The African migratory locust
defends itself with foul smelling vomit.
The hippo marks its territory by spraying its own dung.
The corpse flower has the aroma of rotting flesh.
The Malayan tapir fertilizes the forest with feces.
And when the two-toed sloth makes a stink,
it's kind of a big deal.
All of these strange creatures are serious stinkers.
They use smelly things as strategy
to thrive and survive.
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Nesting in the heat of Africa,
there is a monster in the grass, an ancient scourge.
To many, a dreaded pest.
To the naked eye, they are a beautiful grasshopper,
feeding on blades of grass, enjoying meals in solitude.
But every Jekyll has its Hyde.
The African migratory locust has inner demons.
(♪♪♪)
A swarm of locusts is a devastating natural disaster.
Their infestations have been feared throughout history.
This insect can cut a swathe of ruin
not just across one country but across whole continent,
which has plagued the farmers since the time of the pharaohs.
And they still wreak havoc today.
This locust clearly likes to eat.
It is a vegetarian and eats anything green.
As an adult,
it can eat its own weight's worth of food in one day.
The locust's biting and chewing mouth parts
have two hard upper mandibles with sharp serrated edges.
They move sideways
and grasp off small pieces of plant
that are ground and chewed and swallowed.
But before it fully digests it,
it secretly stores some food for later
in a structure in its throat.
As the food settles there, bacteria grows on top of it
and it becomes a sticky and brown soupy muck.
If a bird does attack a locust, it uses the stored stinky food
in its throat as its first line of defense.
It vomits in the bird's mouth.
This vomit emits a foul stench and amongst locust experts,
is referred to as "Spitting tobacco".
But the locust's peculiar behavior does not stop there.
In one lifetime,
this locust experiences an incredible transformation.
The locust is the Mr. Hyde to the grasshopper's Dr. