Original subtitles

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" Nothing

makes the hair on your neck stand up

like the thought of a spider crawling up your back.

Trust me, I know.

I've been there many times in an attempt

to demonstrate that spiders are not out to get us.

Worldwide, there are more than 45,000 spider species.

They come in many shapes, sizes, and every single one

of these eight-legged arachnids is considered venomous.

I can sense your arachnophobia meter climbing by the second,

but if you live in the United States, I have some good news.

Aside from the black widow and the brown recluse,

there isn't a single spider species that is

considered dangerous to humans.

Hold up, wait.

Coyote, aren't you forgetting about the tarantula,

that giant hair-covered thing-wielding

desert-roaming nightmare?

Those spiders are huge, like, Hollywood movie huge.

And did we mention the hairy part?

Are you telling us that these spiders are harmless?

For the most part, yes.

To prove it, on this adventure, we

are heading out into the starlit desert of Arizona

to get hands-on with one of these supposed nightmares.

People who live in the Southwest are typically

used to seeing tarantulas, and if you love spiders

enough to desire seeing one yourself,

there's a good chance you will spot one skittering

across the parched rocky substrate

if you head out for a night hike.

Yes?

That is a huge wash.

Well, this is going to make walking a lot easier.

All these embankments, here let's check this out.

It's like walking on the moon.

Yeah, this is great.

So something like this, the sand is really dense.

It'll be hard for us to walk on.

It's thinner towards these edges,

but all these embankments are going to be areas where animals

are traveling up and down.

They can go up into the underbrush,

and they can use this little ridge line right

here to move from spot to spot.

What do you think?

Which direction you want to go?

That way or this way?

go that way. - This way?

Yeah.

All right, let's do it.

When the rains pour down, we're talking hundreds of thousands,

probably millions of gallons of water

all converges down into a riverbed like this,

and the water can be 10 feet high just

ripping through the desert.

And that water all soaks back down into the sand incredibly

quickly.

So it completely reshapes the landscape

every time there's a monsoon rain that pushes through.

But for us, this is perfect.

Far fewer cacti, and better opportunities

to quickly move through the environment to find animals.

All right, Mario, let's head this way.

Check this out, got a tarantula.

Tarantula.

Good size one, too.

Look at this.

Oh, it's on to us.

Mario, come up slow.

It's really close to this underbrush.

I want to take a look at it.

I'm going to have to gently coax it back out into the open.

Do you see it?

Come up slow, it's, like, right in front of you here.

You look at a spider like this and immediately

you think, oh, arachnophobia.

I'm terrified of whatever this is.

Oops, he's getting up into the weeds.

Back out.

This is very cool.

I was hoping we would come across a tarantula tonight.

All right, buddy.

Let's bring you down this way.

OK.

There we go.

There we go.

Oh, don't go into there.

That's where I don't want you to go.

Let's come out of this.

I want you right out in the open.

There we go.

There we go.

OK.

So that right there is a desert blonde tarantula.

And you may be thinking to yourself,

this is a living arachnophobic nightmare,

but whoo, you almost ran right up onto my face.

All it wants to do right now is get away.

There we go.

Now if I let it walk from hand to hand, there we go.

Look at that.

That is one big spider, one of the most

common spider species you will see out here in the Southwest.

When it comes to defenses, this spider's

armed with very large fangs, but not a very potent bite.

Actually, what's more potent are these little hairs

on the back of the abdomen.

And when they feel very threatened, what they will do

is use their hind legs to flick off some of those hairs.

They're called urticating hairs.

And if those get into your eyes or into your nose,

they're very, very itchy.

They'll burn your eyes, they'll burn your nose.

So any predator that comes into the environment

says, oh, this looks like a good snack.

You get a face full of those hairs, trust me.

It is not going to be a comfortable situation.

When it comes to this being an animal

that you need to be afraid of, it may look hairy

and may be covered in fur and it may be armed with fangs,

but this is one of the most docile

creatures you can come across.

And these spiders simply just want

to navigate the desert looking for things to feast upon.

And when it comes to the toxicity of the venom,

a bite is no more potent than that of a honeybee sting.

And the odds of you ever being bitten by a tarantula

are slim to none.

They use the bite as an absolute last defense,

and usually only in an instance when they feel as if they

are going to get squished.

So letting the spider just slowly

walk from hand to hand like this is completely safe.

Now I would not recommend that you ever come out

into the desert and pick up one of these tarantulas,

but oftentimes, people have them in captivity

and they're used to help people get over their fear of spiders,

to help cure arachnophobia.

Because you can see, once it's on your hands

and moving slowly, it's actually a very cool,

very calm experience.

Now despite the fact that this is a very large spider,

it's rather creepy-looking with all those hairs.

On a scale of 1 to 5, when we're talking about dangerous

or potentially deadly desert dwellers,

this tarantula only ranks as a 1.

Very cool, definitely one of the creepy

crawlies I hoped we would come across tonight.

See you later, big guy.

The Coyote Pack has been witness to me performing

a number of dangerous wilderness stunts,

and it's responsible to say that holding a tarantula

poses risks.

These spiders can, and will, bite if they feel threatened.

So while their venom is not lethally toxic,

it's definitely not something you want to experience.

If you see a tarantula in the wild, it's OK to get close,

but it's always best to admire these spiders naturally

without trying to pick them up.

Our planet is teeming with life, whether on land,

deep in the water, or above us in the air.

Many of the creatures that we have come across

on our adventures often feel like long-lost friends,

but there are some encounters that are so slimy, so bizarre,

and so strange that I just can't help

but wonder if these animals are actually aliens.

Today, we are going to count down the top five

most alien-looking creatures we have featured on the Brave

Wilderness Channel.

But before we begin, let's take a look

at some of the otherworldly moments

that didn't quite make the cut.

I don't even know what to say about this.

It's like the combination of a sea

urchin, a sea star, an octopus.

It's like many things all at once.

But on the underside, look at that.

It looks just like a scorpion or a spider.

This camouflage is incredible.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" That is amazing.

OK, look at how he can almost morph

the shape of his body to fit all of these little plants.

And these guys have an incredible defensive posture.

Look at that.

They will not back down, that is for sure.

It kind of looks like a caterpillar.

It has a bunch of spikes on it.

Now on the underside right there in the middle,

that's its mouth.

But it's also its butt.

Many of the animals we seek are quite elusive,

and one order in particular, the Yura Della,

is always a challenge to get up close for the cameras.

These creatures are better known as salamanders,

and we've even entered dark spider-ridden caves

just to get a glimpse of them.

Look, look, look, right here climbing

up the side of those rocks.

That is a cave salamander, you see it?

Other species have required us to travel around

the world to find and feature.

It kind of looks like a caterpillar.

One salamander specifically was so strange

and so unlike any salamander I had seen before that I actually

misidentified it as an eel.

Coming in at number 5 is the slimy

crayfish-hunting amphibian known as the Amphiuma.

Not too much.

Oh guys, an eel, eel.

He got something?

I got it, I got it, I got it. What do you got?

It's an eel.

It's right in the bottom of the net.

Wow.

That is so cool. Here.

All I can see is mud.

Point your camera-- no, no, no, look.

There's spots right there.

Whoa.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" PETERSON: It's filling, like,

the entire bottom of the net.

Look at that.

Wow.

He's not being too, too crazy.

Whoops, there, it's starting to move.

Look at that.

Nice.

Actually, that's not an eel.

What, what is it, a catfish?

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" PETERSON: No.

Dear Mario?

Yeah.

I think this is an "Amphinya."

Is that how you say it?

Amphiuma. - Amphiuma.

Amphiuma. Let me see it.

Dude, I don't think this is an eel at all.

Look at this.

Oh, yeah, dude, that's totally an Amphiuma.

- Is it really? - Yeah.

No, way. OK, guys.

This is not an eel.

What is it?

It's actually a huge salamander.

Yeah, I got this little bucket of water.

yeah, yeah, let's get in here.

And back up a little bit further.

Oh, oh.

That's an Amphiuma.

Holy cow.

Come here, buddy.

I do want to be careful because they can

give you a pretty nasty bite.

Wow.

Now you're going to give me the name of this one more time.

What is it called?

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" It is an Amphiuma.

Amphiuma.

All right, let me see if I can--

Whoa, whoa. - Hold on.

Hold on, hold on.

OK, just let it hang out for a second.

That's actually good.

We want it to do just that. It's walking.

It walks?

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" It does.

It has small vestigial legs, and what it'll actually try to do

is burrow down.

We don't want that to happen.

Come here, buddy.

Let me bring him back up.

All right, Look at that.

Look at the pointy nature of its snout.

Now these things are incredibly good at burrowing

down into the mud and the muck.

Now different from some salamander species,

these salamanders actually have fully-developed lungs

and they can stay out of the water for a considerable amount

of time.

