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Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, along came the
scariest killers in the natural world.
We're counting down the top 10 most extreme predators in the animal
kingdom, and seeing what happens when the hunters become the hunted.
Discover there's always time to kill when predation is 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 count down to find the most unusual, the most extraordinary,
The Most Extreme.
For wildebeest, life on the plains of Africa can be dangerous.
Almost as dangerous as getting a drink of water.
Hiding at number 10 in the countdown is the crocodile.
It's easy to see why the crocodile is an extreme predator.
These cold blooded killers can be three times longer and ten times
heavier than the average man.
But it takes more than just great size and strength to become number 10 in
the countdown.
Crocodiles may only have a brain the size of your thumb, but they're smart
predators.
Hiding in the water waiting for your lunch to arrive may seem like a simple
hunting technique, but crocodiles have turned it into an art form.
They can spend up to a month watching and waiting, learning what happens in
their killing ground.
With eyes and nose just above the water, crocodiles do their famous
impersonation of a floating log.
But when it's time to close in for the kill, crocs disappear.
Scientists believe that crocs feel their way forward, tiptoeing slowly
towards their prey.
Crocodiles learn the contours of the bottom and can read it like a map,
which brings them up right next to their prey both in and out of the
water.
Just like crocodiles, humans have had to hunt to survive for thousands of
years.
Today, human predators hunt for different prey.
Meet Jennifer Butler.
She's swapped a spear for a credit card, and dresses in fake furs because
she doesn't hunt for food but for bargains.
Jennifer is a professional shopper in Los Angeles, California.
This makes her the ultimate urban predator because in today's world of
supermarkets and restaurants, most humans no longer have to kill to
survive.
Instead Jennifer uses all the hunting skills of her ancient ancestors to
help clients track down items in the urban jungle.
So we've got the credit card, the shoes and our shopping list.
So we're ready for the hunt.
Okay, let's go.
It seems that all predators have some skills in common.
I would say one of the most important is focus.
You know, a hunter when they're looking, first of all they know the
terrain they are walking into.
But they have the focus that's needed at that given moment to find the item.
In most hunters it might be the animal they're looking for.
For me it's the object that I'm looking for that represents the person
most effectively at the greatest value.
I have to know what's around me, so I have to have that knowledge.
Particularly in retail I need to know the stores.
I need to know them from the discount to the great designer stores.
And I need to know what my clients needs are, so I can find the best
store for them.
Now, look at this.
Fantastic.
Like crocodiles, urban predators learn their hunting grounds and patiently
search out the perfect target before making a killing.
The only difference is that when crocodiles make a purchase, there's
usually no refund.
Luckily these extreme predators don't have to hunt very often.
They really are cold blooded killers, which means a half ton croc sitting in
the sun all day uses the same amount of energy as a sparrow.
A big croc can survive a whole year on just one big dinner.
Our other contenders have to kill much more frequently, which is why the
mighty crocodile is only number 10 in the countdown.
Only one animal could rival Robin Hood, and it lives under the trees of
a very different forest in Southeast Asia.
Down in the mangrove roots there are so many fishes that sometimes food can
be hard to find.
And yet the surface can be swarming with potential prey.
The problem is, how to get it.
One fish has worked out a truly extreme solution.
The archer fish knocks its food into the water by spitting.
It's number nine in the countdown because it can squirt a jet of water
more than eight times its own body length.
That's like an average man spitting over 14 meters.
And it's better than the best baseball player at calculating where its
plummeting prey will splash down.
It needs only one tenth of a second to judge the catch, which is very
important when there are other hungry mouths waiting in the outfield.
But even the archer fish would be jealous of Lee Wheelis from Luling,
Texas.
With just one slice of watermelon Lee can become a human archer fish.
Being from Texas, I don't like to brag, but I could probably spit a
watermelon seed through a key hole at 30 paces.
My wife and I were at the competition, and she said are you going to try your
luck again this year and I said, yea I'll go try to spit the seed again.
And she said, well, you're all rested up from your cruise, you ought to be
able to do pretty good.
I thought, well, okay, we'll give it a shot.
First seed didn't hardly leave my mouth and hit the floor and she
hollered at me and said, well, now you got to do better than that.
So I put the seed in my mouth and reared back and let it fly and I lost
sight of it, couldn't tell where it landed or where it ended up.
Then everyone in the audience started saying wow, they were really getting
excited.
And it had gone past the previous record to a distance of 68 feet, 9
inches.
And then I got excited.
The secret to Lee's success lies in the way he rolls his tongue, and an
awful lot of practice.
Imagine the damage an archer fish could cause if it spat like Lee
Wheelis.
Perhaps it's lucky that watermelons don't grow in the mangrove swamps of
Southeast Asia.
We've shot past the first two contenders, but coming up, could you
escape from the clutches of the land's largest predator on The Most Extreme.
The frozen wastes of the Arctic are home to number eight in our countdown
of extreme predators.
The polar bear is one awesome killing machine.
An adult bear can weigh as much as seven men.
One swipe of its huge paw could take out prey three times its size.
But the polar bear's nose is by far its most important weapon, for in
these barren wastes finding something to kill can be difficult.
It's said that a polar bear can sniff out a seal over 30 kilometers away,
using a sense of smell 100 times better than ours.
No wonder some people call them "noses with legs."
It's even thought that a polar bear can detect a seal hiding beneath a
meter of ice.
Locating the seal is one thing.
Breaking though the ice is another.
Polar bears are only successful with about 10% of these attacks on buried
seals.
Perhaps they would have more luck if they adopted some of the latest
technology available to human hunters.
Inside this briefcase is a device that lets law enforcement officers search
buildings from the outside.
It lets them see through not ice but concrete walls.
This motion detector radar works by projecting energy beams through solid
concrete.
The frequency of the radar signal is unaffected by stone, but bounces back
off the water in a living body.
By analyzing the reflected signals, it's possible for the police to
determine the location and movement of suspects behind the walls.
A polar bear would kill for a motion detector radar, because in this frozen
land, food is hard to find, and even harder to catch.
Sometimes a polar bear can go for weeks without making a kill, so it's
no wonder that in summer this mighty predator finds a different dietary
supplement.
Plants may be easier to catch, but they're also the reason why the polar
bear's only number eight in the countdown.
We've seen bears that don't quit, fish that can spit and crocs make a hit.
But coming up, what terrifying monster created this sticky situation?
Find out next on The Most Extreme.
The next contender in our countdown of extreme predators is the ultimate
creepy crawly.
It doesn't take much imagination to work out why the spider is number
seven in the countdown.
There are more than 35,000 different spiders in the world.
All of them are predators that use one of the most remarkable hunting devices
in the animal kingdom.
Weight for weight, the silk in a spider's web can be five times as
strong as steel and can hold 4000 times its own weight.
To turn silk into a trap, an orb web spider releases a single thread into
the wind.
When the free end catches hold, the spider cinches up the silk and
attaches the thread to the starting point.
From this bridge the spider lays down the basic support structure for the
web, before finishing it off with a spiral of the sticky silk used to trap
its prey.
But one extreme spider prefers to knit a portable web.
It's easy to see how the net-casting spider gets its name.
But spiders aren't the only ones to use nets for catching their prey.
Some humans have copied the net-casting spider in the fight
against crime.
For U.S. law enforcement officers, there's a new way of bringing back
criminals alive.
Inside this cartridge fired from a standard tear gas launcher is a device
that would make Spiderman proud.
The Webshot Capture Net fires a Kevlar mesh net up to 9 meters and is
designed to control people carrying weapons other than firearms.
The aim is to bring down the suspect safely and to minimize the risks for
the arresting officer.
But travel to South America and you can find another way to use a web to
safely bring down a target from a distance.
The bolas is a weapon made by fastening two stone balls with thongs
of rawhide.
When Patagonian Indians throw the bolas, it twists around the legs of
the target bringing it down.
But one animal has been hunting with a bolas for a lot longer than humans.
In Australia, the female magnificent spider uses a bolas to catch male
moths.
Only her bolas is scented with pheromones to make it smell like a
female moth.
This is one spider that really has lunch on the fly.
Don't bother hiding from the next contender.
It can track you down even on the darkest night.
The snake slides into number six in the countdown because it's a predator
with highly sophisticated sensory equipment.
It can taste the air with its tongue, and its unblinking eyes detect the
smallest movements.
But this snake also has infrared sensors tucked into the pits along its
lips that let it see wavelengths of light that we only feel as heat.
These infrared sensors feed their information to the same part of the
brain as the eyes do.
That means the snake has the heat sensor's thermal image superimposed
over the visual image of its prey.
It's a deadly combination.
We need technology to turn night into day.
Thanks to thermal imaging cameras, now humans can see like snakes.
The heat generated by a living body stands out from the cooler, darker
surroundings.
