CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Hello, good evening, guten Abend,
bonsoir and welcome to the QI L series.
And this is our L series animals show, so let's meet my lovelies.
- The leonine Ross Noble. - CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- The larky Sarah Millican. - CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- Lounge lizard Colin Lane. - CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the lesser-spotted Alan Davies.
- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE - Thank you.
And here's what they sound like. Ross goes...
LION ROARS
A lion!
- Sarah goes... - LARK SINGS
A lark, or possibly a ringtone.
And Colin goes...
HOWLING CRY
I thought YOU were supposed to have the worst one.
See if you can guess what that is.
- That was a human simulator. - It's an L.
HOWLING CRY
- MIMICS IN AUSSIE ACCENT: - "I never!"
It's not a Melbourne housewife, no.
It's a good score at Scrabble for a four-lettered animal.
- Lynx. - Yes, it's a lynx. It's a lynx.
And Alan, your sound is...
'Stephen! Stephen! Listen to me!
'I want points!'
Right.
Now, I've given each of you a penny in case you're caught short.
- One of these. - TOILET FLUSHES
Yes, because one of our questions tonight,
as in throughout this series, will be a little bit lavatorial.
So, if you think that the answer to the question
concerns the lavatory, you get a chance to spend your penny.
It's a joker card. All right.
Now, what does the loneliest whale in the world sound like?
LYNX BUZZER
LAUGHTER
That's amazing.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I was going to say Richard Littlejohn.
Someone sent me a thing about blue whales, that they are really loud.
They can make a noise of 180 decibels.
It's the loudest noise any animal can make. All whales are loud.
- It's louder than a plane taking off. - Oh, completely so. - Or a baby crying, or anything.
- And it can be heard 500 miles away. - And further.
In fact, the deeper it is, the further it sounds,
and if it's very, very low-pitched...
MIMICS WHALE SONG
HE GETS LOUDER
HE REACHES SCREAMING PITCH
Somebody feed him!
It's not even close.
I don't know what that sounded like. I never want to hear it ever again.
Your wife is a very lucky woman. Do you know that?
Yeah, this particular whale, there's one, we don't actually know
what species it is, because no-one's found it, but people have heard it.
And it's very unusual
because it's the highest-pitched whale that's ever been recorded
by hydrophones, the microphones you pop down into the depths.
- But how do they know it's lonely? - Because it's never been answered.
- Aww! - But maybe it just likes spending time on its own.
Maybe it's like singing in your kitchen in your nightie, maybe it's like that.
There's a subtle difference between lonely and alone.
That's very, very true, I agree.
Maybe he's just reading books and spending some time...
Not reading books, I don't think we can go that far.
MIMICS WHALE SONG
Also, how do we know, if we've never seen it,
how do we know that it is a whale?
It might just be a couple of dolphins mucking about with a big shell.
HE HOOTS
"They're coming, they're coming." "No, nothing. No."
"There's a whale over there, I think, but, then..."
- HE HOOTS - No, I think...
- That's the shell. - That's the shell.
It's a conch. HE HOOTS
I didn't think conch when you did that.
Oh, dear!
- Are you suggesting that I'm...? - I'm not suggesting anything.
Are you suggesting I'm somehow pleasuring a whale?!
LAUGHTER
The sperm whale's penis is about three metres long.
Yeah, you'd need a bigger mouth than even you have got.
LAUGHTER
- Isn't it great how we are all so keen to be involved? - Absolutely.
I'll have a go!
Hang on a second, if we're all getting involved,
I'll start here, have it all the way along the front.
Here, you hold it like that...
Right, here you go. Right there we go, there we go!
Heave ho! Heave ho!
It's going to blow!
LAUGHTER
Oh, dear, dear, dear. Well...
Where has it been heard, this...?
It's generally believed that it is a blue
or a fin whale and it's 52 hertz, which is a far higher register.
We've actually got it, we can hear it.
DEEP VIBRATING CALL
That seems very deep to us, but that's actually the highest.
It sounds like standing outside a nightclub.
- Deeper ones travel much further. - HE MIMICS BEATBOX
This is the Ministry of Sound.
Yeah.
What time are you closing? We're trying to sleep.
Not with that shirt, mate. Members only.
At home you might not be able to hear that,
because not all televisions can actually take that amount of bass.
You probably haven't got a woofer at home, as I have.
LAUGHTER
And just on the issue of last creatures, not necessarily...
Some people believe that rather than being a blue whale
or a fin whale, it could actually be a whale
that is a result of two different species of whale mating, a calf.
A new kind of whale, and that it doesn't have a natural mate,
because it's a sort of mutated voice.
Well, the 52-hertz whale has a high-pitched voice and no mates.