Look at that, you can actually see it taking breaths of air

right there.

Up next on our list is an animal that we just

couldn't skip over, an alien-looking master

of camouflage, the frog fish.

Wow, I hope you guys are ready for this.

Here comes the frog fish.

Wow.

Have you ever seen a fish this bizarre?

Now this animal is a voracious carnivore,

which means that they will eat anything

that comes across their path.

They're ambush hunters, right?

So they'll sit there, lie in wait

for an unsuspecting prey item to come across their mouth.

Their mouths can actually open 12 times the size of what you

see on the front of their face, and they can swallow food

almost as large as they are.

Now if waiting for your food to come along doesn't work,

they have three distinct spines on their dorsal ridge.

And the one up front is actually used as a lure

to draw in fish or small shrimp.

Anything that comes in front of the animal is fair game.

Whoa, what did I see on its fin there?

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" Where?

Oh, I see, like, it's like a kind of like an octopus jet

behind its fin.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" PETERSON: Yeah, you see that?

That's located on the back of the pelvic fins there,

and they can actually force water through those openings

to give themselves a jet propulsion of speed

if they need to quickly get away.

Believe it or not, we caught a more bizarre-looking

and even bigger frog fish.

Are you guys ready to see that?

I think we're ready.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" Now the reason

we really wanted to get this one up close for the cameras is,

look how much this animal looks like a head of coral.

It even has little tubulars growing off of its skin.

It's crazy.

It's perfectly camouflaged, almost

impossible to see when this is beneath the ocean's surface.

So it's safe to say this fish isn't trying to stand out.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" PETERSON: No.

This fish is trying to blend in at all costs.

His entire life relies on being camouflaged.

So many of our ocean's creatures appear

alien because they are adapted to spending their lives

in aqueous environments.

Next on our countdown is something

a little more nightmarish.

It's smelly, it looks like a combination between a scorpion,

centipede, and a water bug, and it almost crawled into my ear.

Slinking in as our number three alien,

get ready to meet the hellgrammite.

No, nothing.

Oh.

What is it?

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" PETERSON: There's one right here.

What?

What is it?

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" There it is.

Ahh.

Oh, gross.

Ah, I got it.

Ah, ah, ah, oh, it's trying to bite me.

Oh.

There it is.

What is that?

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" PETERSON: It's a hellgrammite.

Oh, mackerel, that's a big one, too.

Wow, all right, guys.

Well, if you remember an Instagram

post I made a few weeks ago of a creature that looks--

Oh, it's biting me.

OK, they do bite.

There you have it, everybody want to know, do they bite?

Yes, they do bite.

It is latched onto my finger right now.

Oh, that hurts, but it's not breaking skin.

That's-- oh, ah, ooo, it's got a hold of me.

Now the hellgrammite is actually the larva

stage of the Dobsonfly.

It's about as wicked-looking as this thing

is, only with big wings and enormous front mandibles.

However, those mandibles aren't strong enough to pinch and bite

onto anything.

Now if the bite isn't enough, what they will also do to deter

a predator is squirt a nasty-smelling musk from

their rear end, and it actually smells just like human feces,

and--

Eew, what?

It smells like--

Ugh, like poop, exactly like poop.

And it has already squirted musk all over my finger.

Oh, it absolutely stinks.

There.

Look at that.

Oh, wow.

That is so bizarre.

I don't know how you're leaving it on.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" Oh, it's an alien.

What did I tell you?

It's like a night-- a living nightmare, look at that.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have

one of these things crawl into your ear?

It's going to eat your brain.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Ow.

Ooo, that actually really hurts.

Oh, ooo, ooo, ooo.

Looks pretty good, dude.

I think it's actually poked a hole in my ear.

Ah.

What do you guys think?

Hellgrammite earrings?

Could this be the new look?

No, no.

Is it dangling down from my ear?

Oh, yeah.

Ah.

I found one hellgrammite, and then I kept flipping over rocks

and I found 25 hellgrammites.

Dude.

So what I challenge you to do right now

is put your hand into this bowl and see if you

get bitten by a hellgrammite.

I'm Director Mark, and I'm about to enter the bite zone.

25 hellgrammites, all right?

I can't watch this.

Put your hand in there, come on.

One, two, three.

Get right in there.

Oh, it's so creepy.

Putting them all on you there.

Oh, they're pooping on you.

Oh, I just got bit.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Oh, there's another one.

