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Are you worried you eat too much?
Well, grab another dessert, because you're no match for the hungriest
animals on the planet.
We're counting down the top 10 gluttons in the animal kingdom, and
comparing them to human attempts to eat their way into the record books.
Find out why gluttony really is a deadly sin when it's taken to The Most
Extreme.
Earth is a planet of extremes, extreme placesâ•” and extreme animals.
But some animals are more extreme than others.
Join us as we countdown to find the most unusual, the most extraordinary,
and The Most Extreme.
Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, along comes
number 10 in the countdown.
The tiger shark has a terrible reputation.
It's number 10 in our countdown of gluttony because a tiger shark will
take a bite out of anything that gets in its way.
It doesn't matter if it's dead or alive.
Tiger sharks will try to swallow it.
These sharks have been called the garbage cans of the sea, because
they'll take a bite out of any old rubbish.
Strange things have been found in the stomachs of tiger sharks.
Things like tom-tom drums, car license plates, nine shoes, deer antlers, a
coil of copper wire, lumps of coal, a can of salmon, and even bits from a
suit of armor.
But tiger sharks don't need a tinsmith or a doctor.
They have a better way of getting rid of the rubbish they eat, according to
Aquarium of the Pacific curator, Eric Forsman.
They're actually able to regurgitate their stomach to expel any of these
inedible items from their stomachs that they can't digest, more naturally
turtle shells or carapaces.
They are able to invert their stomachs and expel the indigestible items so
they can go on and continue feeding on things that will be digestible.
Hurling chunks maybe an extreme solution for an upset tummy.
But it's no cure for the extreme gluttony found in this pregnant sand
tiger shark.
By using special cameras scientists were able to peer inside the female's
body cavity.
Imagine their surprise when they saw the biggest unborn shark swimming
around inside its mother's belly.
It was busy finding all its unborn brothers and sisters and eating them.
Only thanks to special equipment could scientists see the ultimate in sibling
rivalry.
But the extreme gluttony of the countdown's next contender is out
there for all to see.
Number nine in our gluttonous countdown really loves to pig out.
Everybody knows that pigs are the greediest animals on earth, or are
they?
To find out the truth about the eating habits of pigs, you just have to ask
Connie Precious from Toledo Oregon.
She has to feed 18 pigs every day.
That's because Connie and her husband Bob have a most unusual family.
Eighteen pigs live with Connie and Bob inside their house they call Pigtasia.
So have pigs had a bad rap?
Are they really the world's most greedy gluttons?
As far as people thinking that pigs will eat anything, that's not true,
because if you put popcorn in Pigstachio's mouth, he just spits it
right out.
And we used to buy the mixed veggies that you buy and put it on their
plates and every night I go pick up his bowl and there would be like seven
or eight green beans laying in the bottom.
Then it got to be funny and we'd bury it in their food and everything and go
back, and those green beans will be laying in that bowl, he will not eat
green beans.
We have some pigs that won't even eat carrots.
So it's not that they'll eat anything.
Yes, he's really fussy, aren't you?
You're a fussy boy.
Yes, you are.
Kisses.
Kisses.
Thanks tach.
Pigs don't even pig out.
They actually have quite small stomachs unlike one of the most
extreme gluttons in history.
King Henry the VIII of England really loved making a pig of himself.
His gluttony became the scandal of Europe.
And no wonder when the King and his courtiers chewed their way through
mountains of food.
The menu for just one banquet included 17 pigs, 11 beef, 540 chickens, 6
cranes, 72 geese, 384 pigeons, 648 larks, and 4 peacocks.
For dessert, there were 1300 apples and 3000 loaves of bread.
No wonder King Henry's waistline went from a size large to an extra, extra,
extra, extra large.
What?
Compared to some human gluttons, the greedy pig is positively anorexic.
That's why it's only number nine in our countdown.
If you thought our first two contenders had healthy appetites, wait
till you see animals that really bite off more than they can chew.
They'll leave you gasping for breath, even if you're only wanting a quick
bite.
That's coming up on The Most Extreme.
America produces over half a million tons of rubbish every day.
For number eight in our countdown, dinner is served.
Vultures love rubbish.
That's because vultures eat meat, any meat.
Fresh meat; rotten meat; putrid, decaying, disgusting meat.
Vultures will find it, and fight for it.
Vultures are extreme scavengers.
Road kills are meals on wheels for vultures.
But they have to eat fast, real fast, especially when all their friends are
wanting a piece of the action.
That's why vultures are extreme gluttons.
They can swallow up to 20% of their body weight.
Now if that doesn't sound extreme, just imagine if you could eat like a
vulture.
Twenty percent of your body weight is an awful lot of hamburgers.
For an average sized person, it would be like gulping down 108 hamburgers at
a sitting.
Would you like fries with that?