Now, Sarah, suppose you find a vampire, dear.
- A vampire deer? - Yes.
LAUGHTER
Who are you gonna call?
Well, I'm tempted to say Ghostbusters.
Whoa!
- Temptation... - Really late!
You don't wriggle out of it by saying, "I'm not going to say..."
- Oh, rubbish. - I'm sorry. Aren't we cruel?
So is it a vampire or a vampire deer?
- I need to get that clear. - Yeah, very smartly spotted
that I was doing a little trick. It is indeed a vampire deer.
- So you weren't really calling me a nice thing? - No, but... - Noted.
And I'm supposed to ring somebody. Can I not just run for my life?
Well, let's suppose you found the skull of a vampire deer.
How would I know that's what it was, though?!
I'm not very good at skulls!
That's the point. You would be puzzled. This is what you would see.
"We killed one earlier."
I tell you what, that must have been a horrible Tupperware party.
LAUGHTER
"And then I was thinking, if you'd like to buy...aaargh!
"It's a vampire deer!"
Well, people do find these in the soil of Cambridgeshire,
Norfolk, Bedfordshire, that sort of area. And they are living,
- they're creatures that live... - That one's not.
- That one, no. - Can we just establish, if it looks in a mirror,
can it see its reflection?
LAUGHTER
Does it have a lovely cloak as well?
- I don't think... - Yeah! That's how you ride them,
cos you get on their backs and you hold the cloak...
You've got to be very careful, because if you come up behind a car,
they look in the rear-view mirror, they don't see you,
stop very quickly, bang, dead.
You've got to be careful, as well,
because magicians have a similar cloak
and you don't want to ride one of them in the woods, do you?
That is true. That's exactly what Debbie McGee said to me over tea.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
All the time.
Is it a vampire deer just because it's got these funny teeth,
- or does it actually like blood? - No, it's cos it's got the funny teeth.
It's like a sabre-tooth, but it exists now.
So who would you call if you found an animal, or saw an animal,
that looked really unusual? There is a place to call.
It's a fine institution. The finest institution.
- The Natural History Museum. - The National History Museum is right.
- 'Stephen!' - Well done.
APPLAUSE
We have with us Stuart Hine from the National History Museum's
very special department. Stuart. Hello.
APPLAUSE Thank you.
Welcome!
When I was a boy and you found something unusual,
you'd send it to Blue Peter.
- But nowadays you get sent things, is that the point? - Yep.
You can send anything to us.
We do about 4,500 or so identifications each year,
generally for the sort of public.
We're not just full of dinosaurs,
we actually have more than 300 scientists
who can answer these enquiries for you.
This presumably is a common thing for people to send in
because they think it may be an ancient or unusual species.
Well, once every one or two years, because they're not that common.
Where it comes from, over in China, it's becoming more endangered.
We've got about 10% of the world's population living feral in the UK.
And how did they arrive here, if they're not endemic?
Into wildlife parks, zoos and so forth.
A pair escaped back in the '30s, and they've become
sort of established there now, I believe possibly from a single pair.
Wow. So it shows that sometimes incest works.
LAUGHTER
- ROSS: - Sorry, which area of the country are they...?
LAUGHTER
No! No!
APPLAUSE
I walked into that one.
Eyes wide shut.
Er, can you give us any other examples?
Actually, I've got some - this kind of thing you must get sent -
although it's not necessarily natural history,
there are people who believe that life came from such objects.
What's that?
'Stephen! Stephen!'
Meteorite.
Oh, you wish.
- Everybody thinks... - Is it poo?
- Is it fossilized poo? - It could be, like a coprolite,
- I think they're called, aren't they? Is that right? - It is.
# Ooh, ooh, coprolite. #
LAUGHTER
One of my favourite songs,
that's had me thrown out of the Natural History museum many a time.
SARAH: It's not like somebody's cooking, is it?
Cos I've made things that look a bit like that.
It's basically a rock, I think. Is that right?
It's a bit of, well, slag.
So industrial waste, yeah, containing metals.
- Slightly magnetic. - Oh, well, that's good.
Slag. Er...
LAUGHTER
You'll pay for that, you bitch!
LAUGHTER
I believe a lot of people see stones and they often...
they might even be smoking or steaming.
I've heard so many tales of these smoking, steaming things,
but it usually involves "my grandfather,
"who was returning from the pub."
- So we know where they're going with that. - Are there any other things
that would strike people as being somehow alien or odd?
- ALAN: - The prices in the gift shop.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
- Various slimes, mystery slimes and things come in. - Ooh, I like that.
- So star jelly and things like this. - Star jelly?
Star jelly is one of the names for one of these slimes.
