Original subtitles

Narrator: Is this fur seal using an octopus as a weapon?

Whoa. [ chuckles ]

Octopus to the face.

It's like a battle of the beasts.

It's seal versus octopus...

Ah! ...Versus kayaker.

Narrator: Is something sinister happening in the insect world?

Is the moth drinking the bird's blood?

Narrator: And why is this unusual creature

Leaping out of the irish sea?

Oh, okay. That is the first time I've ever seen that.

♪

Narrator: Nature is awe-inspiring,

But sometimes it just doesn't make sense.

Man: I have never seen anything like this.

Our team of experts investigates the weirdest animal behavior...

That's amazing.

...And the most unexpected events...

What is causing that?

...Ever caught on camera.

My god!

These are...

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

September 22, 2018, kaikoura, new zealand.

Kayakers are enjoying the calm waters of the pacific

When suddenly, like a bolt from the blue,

A fur seal slaps one of them in the face with an octopus.

Oh, smack.

Octopus to the face.

Oh!

[ chuckling ] whoa. That's crazy.

It's an incredible bit of footage.

I've never seen anything like it.

Whoa!

What on earth is going on?

Narrator: To find out what prompted this bizarre incident,

We need to know more about this playful prankster.

♪

The new zealand fur seal, like the 33 other seal species,

Is a very agile swimmer.

♪

It's also a social and highly intelligent creature,

Which begs the question...

Why did this seal throw an octopus

At this unsuspecting kayaker?

♪

Aryee: You could say that this fur seal is playing.

It wouldn't be far-fetched to suggest that at all,

And play, to me, is synonymous with intelligence.

♪

Nosal: Dolphins have also been observed

Throwing fish up into the air,

Which seems like they're playing a game of catch.

Narrator: Just like us, dolphins use play to hone their skills

And create bonds with members of their group.

♪

Aryee: Dolphins are highly intelligent.

They have complex social interactions, and they do play.

Play is a method of learning,

Passing on information from one dolphin to another.

♪

Narrator: And seals are often seen

Exhibiting the same behavior.

Baker: So it is possible that what you're seeing

Is an animal playing with its food.

Narrator: But would a fur seal make a toy out of an octopus?

It seems unlikely because this sort of playing behavior

Has never been documented before.

Seals have to hunt.

That takes a lot of energy,

And most likely, they're hunting for a reason.

They have a plan to consume their prey.

Narrator: It turns out mollusks, like octopus,

Are a preferred prey of fur seals

And account for around a third of their diet,

But they do make for a pretty difficult snack.

They are sticky things.

You know, they will grasp and flail around,

And they can irritate.

Galante: Could it be that in this case,

The seal is making this octopus an example,

Using it as a teaching moment for its offspring.

♪

Baker: If you're a predator, it's quite a common thing

To show younger animals the techniques

Required to dispatch a tricky meal.

Narrator: Another mammal who does just this

Is the mighty meerkat.

Unafraid of even the most perilous prey,

They'll teach their young using a step-by-step process.

Galante: Baby meerkats will get presented

By their parents with a dead scorpion.

As they become a little bit older,

The parents will bring them

An injured scorpion with no stinger,

And then as they get older still,

The parents will bring them

An injured scorpion with its stinger.

So finally, by the time the meerkats reach adulthood,

They're ready to take on

Their very own wild, fully formed scorpions.

Narrator: So could the fur seal also be using nature's classroom

To give its young hunting lessons?

That doesn't seem likely. It's not teaching itself.

It's not teaching another seal.

It's not learning from another seal

Because there's just one seal -- one seal, one octopus.

There's an octopus on my boat.

So I think that there's something else going on here.

Narrator: All the evidence suggests the first seal

Is using the kayaker as a tool to help it consume the octopus,

But it's not an easy task.

The first trick is finding them.

Octopus have extraordinary camouflage abilities,

And they can hide in the smallest of spaces.

