The Wild Episode

The Emperor Scorpion (Pandinus imperator) is one of the biggest, most impressive and fearsome-looking scorpions in the world. So why is it described online as '... very good with children ...'?

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To fill an unanticipated, COVID-related gap in the schedule, this is a rebroadcast of an episode from the first year of the podcast - one that mysteriously became unavailable in the podcast feed a wh…

The Pig-Nosed Turtle of New Guinea and northern Australia really does have a pig-like nose. But this is one of the most unusual, distinctive turtles in the world, so there's a whole lot more going on…

Fenyes's strepsipteran (Caenocholax fenyesi) is one of the most extraordinary insects in the world. A parasitoid living a deeply strange life - twice over, in fact, since males and females both get u…

The Tri-spine Horseshoe Crab (Tachypleus tridentatus) is one of four living horseshoe crab species (probably, marginally, the biggest). Animals that have survived, superficially very little changed, …

Colugos (often called, entirely inaccurately, flying lemurs) - there are two officially recognised species at the moment - are more dramatically and completely adapted to gliding than any other mamma…

First in a series of listener-suggested shows! The Wasp Mantidfly (Climaciella brunnea) is a stunning little insect with some amazing stuff going on. Mimicry, convergent evolution, phoresy, egg preda…

The Great Slaty Woodpecker (Mulleripicus pulverulentus) is probably the biggest woodpecker in the world. A spectacular inhabitant of Asian forests that's haunted, perhaps, by the ghosts of two even b…

The Greater Argonaut (Argonauta argo) is a very unusual octopus, that travels the oceans in an exquisite papery case. And many of its secrets were uncovered by a very unusual (for her time) woman - t…

The Stoplight Loosejaw (Malacosteus niger) is a pretty extraordinary fish: a jet-black denizen of the twilight zone, armed with some of the strangest and most spectacular jaws in the animal kingdom a…

The Giant Hummingbird (Patagona gigas) is, by a long way, the biggest hummingbird in the world. It's about twice the size of the next biggest hummingbird - the most extreme version of a kind of anima…

The African Death's-Head Hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos) is a big, striking moth loaded with grim symbolism and superstition. But we're mostly interested in its very unusual vocal abilities, its very u…

The Armadillo Lizard has a fantastic scientific name - Ouroborus cataphractus - which connects it to ancient mystical symbolism and ancient heavy cavalry. In fact, it shows that in Nature, everything…

The Nemertean egg predator Carcinonemertes errans may be the most patient, persistent and committed predator ever covered on the podcast. A tiny marine worm that lives, in huge numbers, only on the e…

The Black-Headed Duck is the only duck that's a brood parasite: it lays its eggs in the nests of other species. But unlike every other bird in the world that does this, it causes its host species neg…

The Orca (Orcinus orca) is one of the most famous animals on the planet - but there is some very unusual and kind of mysterious stuff going on with orcas, and a lot of it may be connected to their as…

The Rakali, aka the Australian Water-Rat, (Hydromys chrysogaster) is a pretty remarkable rodent. A carnivorous, semi-aquatic rodent that's native to Australia: a bit like the Australian version of an…

The Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake (Hydrophis platurus) is probably the most widespread snake in the world and, arguably, the most marine of all living marine reptiles. It has cut all ties with the land, a…

Electric eels (three species, in the genus Electrophorus) are famous animals, and have been for centuries. That doesn't mean they've given up all their secrets to science, though: recent research has…

The European Beewolf (Philanthus triangulum) is a big, striking wasp. A specialist predator of honeybees, with many tricks up its sleeve: chemical and biological warfare tricks, including symbiotic b…