- There, we've got these wonderful pictures. - Oooh! What would that be?
Historically, people believe that this is associated with
passing meteorites and things.
- And, er, it just is frog gel, or a jelly... - Oh, spawn?
- Spawn, indeed, yeah. - How would it get outside a pond?
Well, we did some DNA analysis,
which told us that it came from the frog
and that a magpie was implicated.
- Magpie vomit, perhaps. - Nice! - Excellent. - Lovely. - Charming.
Well, thank you very much, Stuart Hine.
APPLAUSE
There you are, you can all remember he's your go-to guy
if you find something unusual in your garden.
Now, what's wild, horny, comes from Northeast England,
and hasn't been touched by a man in 800 years?
- Don't look at me! - I'm not looking at you!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I wasn't!
No, no, I was touched by a man...
Well, eh, that was one.
..on Tuesday last week. There you go.
- Definitely not me. - That's one off the list.
Is it...aaah!
Watch this. I'm going to seem really smart if this works.
Is it, is it the white cows? The Chllingham white cows?
Whoa-ho! Yes, it is! Well done.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
- Very good. Have you seen them? - I have seen them.
There they are... In fact, as a boy, as I frolicked in the...
That's where I'm from. I'm from the Northumberland...
I'm up that neck of the woods.
And then in the foot-and-mouth, everyone...
"Oh, the white cows, they're all going to go!"
And so they were quarantined off, and no-one was allowed near them,
and it was all touch and go, touch and go...
- Or NOT touch and go. - Yeah.
That's right. They haven't been touched certainly for 100 years
- and probably for much longer. - Well, when I was a kid,
we used to ride 'em, so that's not true.
LAUGHTER
I shouldn't have said that on the telly.
- Oh, please. - Depends what you mean by "touched".
They are fed during the winter months.
Hay is pitchforked over the enclosure and they eat that.
But no-one has dared touch them. They are pretty feral,
and from them are descended many of the cattle that we now know.
They look very different now, but you can see the relationship.
Is that one cleaning out its nostril with its tongue?
Yes. You could if you would.
LAUGHTER
- You mean the other way round. - Would if you could.
That was all wrong. Yeah, the Chillingham cattle.
Do you know how many there are?
- Er, 40? - There are about 100.
- Ah, 100. - They have been going up.
Oh, yeah, when I saw them as a kid there was only 40.
The harsh winter of '46/'47, they were down to 13 of them.
but they've come back up to around 100, which is encouraging.
Again, incest seems to be best.
- Er... - Not in that neck of the woods, I can assure you.
The Chillingham cattle, as Ross knew, live wild
and haven't been touched in 800 years. From livestock to larvae.
What form of transport might a caterpillar use?
Do they hitch onto things?
They do. And I wonder what they hitch onto.
Furry mammals. Furry mammals carry a lot of stuff about.
They do, but in this case they use each other.
- Aww! - They use a principle which is quite fun.
The one that's on the bottom layer is going at a certain speed
and the one above twice the speed,
and the one above that thrice the speed.
So all told, the whole group goes faster.
And we've done a little experiment using stop-motion photography.
Some boot's going to come in in a minute. Splat!
Awful, isn't it? But if you watch, we've got two yellow pieces there
and they're both moving one step at a time.
But you'll see the one on the top layer is going faster
and the single one can't catch up with it.
And that's the principle they use -
that the top layer is going quicker.
And so that's how caterpillars move at greater speed
to get to where they need to be.
- It's like a travelator. - The travelator.
- Except when people get on the travelator, they slow right down. - So annoying. - It drives me mad.
- When I get on a travelator, I really make the most of it. - Me too. - I accelerate.
I love the way that the windows and everything just speed past you.
Oh, it's fabulous.
- Travelator! - Yeah.
- People even on the travelator, they just stop. - I know!
- Yes. - Yeah, but it's doing the moving for you, so you don't have to move.
That's why we're a nation of morbid... Oh, dear...
LAUGHTER
Or if you have small children, they turn around and run the other way.
- Yes, they will do that. - And then there's people coming and you're like...
You have to do quite a lot of loud coughing and harrumphing
and, "My flight's about to leave," sort of stuff,
in order to get people to move across.
It's just politeness to take one side of the travelator.
Or say, "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Yes, all right. That's an option too.
Anyway, moving from larvae on to adult Lepidoptera.
What's a sure-fire way of telling two butterflies apart?
Different colour wings.
- ALARM BLARES - That would be true of those that were different colours.
But suppose they looked identical?
- Well, then, you can't. - And were different species or genus.
- Then you can't. That's it. - Well, you might be able to.
- Their breath. - Their breath!