But of course vultures don't often get to eat hamburgers.
Their idea of a happy meal is something dead and really rotten.
Dining on the dead is not only disgusting.
It can be dangerous too.
Inside rotting flesh you can find deadly diseases like botulism and
cholera.
But these diseases just add a little flavor for a vulture, because these
birds have stomachs of steel.
Their stomach acids are so strong they can dissolve just about any kind of
bug, including anthrax.
But one man shares the vulture's cast iron constitution.
Meet Jed Donahue from Arlington, Texas.
Jed likes jalapeno peppers.
He likes them a lot.
In fact, Jed can eat 152 in 15 minutes.
I got started with jalapenos in high school actually.
There was a Spanish club contest.
There was a jalapeno eating contest, and I looked at one of these things.
I thought I could probably win this contest.
And it was a two minute contest.
I sat down and ate 40 of them in two minutes and it was just one after
another.
Second place ate six, so right then and there I thought I had a talent
that maybe other people don't have.
And they went down easy.
They came out not so easy.
Eating jalapenos is like kissing a hot light bulb and drinking molten lava.
This is almost like a little green bullet.
It fights back.
They kind of explode with juice when you bite into them and bystanders
beware, because it will fly, you know, I'll show that to you right now.
Thanks to his high tolerance of pain, Jed has won seven jalapeno eating
contests at the Glutton Bowl run by the International Federation of
Competitive Eaters.
But like any athlete, Jed undergoes a rigorous training program.
To prepare to eat a 100 of these, you have to stretch your stomach the night
before.
A 100 of anything is going to fill you up.
And your stomach is just like any other muscle.
It needs to be stretched and trained to act properly.
I don't want to eat 100 jalapenos the night before the contest because I'm
not going to feel good the next day.
So what I do is eat 5 pounds of grapes.
No vulture will ever break Jed Donahue's record.
Vultures don't eat jalapenos or any other vegetables for that matter.
Luckily for us, what they do eat is rotten meat.
Their cast iron stomachs let them clean up the dead and diseased.
So vultures are nature's undertakers.
Their extreme gluttony is actually making the world a safer place for all
of us.
We've invited revolting vultures, pampered pigs and scavenging sharks to
join us at our smorgasbord of extreme diners.
But coming up is an animal that would eat them all for breakfast.
Dine with the devil next on The Most Extreme.
To find number seven in the countdown, you have to travel to the far south of
Australia.
This wombat isn't dreaming of food.
It's part of a nightmare.
Meet the Tasmanian devil.
This extreme glutton likes eating its food from the inside out.
The Pit Bull Terrier of the marsupial world was called a devil by early
European settlers who were terrified by its demonic cries.
The Tasmanian devil is another scavenger ruled by its stomach.
It'll eat anything that smells even remotely like flesh.
Dine with the devil and you'll feast not only on rotting carcasses, but
also old boots, cartridge cases and even smelly socks.
But it's quantity, not quality that's made the devil number seven in our
countdown.
A small group of devils once completely devoured a full-grown horse
in only three nights.
Scavenging devils have to eat fast, because just like vultures, there is
always someone wanting to steal food from under your nose.
Devils will gorge themselves until they can barely waddle.
They can eat much more than vultures, because devils don't have to stay
light enough to fly away.
That's why they can swallow up to 40% of their body weight in only 30
minutes.
Now that's extremely fast food.
That would be like our average human sitting down and eating 216 hamburgers
in half an hour.
That's a meal that would challenge even the world's biggest professional
eaters.
And they don't come much bigger than sumo wrestlers.
You don't get a physique like this without doing some serious eating.
But weight for weight, not even a sumo wrestler could compete with the devil
when it comes to speed eating.
But the next contender in the countdown prefers a liquid lunch.
Hollywood has an insatiable appetite for hungry horrors.
After all, nobody likes a good feed more than Dracula.
But real vampires could drink Dracula under the table any day.
That's why vampire bats are number six in our countdown of extreme gluttony.
Real vampires prefer cows to Hollywood actresses, which means they face
occupational hazards Dracula never dreamed of.
And unlike Dracula, real vampires don't suck blood.
These bats use razor-sharp teeth to painlessly open a vein.
And then they drink.
A vampire bat can swallow up to five teaspoons of blood.
That's a lot of blood for a little bat.
Imagine if Count Dracula had to drink like a real vampire.
He'd have to drink his own weight in blood every day.
That's over 70 litres nearly a bath tub full of blood.
But vampire bats have a drinking problem.
The main constituent of blood is plasma.
It's a clear fluid that's not very nutritious, but takes up an awful lot
of room in the stomach.
That's why vampire bats are not only extreme gluttons, but extreme
urinators.
Almost as soon as they start drinking, bats start peeing.
It's their way of getting rid of excess weight so they can get off the
ground to fly home.
