic music)
46:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]