Is it the prettier they are, the stinkier their breath?
Their address.
Their address, yes. That would do it.
- Are they the same but different? - Their names.
- They're all the same but they're not? - There are two genera
of butterfly that look almost identical,
and it's a type of evolution called Mullerian.
There they are. And one of them tastes disgusting to birds,
and the birds quite quickly learn that.
- You just lick them? - Well, the birds did. - Just get a bird to lick it.
And so the other one evolved to look as much like the one
that's disgusting, without actually being disgusting.
Because it doesn't need to develop the disgusting taste,
because the birds will assume that it IS disgusting.
And this is a thing that happens in nature.
- You look identical just to survive. - How smug must THEY be?
- It's very, very good. - So smug.
And also, the one on the right there seems to have a tiny roll
of gaffer tape in its mouth.
- It does, doesn't it? - LAUGHTER
They're not even his real wings. He's made them.
He's like that...
"Look at that, I'm just like him. Come on."
You go round the other side of that,
that's all sticky-back plastic round there.
But there is an answer to how you would tell the difference, and it's deeply personal.
- Oh, it's the downstairs, is it? - You would look at their genitalia.
And there's a truly great novelist of the 20th century,
although English was his third language,
and he was very good at sexing butterflies. Indeed...
- Sexing? - Telling their... - Sexing.
- ..telling their gender, examining their penises. - Sexing or texting? - Sexing.
- Texting. - No, sexing. There is a collection at Harvard University of these tiny
little phials filled with penises of butterflies that he collected.
There he is. He lived in America, hence Harvard, but he was born in Russia
and then moved to Paris from a rather nobby family.
And his name was Vladimir Nabokov.
But you must have heard of his most famous novel.
Yeah, 50 Shades Of Butterflies.
Come on.
- Yeah, it was amazing. - Don't let us down.
- Lolita. - Lolita, thank you, Alan. Yes.
He wrote Lolita, amongst many other magnificent novels.
Operation Yewtree are all over him at the moment.
LAUGHTER
- "Lolita, light of my loins." - The Russian Yewtree.
- And he collects the penises. - Well, he was a...
But he's not bothered about the rest of it.
He was an incredibly enthusiastic lepidopterist.
And then he lets them go.
- And he went, in fact, on index cards... - Without a penis!
That's a butterfly that's had its penis removed by Vladimir Nabokov.
I got it, I got it, it was really good, Alan.
- Was his name...? - Stick to girls!
Was his name Knob-off, did you say?
Vladimir Knob-off.
"Knob-off by name, knob-off by nature. I'll do anything.
"Start with a butterfly, work my way up. Don't care."
He was, as well as being a great writer,
one of the finest lepidopterists of his time.
He used his index cards, on which he wrote his scientific notes about Lepidoptera,
to write the entire novel of Lolita, in fact, his most famous work.
Did he try and collect all of the ladygardens of the butterflies?
- LAUGHTER - That's a very good point.
I don't know if he exclusively confined himself to the penises of butterflies,
but I suppose they were the easiest bits to see in such a small insect.
The wings are easier to see.
Well, yeah, no. When it comes to sexing, I mean.
Butterfly pubes, imagine that.
Imagine a pillow - how soft would that pillow be?
- Just filled with butterfly pubes. - Ohhh...
He gave a very, very...
LAUGHTER
That's what... Not many people know this.
Not many people know this, but all of Stephen's suits
are lined with butterfly penises.
That's true.
By the finest tailors in the land.
- No, I do have... - Butterfly tailors, no less.
That's right. Tiny moths come in.
"Mr Fry, we have collected the butterfly pubes
"of a million butterflies."
They've been donated willingly.
They have. More than willingly.
That's why he looks so comfortable on this show.
See, look, he's even flapping like a butterfly.
The power of the pubes are moving through the fine...
LAUGHTER
Look at him moving. There it goes again!
The best way to tell butterflies apart
is to look them straight in the genitals.
Can you give me your impression of a puffer fish on the pull?
LYNX BUZZER
LAUGHTER
That's the gift that keeps on giving.
Oh, you're puffing your face.
They play down the puffiness, I reckon.
They do. Well, what they do is play up some whole other skill,
which is really astonishing, in order to attract a female.
They turn themselves inside out. Fully inside out.
I would be impressed by that.
What, if a bloke came up to you in a nightclub and went,
"Watch this, love!" Woomf -
and his lungs and heart and all the rest...
- I mean, I wouldn't hug him, but I'd be impressed. - Yeah.
Fish, like birds, as you probably know, the males tend to be more colourful
- and put on a good show to attract females. - I did not know that. - Did you not?
- I knew it about birds. - Hmm, beautiful plumage.