That's why law enforcement agencies around the world have installed
thermal imaging cameras on helicopters.
Now suspects can't hide under the cover of darkness.
As any snake knows, there are huge advantages for the hunter if they can
see without being seen.
A snake may not be able to detect a criminal's concealed weapon, but there
was no hiding for this dirty rat.
This massive mouthful will take many minutes to swallow, and many days to
digest.
Which is why, despite their deadly reputation, snakes don't kill very
often, unlike the next contenders in the countdown.
Even though the snake strikes fear in the heart of millions, it's still only
number six in the countdown because coming up, prepare for the shock of
your life when you see electrifying action that can turn a day at the
beach into a real scream.
That's next on The Most Extreme.
There's something fishy about the next extreme predator in the countdown
Keep your hand out of the water.
What's wrong with the water?
Visitors to the Amazon are terrified of the stories of deadly piranha, fish
that can strip your flesh to the bone in seconds.
But there's a predator in these waters that's much scarier than piranha.
It's even scarier than this caiman crocodile.
The most frightening predator in these waterways has no teeth at all, but a
truly shocking secret.
Meet the electric eel.
Each electric shock is being generated from up to 200,000 linked
electrochemical cells that make up about four fifths of the eel's tail.
They combine to pack a punch five times stronger than sticking your
finger in a power socket.
It's more than enough to stun a caiman.
The electric eel is number five in the countdown because of the way it uses
electricity.
Low voltage pulses are used to navigate and locate fish.
The eel's high voltages are simply stunning.
It's an extreme way of hunting, so it's no wonder that it's being used to
catch both fish and criminals.
This is a Taser.
It shoots electric probes into a suspect's body and then delivers
50,000 volts of electricity.
It just locks up your body.
You feel the current all the way through and it locks up your muscles
and there's just nothing you can do.
This is a training program for the police to learn what it's like to get
hit by a Taser.
Getting hit by this extreme predator would be just as shocking.
But there is another fish that can turn a pleasant swim in the water into
a nightmare.
Life as a seal could be easy, if it wasn't for the most infamous predator
in the sea.
The shark.
The great white shark strikes from below, where a simple change of
direction can cut off all escape routes.
Powered by two tons of muscle, it's easy to get a little carried away.
Those massive jaws and razor sharp teeth are infamous, but there are
other reasons why the shark is number four in the countdown of extreme
predators.
For sharks, the vast expanse of the ocean can make finding food difficult.
But for these marine biologists, finding sharks is easy.
All you need is a dead fish and a fast boat.
Biologists are using an underwater camera rig to try to measure just how
fast a shark can swim.
And it doesn't take long for a mako shark to appear.
Sharks use their extraordinary acceleration to catch up with their
prey.
This mako was estimated to have a top speed of over 100 kilometers per hour.
Imagine if you could swim as fast as a mako shark.
At that speed you could cover the length of an Olympic swimming pool in
only 1. 7 seconds.
But there's no use swimming fast if you can't locate your food, which is
why sharks are armed with an array of sophisticated senses.
These predators have excellent eyes, ears, noses, and can even detect tiny
electrical signals from their prey.
So it's no surprise that when the U.S. military came up with the flying
equivalent of the shark, they called it The Predator.
This small, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft can be used to spy on enemy
positions, sending data back to a base over 700 kilometers away.
As machines like The Predator grow more and more sophisticated, our
bodies are starting to get in the way.
That's why scientists at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in
Ohio, are trying to connect the mind directly to the machine.
Brain actuated control systems mean that you can move the cockpit simply
by thinking about banking the flight simulator.
It's hoped that one day this system will be installed in fighter planes,
so that pilots can attack at the speed of thought.
Shark attacks also happen at great speed.
It's just that they don't happen very often.
For despite their bad reputation, sharks can go for weeks without making
a kill, which is why they're only number four in the countdown.
So far we've been scared by sharks, shocked by eels and struck by snakes.
But coming up, discover why some people fear the leader of the pack.
That's next on The Most Extreme.
The wolf is definitely the leader of the pack.
A wolf can run twice as fast as an Olympic sprinter and is strong enough
to bring down animals more than eight times its own weight.
The reason the wolf is number three in the countdown is because these killers
work as a team.
Once the pack has singled out a victim, they run it down, using their
numbers to attack from all sides.
Hunting together lets the pack bring down bigger animals than a single wolf
could hope to kill on its own.
Even so, it's estimated that only one out of ten attacks is successful.