Even after finding and catching them,

There's still more work to do.

What you see this seal doing is actually tenderizing his meal.

An octopus is basically a giant muscle,

And it's tough as can be.

So in order to easily consume such a thing,

It has to get softer.

Narrator: However, it's not just the texture

Of the octopus that's the problem.

It's worth bearing in mind that octopus,

They are quite a dangerous meal.

After all, this is a big mollusk.

Mollusks are famously difficult to kill.

Galante: If you're eating an octopus,

You have to be very careful.

Narrator: That's because their limbs

Can make for a risky encounter.

Galante: They have eight arms covered in suction cups

That can suffocate or asphyxiate you.

Narrator: Worse still, each arm has its own brain,

Which means each arm can continue to fight back

For up to an hour after being torn from the body.

Even when an octopus' arm is severed,

It can continue to move autonomously.

Nosal: Those suckers can actually latch on

To the inside of the digestive system

As the seal is trying to swallow it,

And remember that seals are like us.

They're breathing air through their esophagus,

Through their nose,

And if that airway is clogged, they could actually suffocate.

This octopus can potentially kill this seal.

Narrator: So the seal has to be certain

Every part of the octopus is toast before eating it.

This is really important if your potential prey

Has a really good defense mechanism.

Narrator: And prior to the face slap,

The seal had been spotted wrestling with the octopus.

We could see a seal continually bashing

And slapping this octopus on the surface of the water.

Narrator: But it'll take more than a few splashes to dispatch

This sticky customer.

So often with tricky prey items,

Watch a heron with an eel, for example,

Or a kingfisher with a particularly lively minnow,

You have to beat that thing against a hard object.

Nosal: So these animals, they know what they're doing.

They have realized that you need to chuck around your food,

Make sure it's safe to eat.

Narrator: And in the case of our fur seal...

[ camera shutter clicking ]

...It was looking for the means of maximum impact.

If a rock was nearby, it might have slammed it

Against the rock, but it wasn't.

The kayaker was nearby.

The seal got him.

That kayak is a harder surface,

So it went to hit that octopus on there.

Narrator: But instead, it ended up tossing the octopus

Straight into the kayaker's kisser.

I don't think it was intentionally trying to slap

That man in the face with an octopus.

Narrator: It was simply doing whatever was necessary

To make the octopus lunch.

♪

November 2017, codajas, brazil.

Footage shot in the amazon rainforest shows a bird

And a moth engaged in a bizarre activity.

A moth hovers purposefully behind the head of an antbird,

Pecking at its eye, but what is it doing?

It seems a bit of a strange one.

So what on earth is going on?

♪

♪

Narrator: In the amazon rainforest,

A moth and an antbird are recorded

Engaging in a mysterious interspecies activity.

The sight of a moth on the back of an antbird

Pecking at the eyeball of the bird

Seems a bit of a strange one.

So what on earth is going on?

♪

Greive: Are we witnessing an example of mutualism

Where two species provide services to help the other?

Narrator: Mutualism is a phenomenon found

All over the animal kingdom

From little fish that clean the parasites off big fish

To birds cleaning the parasites off water buffalo.

Daly: So one theory is that the moths

Could actually be cleaning the ticks off the bird.

♪

Narrator: Antbirds get their name from the fact

That they scavenge from army ants.

Other birds, like this crow,

Will enlist ants for an entirely different purpose.

Birds undertake a unusual behavior called anting

Where they actually lie on top of an ant nest

And/or run their wing feathers over it

In order to attract attention from the ants,

Sometimes even getting bitten.

Narrator: Formic acid that the ants spray in defense

Acts as an antiparasite spray on the birds' feathers.

The net result is ant secretions force

Other parasites to leave the birds' feathers.

Narrator: Could the antbird also be enlisting

This species of moth, gorgone macarea,

To help rid it of parasites?

In this case, it's very unlikely as the moths

Don't secrete any insect repellent.