Has he just had a Slush Puppy?
LAUGHTER
A blue Slush Puppy. What he does...
It was in such a big glass, he went like that, it's gone on his eyes.
- Gone on his eyebrows. - LAUGHTER
What they do is actually remarkable.
If you watch what he does, at first you'll think it's just random,
but then you'll go, "Oh, my goodness."
It takes nine days for him to prepare this for the female.
Is that just farting, what he's doing there?
- LAUGHTER - No, that's... He turned, oh.
- It's extraordinary. - Aww!
- He's made this enormous crater with ridges. - He's made a lair.
Which are decorated with seashells. And it's there.
WOMEN: Aaah!
The ladies are so impressed. Is that what you want, a sand castle?
No, I think their "aaah" was they were impressed.
- Nine days' work to attract a female. - How many days?
- Nine. - Hmm...
LAUGHTER
A lot of females say that. They go, "No, not good enough." It has to be absolutely perfect.
And then when it is perfect, the female lays her eggs right in the middle.
And he then fertilises them and looks after them for six days, just to protect them.
That's nice, and then she can go back to work.
Or go to another crater.
No, the most amazing thing about that is, that's actually on the beach.
That's not even under the water.
- That would be... - It comes out, like that.
Puts little flags in every ridge as well.
It's...I won't say entirely unique, because we know
so little about what goes on in the ocean, but it's one of the few
we know which is quite so marvellous and distinctive, the puffer fish.
But nine days is a long time. I mean if you, Sarah...
- It's not really, though, is it? - If she's worth it.
I mean, when she comes in, she comes in and just goes,
"Well, you've done that all wrong.
"Been waiting six months for you to get that finished and it's wrong.
"Do it again. I should have got somebody in to do it."
LAUGHTER
Anyway, the male puffer fish attracts his lady with
a heart exhibition.
Now, what do we call a fish that drives a tank?
Tank fish.
You might call it tank fish, but when I say "we", I mean WE.
What do we here at QI Central call a fish that drives a tank?
Sir.
ALARM BLARES
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
That was a shock. We read you like a book.
No, we're going to show you a fish driving a tank.
- What? - Yes.
So if my splendid porters can come on with a little tank tray...
- The porters, ladies and gentlemen. - Yeah!
There we are.
So, we've got a tank and we've got a fish who's going to drive the tank.
And there's our fish. He doesn't live here,
I want you to know, this is just his transport system. And...
This is, like, the poshest fairground ever.
Yeah. And if I turn on his little motor here...
- So this is a fish tank tank. - And as soon as he moves, he will...
Give him some food, or poke him with a biro.
Every different direction he goes, he moves the tank.
And, whoa, there you go.
Let's move you into the middle here.
There you are, because you were getting all excited.
There you are, a few ant's eggs for him,
or whatever it is we feed him with.
Butterfly penises.
- But you obviously want to know... - LAUGHTER
I said, what do we call him? His name is Alan.
LAUGHTER
He's Alan the QI goldfish, and just to put your minds at rest,
this is not his tank, he has a beautiful...
It's MY tank.
Yeah, exactly. He has a beautiful place where he hangs out, which is
full of wonderful toys and fronds.
It's near Watford and he drives there himself every morning.
Yeah, exactly. And you might like to meet our splendid elf Alex Bell,
who built this particular contraption for Alan.
Come on, Alex.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- We mustn't... - Here we have the classic elf.
Absolutely.
Educated to within an inch of his life. Smartly turned out.
So how long did it take you to build this?
A couple of days. It's made of Lego, completely, so...
- It's entirely Lego? - Yeah, it's all Lego.
Can we race it against caterpillars? LAUGHTER
And why did you make it?
- Someone... - No, it's not rude, just asking.
There's a Dutch company called Studio Dip,
and they made a bigger version of this for a fish to live in,
and we thought we'd have a go at making our own.
Did you build it over two days to attract girls?
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Sarah, are you impressed?
It's working for me.
I think the question that everyone wants to ask is that
if you were to make a full-size version out of the Pope-mobile...
LAUGHTER ..and the Pontiff was to swim very hard,
could he...would that work?
- Could we do that? - Yeah, probably.
Just to put at rest those who are wondering what
the principle behind it is, when he swims forward, what happens exactly?
There are four sensors, one in each corner,
so whichever corner he goes to, it goes in that direction.
- It's that simple, nothing to do with the pressure of the water? - No.
Would it be possible to build a giant one,
put a dolphin in it that could swim up,
do a somersault and then the whole vehicle could loop the loop?
- Yes. - Theoretically, yes.
Let's do it.
I shall pay for that out of my own pocket.
- Are there future uses for this? - Maybe military, I think... - Military uses.