That's why wolves really know how to wolf down their food.
In a single meal one wolf can swallow the equivalent of 88 hamburgers.
The wolf pack is such an efficient hunting unit that it's no wonder it
inspired a different group of hunters.
In the past, Native Americans saw wolves as teachers.
They sought to emulate the way wolf families worked together, and copied
the wolf's alertness when hunting.
But it was inspiration from another fighting animal that gave rise to a
new nation in Africa at the end of the 18th century.
Shaka, king of the Zulu empire used a revolutionary new fighting tactic
based on the most important animal in the tribe, the bull.
When approaching an enemy position, Shaka would first send out the horns,
the fastest warriors to surround the enemy.
Then in went the chest, the veteran fighters leading the frontal attack.
The loins were kept in reserve and sent in to secure the kill.
Working together as a team has obvious benefits, for both humans and wolves.
The wolf pack is an extremely effective hunting unit, killing at
least once a week.
But they're no match for our next contender, for there's another pack of
extreme predators that have been called the wolves of the sea.
Don't let the fin fool you.
Number two in the countdown eats sharks for breakfast.
And he is an extreme predator.
It's hard to comprehend just how big and how strong the so-called killer
whale really is.
Try to imagine an animal the size of an elephant that can swim six times
faster than an Olympic swimmer.
A pod of Orca work like a wolf pack, and can basically kill anything in the
sea from great white sharks to tiny sting rays.
As the largest member of the dolphin family, Orca have one of the biggest
brains in the animal kingdom.
So they've been able to work out how to avoid that venomous sting.
But Orca are not natural born killers.
It takes many years to perfect their hunting skills.
A mother must train her calf to become a killer.
Off the coast of South America, these predators have even learned to boldly
go where no whale has gone before.
Orca are number two in the countdown because not even these creatures on
land are safe from those massive jaws.
Despite their ferocious reputation, there are no records of killer whales
ever attacking a human.
To catch a human requires a very different set of skills.
Los Angeles based private investigator Tom Barnes knows that locating humans
that don't want to be found means spending more time in front of a
computer than behind the wheel of a fast car.
Like any predatory animal, finding your prey is half the battle.
And that's where modern technology makes the job much easier.
Global positioning systems make it relatively simple to track a suspect
from afar.
Tom can enhance his hearing with parabolic microphones; his eyes with
thermal imaging devices, and his memory with the most commonly used
tool in the trade, the camcorder.
Being a private investigator may look easy, but don't be fooled.
To successfully make a catch in this business requires more than just
patience.
Being a private investigator is being like a good fisherman.
You got to know where to fish, you have to know when to fish, you have to
know what kind of bait to use and you got to know how to reel them in.
Nothing can beat the Orca when it comes to catching fish, but even this
massive predator can't compete with an animal that has to kill every two
hours or die.
We've seen the nine contenders.
They're the best of the best.
Only one animal is a more extreme killing machine.
It's number one, and it's coming up next on The Most Extreme.
No other animal has to kill so often.
Shrews may be the smallest mammals on earth, but they have a massive
appetite.
Armed with poisonous saliva, they can paralyze prey even if it's 20 times
their size.
A keen sense of smell and a bunch of whiskers help them find their way to
the kill.
Shrews are constantly hunting because they have to consume at least their
own body weight in food each day to fuel their incredibly fast metabolism.
The heart of an elephant shrew beats nine times faster than a humans.
That's an incredible 600 times a minute as it races around looking for
food.
In comparison, an elephant's heart beats on an average only 25 times a
minute.
Given the shrew's frantic lifestyle, it's no surprise that it needs vast
amounts of energy to survive.
Weight for weight, a shrew burns through 100 times more oxygen than an
elephant because a lot of energy goes into just staying warm.
If a shrew died it would cool down in minutes, because it quickly loses heat
over its relatively huge surface area.
Compare that to a dead elephant that might take days to cool down.
To put it another way, if a shrew had the slow metabolic rate of an
elephant, it would need fur nearly a meter thick to keep warm.
But the shrew doesn't have big fur, it has a big appetite to power its
extraordinary metabolism.
One kind of shrew has to eat up to three times its own weight in food
every 24 hours.
That means to keep pace, an adult human would have to eat 1920
hamburgers each day.
The only way the shrew can get all the calories it needs to survive is to be
the busiest hunter in the world.
Don't let its tiny size fool you.
For when it comes to predation, the shrew really is The Most Extreme.