Narrator: With no shared benefit,

Mutualism is ruled out.

So could something more sinister be going on?

There's also a somewhat more macabre theory --

Is the moth drinking the bird's blood?

Not an absurd theory.

A number of animals are known to drink blood --

Ticks, mites, mosquitoes,

Even a species of bird in the galapagos.

Narrator: The vampire finch sucks the blood of other birds.

It has to tread fine line

Between breaking the skin of its host to make it bleed

And not causing so much pain that it flies away.

Of course, mosquitoes, much like the one

Already feasting on the antbird in this clip,

Are the most famous bloodsucking insects,

And there is a very aptly named moth species

Who is also on a crimson crusade.

There are vampire moths.

There are sanguivorous moths

That will penetrate their prey with its sharp proboscis

And suck on its blood for up to an hour.

♪

Narrator: But our moth is drinking

From the eye of the bird, not from the skin.

Daly: In this case, the moth looks like

It's drinking clear liquid and not blood.

So what's going on?

Narrator: It turns out that the moth is drinking

The bird's tears, and for a very special reason.

What the moth really wants is salt, specifically sodium.

Now, sodium is essential to all living things.

Without it, we have no muscular or nervous performance,

And moths specifically need it to reproduce.

And when there is insufficient sodium in their environment,

They have to get it from other sources.

Narrator: Moths and butterflies can find sodium

By mud puddling,

Where the insects will alight on wet soil

Or dung to suck up the salts they need.

♪

Yet the tears of other animals

Are often more readily available.

It's not just moths that siphon the tears from other animals.

Bees have been known to drink crocodile tears,

And butterflies actually have been known

To drink the tears of turtles.

♪

Narrator: Bringing us the answer

To the mystery of the bird-sucking moth.

Daly: That's what you're seeing here.

The moths are actually drinking the tears of the bird,

Which contain that sodium

And contain the nutrients that they need for reproduction.

Narrator: As peculiar as this seems, it turns out tears

Are the salty snack of the animal kingdom.

♪

September 22, 2015, malin head, donegal, ireland.

A normally sedate but massive creature crashes

Through the surface of the atlantic ocean.

Okay.

That is the first time I've ever seen that.

This footage is incredibly dramatic.

This is a very big animal that's leaping clean out of the water.

Nelson: They almost look like humpback whales coming out,

Breaching out of the water and falling back.

Narrator: But this is no whale.

That's a huge shark.

Narrator: And not the kind of shark

You'd expect to leap out of the water.

Burke: What gets really interesting about it

Is when you identify what species of shark this is.

Nelson: It kind of makes sense for a great white,

But for a basking shark, it makes no sense.

♪

♪

Narrator: September 22, 2015, malin head, ireland.

Basking sharks are seen repeatedly

Leaping out of the water,

A totally unexpected behavior from a usually docile creature.

Nelson: For any animal that's 6,000 pounds

To propel themselves out of the water seems unusual.

Narrator: To get to the bottom of this mystery,

We need to know more about this fishy colossus.

♪

Basking sharks inhabit many of the world's oceans.

♪

The basking shark is the second biggest fish on the planet

Just after the whale shark,

And it's one of the gentle giants of the ocean.

♪

26 feet long is not uncommon for a basking shark.

That's big, but they're slow-moving, generally.

Burke: They usually just cruise around

At a gentle sort of two miles per hour.

Narrator: And it's that gentle nature that makes breaching,

The term for when animals break the water's surface,

So surprising.

To see them moving at these speeds

Is really quite extraordinary.

You have to ask, "why would they expend that kind of energy

To breach?"

Nelson: I mean, they are called basking sharks.

If this was something they were seen all the time doing,

They might be called breaching sharks, but they're not.

So why are they jumping out of the water?

Narrator: Could they have developed

Their breaching behavior to find food?

If so, they're not alone.

The first predator that springs to mind when you think

About breaching is, of course, the great white shark.