- The British Army IS on its uppers. - Yeah, I think they'll probably be the only ones who'll fund it.
Well, it's very exciting for him.
But I'm sure he wants to get back to his huge
and very luxurious accommodation
- in the QI offices. - He lives in a cistern. - I'll hand him over to you.
- LAUGHTER - Thank you, Alan.
- Thank you, Alan and Alex. - APPLAUSE
That was very pleasing.
- The porters! - APPLAUSE
So, anyway, moving on. What has 32 brains and sucks?
- The front row. - LAUGHTER
Is there a creature that has 32 brains?
Does an octopus have lots of brains in its tentacles?
Yes, and genitalia at the end as well, if you remember.
- Oh, yes, I do remember. - Really?
- On one of them. - How do you know which one?
- You'll soon find out. - LAUGHTER
Get a few lagers into it. Wey! Wee-e-ey!
But it's not an octopus.
It is an animal that is associated with moist conditions, and...
A slug.
It looks rather like a slug.
Here's a thing you can do to test this particular animal.
They've done it, they've filled a condom with blood
- and dropped it in the water where these creatures... - Leech. - Yes!
- And they've found... - People have done that intentionally? Filled a condom with blood?
- In order to demonstrate how leeches.. - Some intentionally.
- Others accidentally. - LAUGHTER
Exactly, exactly.
"Are you all right in there?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
LAUGHTER
"Don't flush it down the... No!"
That's why it's always...
LAUGHTER
That's horrific.
If you fill a condom full of blood,
that's the best way, in the wild, to catch one of those vampire deer.
Spin it round... LAUGHTER
What it doesn't do is catch a leech,
because leeches haven't evolved expecting humans to splash through
the marshes, but they have expected other kinds of animal. And...
A frog, perhaps?
A frog is a perfect example.
If you put the condom in covered in blood,
leeches will not be attracted to it.
If you just wipe the condom over a frog,
and then drop it in, the leeches will go pha-doing!
- Because they smell frog. - And the frog will be your friend for life.
They go, pha-dong, boing! Wheee!
- Exactly. They hop around. - Yeah.
So we needn't be as afraid of leeches as we seem to be.
So, the merest whiff of frog will lure a leech to lunch.
But what part do Twiglets play in a mugger's lunch?
We've been very literal with our picture.
Is that Annie Lennox?!
LAUGHTER
Is a "mugger's lunch" a euphemism for something?
A mugger is a type of creature.
- A mugger is a... - Lives in this kind of environment.
- Is it a crocodile or...? - It is a crocodile, yes.
A mugger crocodile.
So it goes to parties...
No, it's not a Twiglet, it is a twiglet in the most literal sense.
- A little twig. - A stick. - A little stick. - It hides behind the...
- Not behind it. - It's a very small... - It uses it as a tool.
It uses it as a tool in order to entrap.
- Like chopsticks. - Catches Hula-Hoops. - It catches wading birds
who think, "I'm building my nest... Oh, look, there's a log
"with some twigs on it!"
No way. How stupid are birds?!
LAUGHTER
Tiny brains, haven't they? Tiny little brains.
- Useless. - Tiny.
They deserve to be eaten.
LAUGHTER
On the one hand, you think, "I'd love to be able to fly like a bird,"
but you'd be an idiot. They always fly into windows and lorries...
Crows are very intelligent. Crows, ravens...
- Crows?! - Yeah. - What, right, here's a crow, swooping around.
"Oh, yeah, that looks like a nice field!
"Ooh, better not go in there..."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
"Oh, no, he's scary. He's clearly a trained assassin."
It doesn't make any sense at all.
At least set your scarecrow up like this.
- Rrr! - Or just doing that, like that.
Exactly. "I'll take you down."
So that is one example of... It's the only example we know
of a reptile using tools. And it's only a recent discovery.
How does it get them on its head with its little hands?
It cleverly manoeuvres. It doesn't use its hands.
- Puts them in the water and does that? - It takes nine days.
LAUGHTER
I'm impressed by anything that takes nine days.
He has to lie under a tree till a twig lands on his head.
And then another, and then another.
It's not the only animal, however, that uses...
The principle is a lure. That lures other animals.
You can see there's a type of snake, for example,
that has a very clever lure.
- Oh, it makes... - It pretends to be a worm!
But look what happens. It's scary.
The furry thing...
Whoa!
It's so quick.
And it's eaten itself a nice little furry meal.
Because the furry thing thought, "Oh, there's a nice worm."
And you can see, it pulls back, you can see what it's just eaten.
- Oh, dear. - Oh, wow.
Some of the snakes do a similar thing, very clever.