Ah.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" Imagine

yourself falling into a swimming pool filled with hellgrammites.

If you think 25 of them are creepy, try to picture 25,000.

OK, maybe that's not such a good idea.

In at number two, and even stranger than its cousin

the black sea hare, let's give an ink-spewing standing

ovation for the brown sea hare.

Oh, whoa, check this out.

Ho.

If you thought the banana slug was big, look at that.

Oh, what is that?

That is a sea hare, also known as a sea slug.

And boy, is this thing slimy.

Oh, here's another one.

Look at that.

Two right next to each other.

Whoa.

Handful of sea slugs.

Here, give me the container.

Yeah, here, hold on a second.

This will be much easier for us to see them like this.

It's like a big organ.

Look at that.

Wow.

This is the California brown sea hare,

and the reason that they're called sea hares

is can you see these tentacles up front there?

Kind of looks like the ears of a rabbit.

These slugs don't really have many predators at all.

One defense that they do have, though, just in case

something does try to eat it, is the ability to ink,

just like an octopus.

If it gets agitated, it will excrete

this nasty-looking purple substance

allowing them to then slink down into the rocks and disappear.

And I want to show that to you guys

real quick before we let them go.

This isn't going to injure the animal in any way whatsoever.

And the ink is actually a byproduct of the kelp

that they are eating.

That's what gives it this purple pigmentation.

Look at that.

Oh, I'm getting totally stained right now.

OK, I'm going to put the slug back into the container,

and let's see what that looks like.

There you go.

Now that is what they will do to create

confusion for any potential predator

that's trying to eat it.

And as you can see, the slug is just fine,

still have ink coming out of the back of its parapodia.

Look at that.

Oop, there it goes again.

You see that?

Wow, that's crazy-looking.

Look, like little bubbles floating up.

Look at all this slime.

That's not water, that is slime.

Look at that running down my hand.

Can you see that?

Oh, it is all slimy.

That is crazy.

Wow.

Well, if our number two animal wasn't alien enough with its

perfectly-designed camouflage--

gooey slime and purple ink--

our number one creature might just

be enough to make you believe that our planet is

crawling with aliens.

Mario.

Yeah?

Come look what I found.

What?

What'd you get?

I've got a giant onychophora, the rare one.

What?

Oh, man.

Right here on this rock.

What do we do?

Coyote's not even here.

What do we do, just film it?

Well, certainly we have to film it.

I've got a container in my backpack.

We could contain it, take it back to the lodge,

have Coyote check it out and we get some great B-roll shots.

We'll bring it back.

Yeah, we'll bring it right back after,

and it'll be awesome.

Dude.

Great find, dude.

Coyote?

Coyote?

Trying to find you.

NATHANIEL "COYOTE" Yeah, maybe.

Maybe? Show him.

Check out what Mark found.

Show him.

Get out of here. We found--

You're kidding me.

We found it on the rock, like, four paces

where we found the brown one.

Yeah, get out of here.

I cannot believe that.

Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

I can't believe you found onychophora.

This is insane.

Whoa, this is crazy.

Whoa, you are looking at the velvet worm, quite possibly

the rarest creature you can come across

in the Costa Rican rainforest.

This creature's ancestors date back 500 million years

to the Cambrian period.

That is before the time of the dinosaurs.

They are actually capable of shedding the outer layer

of skin around once a month just like a snake,

and when they do shed that, they basically

walk out of the skin--

similar to the way a snake slithers out of its skin--

and then they're even softer and more brilliantly bright.

Now despite the fact that this creature is

actually kind of cute, believe it or not,

it is a voracious predator.

And the way that they hunt is they

slowly move through the rainforest floor foraging

amongst leaves and dead logs, and they'll

use those to front sensory organs to kind of tap

on their prey.

And as soon as they sense something to eat,

they shoot out a sticky slime.

And it is so incredibly strong that it can

immediately pin the prey down.

And they have a little mouth up front.

Inside that mouth is a single tooth

that is like a razor blade.

They insert that tooth into their victim

and then they leak in saliva, and it slowly breaks down

the insides of their prey and they drink

it up just like a milkshake.

Wow.

The funny thing about the velvet worm,

which actually isn't a worm at all,

is that it is one of the first terrestrial species

to walk the planet.

So in a sense, I guess we could consider it an ancient alien.

I hope you all enjoyed this look back

at some of our favorite alien encounters,

and we can't wait to discover more creatures like these

on our upcoming adventures.