♪

Now, the great white shark can reach speeds

Of up to 40 miles an hour

And launch itself 10 feet up in the air.

♪

Breaching expends a huge amount of energy

For great white sharks, but it's needed.

It's important for them to have a successful hunt

In catching their more agile prey like seals and sea lions.

Nelson: So it makes you wonder,

Maybe basking sharks are doing something similar.

♪

Narrator: Except the diet of basking sharks is very different

To that of the great white.

Nosal: Basking sharks have very, very tiny teeth.

They are not hunting things like seals or sea lions.

They're hunting little plankton, copepods, fish eggs,

Maybe some small fish in the water.

♪

There's no need to breach

When you're hunting these sorts of things.

Narrator: In which case,

Why are basking sharks performing such airborne antics?

♪

Nosal: If they're not breaching as a means of hunting,

It seems that the most likely explanation

Is that they're breaching to dislodge parasites.

Burke: Any surface of the skin can get coated in anything

From sea lice to barnacles and even other fish.

Narrator: The remora fish is a particularly pesky freeloader.

Nosal: The remoras and various shark species have co-evolved,

And what the remora has done

Is its head has adapted into a suction cup

That can bound into the bottom of a shark.

Any times there's bits of food or scraps

That the shark may leave,

The remoras take advantage of that,

But it adds a little bit of weight to the shark,

And it's also going to reduce their hydrodynamics

As they're trying to glide through the water.

Narrator: An annoyance to any animal, especially sharks.

Nosal: You can imagine, like, a dog

Who has a tick or a flea, what does it do?

It's going to bite at it.

It's going to use its leg to scratch it.

The basking sharks obviously can't do that.

Narrator: Nonetheless, sharks will try

Whatever they can to rid themselves of these moochers.

Daly: Sharks may roll around in the surf

Or even scrape themselves against rocks

In order to dislodge these hangers-on.

But a basking shark is typically found farther out to sea

Where it's not going to be near any kind of rocks

Or the bottom to rub itself on,

So the best solution for them might actually be to hit

The water with enough force that it dislodges the parasite.

Narrator: Makes sense, but dislodging parasites may not be

The only reason basking sharks breach.

They seem to do this behavior most often

When they're in a group,

Almost as if they're only doing it

When there's somebody else to impress.

♪

♪

Narrator: Basking sharks off the coast of ireland

Are making a mockery of their name

By leaping clear out of the atlantic ocean.

If they are ridding themselves of pesky parasites,

Why are they only doing it in big groups?

Could it be some kind of mating display?

Nosal: In many animal species,

Males are often competing for females' attention.

They want to mate with as many females as they can.

Narrator: The ocean is full of male show-offs.

Humpback whales sing to their mates.

[ whale singing ]

Hooded seals inflate their noses...

And mobula rays will splash on the water's surface

As part of their courtship behavior.

♪

Nelson: So this could be part of a mating ritual

Where the males are attracting females' attention.

So it makes sense that they're trying to assert dominance

Over the other males in the group.

They want to say, "hey, I am the biggest,

Showiest, strongest male. Breed with me."

Narrator: However, there's a twist.

Female basking sharks are breaching, too.

Burke: It appears that males are able to assert

Their dominance over each other, but the females breach, as well,

And it's thought that they do this

To display their readiness to mate.

Narrator: So its seems the solution may be two-fold.

Basking sharks are breaching to get clean and to find a mate.

Nosal: In the end, it's likely a combination of factors

That's contributing

To the breaching behavior in basking sharks.

They almost certainly do it to dislodge parasites,

But it could also have something to do

With the mating ritual, as well.

Nelson: You can only imagine if you were a female,

You wouldn't want to mate with a male that was full of parasites.

So it's kind of like they're sprucing themselves up,

Getting ready for a big date.

So what's incredible about this breaching behavior is it seems

That there's a lot being communicated

In a simple leap out of the sea.

♪