They'll pretend to be a draught excluder.
LAUGHTER
And then when the mouse approaches, they'll strike, like that,
and... But the mouse gets the last laugh,
cos it's not a mouse, it's an old lady's slippers!
HE CHOKES DRYLY
It's just a laughing Nana.
Aww.
I ought to express my gratitude to the one and only
Al the Viper Keeper for that footage.
He's lent us that footage.
Anyway, crocodiles are the only reptiles known to use tools.
Now, what's the most energetic thing that a slow-th, or sloth, ever does?
Whichever you prefer.
Oh, you're spending your penny. And you're right to!
- Is it? - Yes. Well done.
APPLAUSE
- Going to the lavatory. - Going to the lavatory.
They spend all their time in the trees except when they go down
and use a communal lavatory, which they share.
And this habit of sharing lavatories has given rise to some pretty
- unpleasant... - Oh! - Somebody's missed the lavatory there.
Well, I'm afraid it gets...
- Go and wee on a friend. - It gets really, really worse.
It's grim beyond believing, this,
but at the Estacion Biologica Quebrada Blanco in Peru,
which is a field research site in the Amazon,
they observed very odd feeding habits of two-toed sloths.
They were hanging upside down from the roof of the scientists'
latrine, and they started to drop down into it
and scoop up handfuls of human excrement and toilet paper,
- and they would eat it. - ALL: Ugh!
They even plunged into the pit itself, which you can see,
and emerged covering, after a liquid lunch, in poo.
The research paper noted, "It was scooping with one hand
"from the semi-liquid manure, and then eating from the hand.
"When more persons gathered around the latrine to watch this bizarre behaviour,
"the sloth emerged from the latrine and climbed into the nearest tree."
So it didn't like being watched. It might have been slightly ashamed.
You know when the film Jaws came out and it was really terrifying
to go to the toilet in case a shark came up and bit your bum...?
- I don't remember feeling that, to be honest. - Maybe that was just our house.
But now we've got to worry about sloths coming up and...
- Clawing at your arse. Yeah. - Yeah.
Well, it wouldn't do that, it would just sit there like that, going...
LAUGHTER
Hit me! Hit me! Ah, oh...
- Oh, God! - As Supernanny would say, that was unacceptable.
- Unacceptable, yeah. - I mean, dear...
It must be hard for them to be both an animal and a deadly sin.
- LAUGHTER - That's true. That's true.
Because every morning they just go, "Ohhh..."
Is it the sloth - I might be wrong here, you'll know -
when they die, they stay in the trees, don't they?
- Totally. - How long for?
- Just for ever. - For ever? - Yeah. - Shut up!
Honestly, they're like... they'll be like...
- They'll rot away. - ..a skeleton, like just a...
They'll be eaten, perhaps, by other things.
- Yeah, but not the bones, just the outside. - Yeah.
That's a hell of a way to find your nana, isn't it?
That's how we found mine. In the local park.
"What are you doing? Oh, no. Oh, God."
She'd only gone on the climbing frame.
Oh, dear. The only...
Not really!
Why...why did people go, "Ohhh"?
As if my nan genuinely... "Oh, that's terrible."
We don't know much about what goes on in the Northeast, but we hear things.
LAUGHTER
- Mainly from you. - Yes.
So, the only reason, as Alan knew,
that sloths ever move out of a tree is to spend a penny.
But now it's time to wallow for a while in the filthy pile of ordure
that we call General Ignorance, so fingers on buzzers, please.
How can you tell your labradoodle is pleased to see you?
Aren't they wonderful dogs? Yes.
It's got an erection.
LAUGHTER
You mean it's got its lipstick out?
Yeah. It's beetroot. It was always beetroot in our family.
"Mam, it's got its beetroot out again!"
Don't you think it's more like lipstick?
I'm going to look next time a bit closer.
- Is a labradoodle a cross between a Labrador and a poodle? - Yep!
- Which is like a seeing-eye dog... - Yes.
..and a poodle, which is like a fashion accessory dog.
So it's like a dog to see with, and be seen with!
Very well put!
The labradoodle is not, like some people think, like an Etch-a-Sketch.
Cos that's a magnadoodle, isn't it?
- Aww, sweet. - A magnadoodle is a dog that just attracts spoons.
Whoo!
ROSS BARKS
The point is, it's not just a labradoodle,
it's all about dogs' expressions of pleasure to see their owners.
And we know about tail-wagging, obviously,
but tail-wagging is very subtle
and it's really for signals to other dogs.
But the answer is actually rather sweet.
And you may, if you have dogs at home, check this out
when you get home next after a little period of absence.
It's very, very quick, so it has to use high-speed cameras,
usually, to have found this out, but you may be able to see it.