So next time you're at the movies, keep your eye on Dracula.
See if you can spot how he gets rid of all that excess fluid from his liquid
lunch.
But the real vampires have another problem.
If someone in the roost goes thirsty for more than a day or two, they'll
die.
That's why these bats have developed the world's first blood transfusion.
A hungry bat just has to lick the cheek of a well-fed vampire to make it
throw up.
The meal of regurgitated blood will keep the hungry bat alive long enough
for it to find a victim of its own.
Although the caring sensitive side of the vampire is seldom seen in horror
movies, the fact remains that these little bats really are extremely
bloodthirsty gluttons.
Vampires, both real and imagined are only number six in our countdown of
extreme gluttony.
Coming up is another terrifying man-eater.
It's an animal with a truly shocking capacity to swallow everything from
antelope to small children.
That's next on The Most Extreme.
Coming in at number five in the countdown is the python.
This giant snake can easily swallow things larger than its head.
If you want to eat like a python, try tying your hands behind your back and
then swallow a whole watermelon without chewing.
To find out how snakes manage to bite off so much more than they can chew,
you just have to talk to biological educator Paul Hahn.
They have very flexible jaws, and their lower jaw kind of the two sides
of it work independently of each other.
And what they do is they feed the animal in by pulling from one side to
the other and it helps to draw the animal into their mouth.
And using that technique they are able to eat animals that are quite a bite
larger than the size of their head.
This animal for example could eat, could swallow something this big
around.
But some incredible humans can swallow like a python.
Meet Henri Ansel.
He can't eat a whole watermelon, but he can swallow swords.
It's not magic.
It's training.
Sword swallowers like Henri have conditioned their throats to override
the gag reflex.
And kids, don't try this at home.
Most modern record books ignore sword swallowing, for the simple reason that
it's too dangerous for publication.
But pythons would have no trouble with swords.
In fact, the biggest snakes could even swallow us.
So why would anyone want to take a python into a classroom of bite-sized
children?
Okay. Okay. Can you guys say hi to Jasmine?
Hi, Jasmine.
Paul Hahn and Dave Riherd know that Jasmine's already eaten and isn't
interested in swallowing small children.
That's because pythons have a really slow digestive system.
One big meal can last for days, even months, so these kids are in no
danger.
So what do you think, is she happy?
Yes.
But our next contender is a danger to itself, for it can literally eat
itself to death.
Number four in the countdown really does have eyes bigger than its belly.
And that's saying something, because Argentinian wide mouthed frogs have
very big bellies.
These frogs will eat anything that moves.
Usually it's a case of bite first, ask questions later.
And in the world of the wide mouthed frog, size really does matter.
These extreme gluttons invite their family around for dinner.
The only trouble is that these frogs don't know when to stop.
They'll keep stuffing food down their throat until they rip their stomach
open.
But then some people can be just as stubborn.
That's why in Ancient Rome, they found an unusual way to regain their
appetite.
If guests at a sumptuous banquet found themselves full to bursting, they'd
visit a special room in the house called the Vomitorium.
Having lightened the load, they could then return to the feast and continue
stuffing food down their throat.
A Vomitorium is exactly what a wide mouth frog needs when it discovers its
mouth just isn't wide enough.
These dedicated gluttons won't let go of a possible meal even if it's bigger
than they are.
And even if it means choking to death.
In this case, having a frog in your throat can prove fatal.
But even these kamikaze eaters are still only number four on our extreme
countdown.
It seems incredible that anything could be more greedy than frogs,
snakes and vampires.
But our next contender fits in a shoebox and burns energy five times
faster than a marathon runner.
That's coming up next on The Most Extreme.
This is a petrol station.
But it's full of sugar instead of petrol, because this is fuel for a
different kind of high performance engine.
At number three in the countdown is the hummingbird.
It may be small but it can really eat.
It has to refuel constantly because it uses an incredible amount of energy.
Its wings beat 200 times a second,
And its heart thumps 1200 times a minute.
All those muscles need fuel, and that's why they're constantly drinking
sugar water.
We'd be constantly eating too if we burned energy like a hummingbird.
Imagine what it's like to run a marathon.
You have to lift your feet about 35,000 times.
And all this extreme effort burns about 2,500 calories.
But that's nothing compared to the hummingbird.
In the two hours it would take us to run a marathon, they'd burn an amazing
14,000 calories.
That's why hummingbirds are number three in our countdown of extreme
eaters.
They have to find something to eat every 10 minutes.
It's a desperate search to find calories, which is why they spend so
long sucking sugary nectar out of flowers.
And that's why looking after these compulsive eaters can be incredibly
demanding.
Just ask Jackie Fletch and Leslie Van Epps.
Their Project Wildlife rehabilitators who devote a big part of their lives
to looking after hungry hummers.
Well, the hummingbird team actually receives over 400 hummingbirds a year
here in San Diego County.
We have six people on our team that take care of hummingbirds in their
homes.
Taking care of hummingbirds is really an intensive job.
The babies have to be fed every 30 to 45 minutes.
And if you get in injured or sick adults, they have to be fed that often
as well.
So it's a pretty intensive volunteer job.
It takes a lot of time and a lot of commitment to do that.
But again, when we make the commitment to take care of baby hummingbirds,
it's a commitment that's at least a 14-hour commitment a day.
They have to be integrated in our lives.
We have to be able to take them with us to work, to church, grocery
shopping.
We're lucky we don't give birth to such extreme gluttons.
Imagine having to feed your baby every half hour, 14 hours a day.
But the reward for all this dedication is an aviary full of healthy, hungry
hummingbirds ready for release into the wild.
But if you think these tiny gluttons are a handful, our next extreme eater
is 100 million times heavier than a hummingbird.
Whales are big.
Very big.
And that's why whales are number two in our countdown of extreme gluttony,
because big bodies means a very big appetite.
Whales are the biggest animals on the planet, and yet they eat some of the
smallest things in the sea.
Krill may be small, but there are an awful lot of them.
Countless billions can form a single swarm the size of half a football
field.
These are enormous shrimp cocktails for the right whale.
It has a mouth full of long whiskers that act like a sieve, collecting the
krill as its huge tongue squeezes out the water.
But humpback whales like eating fish.
And they've even found a way to make a fishing net out of thin air.
Far beneath a school of fish, a whale breathes out.
And as the ring of air bubbles rises, fish freak out and form a tightly
packed school.
Big mistake.
A humpback whale can swallow 45 kilos of fish in a single gulp.
But it's still not the biggest glutton in the whale world.
This is the biggest animal on earth ever.
It's a blue whale.
It's hard to comprehend just how big a blue whale is.
It would take up all the economy seats in a jumbo jet.
Its mouth is so big that 50 people could stand on a blue whale's tongue.
But the biggest whale of them all still only eats some of the smallest
creatures in the sea.
It's just that the blue whale has an incredible appetite.
In a single day, a blue whale can eat nearly 40 million krill.
That's over 1 million calories a day, which is an awful lot of hamburgers.
Two thousand burgers a day is a big serving of junk food.
Whales are such extreme gluttons because they want to get fat, really
fat.
How do you like to have a layer of blubber wrapped around your waist that
was nearly 1 meter thick?
And they need all the fat they can get, because come breeding season,
when they leave their cold feeding grounds and swim to the tropics,
whales go on the ultimate crash diet.
They stop eating for eight months.
They have to live off the energy stored in all that blubber.
And it's this enforced anorexia that leaves the way clear for the ultimate
eater on the planet.
We've seen nine contenders.
They are the best of the best.
Only one animal has a more extraordinary appetite.
It's number one, and it's coming up next on The Most Extreme.
Just imagine if you had a baby that ate as much as The Most Extreme
glutton on the planet.
Your baby would eat one thousand times its own weight in only two months.
That would be like eating the equivalent weight of three blue whales
some 300 tons of baby food.
And all that eating would make your baby grow 80 thousand times bigger.
In eight weeks, your baby would weigh more than the Statue of Liberty.
The Most Extreme glutton in the world is the caterpillar.
Millions of gardeners around the world have suffered at the mouths of hungry
caterpillars, including professional bug man Ruud Kleinpaste.
Caterpillars are basically nothing more than giant feeding machines.
If you look at their body, it consists of body fluids and a little bit of
muscles, I suppose, and through the middle is this huge gut.
And all they want to do is process vast quantities of food.
Why?
Well, simple, because they want to go through their life cycle as quickly as
possible.
I suppose that's why they make such a mess of my plantain.
But some gardeners grow plants just to satisfy the insatiable appetite of an
extraordinary caterpillar.
These caterpillars are incredibly hungry.
In their lifetime, half a kilo of baby caterpillars would chew their way
through nearly 12 tons of mulberry leaves.
But having gorged themselves, these caterpillars do something amazing with
their spit.
For these caterpillars are silk worms.
They use modified salivary glands to spin a cocoon of silk.
Each cocoon is woven from half a mile of silk.
And if we want to use it, we have to soften the cocoons, and then
painstakingly unravel the threads.
To make a silk dress, you need the thread from more than 1700 cocoons.
That means 1700 hungry caterpillars that munched their way through
hectares of mulberry plants.
So next time you're wearing a piece of dried caterpillar spit, just remember
where it came from.
The silkworm will always be more famous for the products of its
modified salivary glands.
But we should never forget that it's also the number one glutton on the
planet.
After all, when it comes to eating, the caterpillar really is The Most
Extreme.