Your dog will welcome you by lifting its left eyebrow,
if you are the owner and master of your dog, or mistress.
And that is the rather touching thing. The left eyebrow goes up.
- Very, very quickly. - How do you know it's not just being quizzical?
Well, it only happens to their owners
and it doesn't happen to strangers. You'd expect them
to be more quizzical with people they hadn't met.
- Mmm. - But with people they haven't met, there are other things.
Their left ear will go back, for example.
If it's an object they don't know, their right ear will go forward.
So let me get this right.
- Owner comes in, left eyebrow goes up. - Yeah.
- Stranger comes in, ear goes that way. - Yeah.
So if you were to get... If I was to come in the house,
and then quickly get a stranger to come in,
I could flip my dog.
LAUGHTER
What's it mean when it licks its willy?
What does that mean?
It just wants to have a good time, I should think.
- I can't think of any other reason. - Noted.
Yeah. So, dogs show they're pleased to see you by raising an eyebrow.
Which cat never changes its spots?
Well, now, see, I sense a trap.
Do you?
- LION BUZZER - Oh, lion.
Is it the jaguar?
Good.
Because if you shave a jaguar it's got that,
the jaguar pattern on its skin, that's not its fur.
So therefore, it doesn't matter how many times you shave it,
the spots remain the same.
Interesting. It's not the correct answer.
All right, I'll be off, then.
We avoided saying the leopard.
Yes, because that was the trap I sensed.
We can see a little leopard kitten, with its mother,
and you can see the leopard kitten
really does have quite tight spots, very close together,
and the mother has what are called rosettes, which are very different.
The animal actually is a lion
and the spots are where its whiskers sprout from.
And you can see those little lines of dots there.
- Oh. Like it's been sniffing glue, like that. - They never change.
They never ever change, so they're like fingerprints - you can
identify a particular lion just by the array of its spots.
You'd have to get very close to it, though.
- And you wouldn't necessarily want to do that. - No. - No, exactly.
So, it's lions, not leopards, that never change their spots.
Which is the biggest of the big cats, though?
- LION BUZZER - Yes, lion in first.
Is it the jaguar?
- LAUGHTER - No. Not even the V12. No, I'm afraid not.
Any other thoughts?
Well, the lion?
ALARM BLARES
- The leopard? No. - Panther?
- The tiger, is it the tiger? - You're both half-right.
- The cougar. - Oh, it's the...
It's the labratiger. Labratiger.
The labratiger!
- The liger? - It is the liger, and the liger is composed of what?
- A lion and a tiger. - But which gender round?
The front half is a tiger. LAUGHTER
The back half, it's like a dodgy safari salesman.
- "Tell you what, mate, that's lovely, that's a lion, that is." - Cut and shove.
- A male tiger and a female lion. - Yes.
In both cases they put the male first,
so if it's a liger, it's a lion male and a tiger female.
And if it's a tigon, then it's a male tiger and a female...
- The best one is the zeraffe. Yeah. - Well...
It's just got a zebra body and then a giraffe neck,
and it's always falling forward.
LAUGHTER
There are zebroids, which are zebras crossed with all kinds of...
Asteroids. Haemorrhoids.
LAUGHTER
- That's an example... - A dragon and a...
That's a very extraordinary mixture. In January 2014,
the first set of white ligers was born, and there they are.
- Aww. - And they are possibly going to be the biggest big cats ever.
They're already pretty huge.
Looks like one of those things on the end of your bed with a zip
- that you used to put your pyjamas in. - Yes!
A footstool for All Saints.
Haven't seen All Saints for years.
Their, er, their diet is exclusively magicians.
LAUGHTER
So you get a zebroid, you get a wholfin...
A wolf and a dolphin?!
No!
- Wh-olfin. - They howl out their blowholes.
HE HOWLS
The best one is a werewholfin.
That's where every full moon,
a wolf-dolphin leaps out of the sea
and changes into a man.
It's a mixture of what's known as a false killer whale
and a bottlenose dolphin.
There you are. There's only one in existence in captivity,
but there have been others reported in the wild.
They've been seen on the M1 in big tank cars.
Indeed.
So, good, excellent.
That brings me to the scores. Let's leap to them.
In last place, I'm afraid,
he's come thousands of miles to be minus 20, it's Colin Lane.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
In third place, twice as good a score,
but still minus 10, Sarah Millican.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And minus 5, Alan Davies!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Which means that our winner on a staggering plus 6 is Ross Noble!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, it's good night from Sarah, Ross, Colin, Alan and me.
And I leave you with the last words of Noel Coward, of all people,
and how sad they are - "Good night, my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow."
Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE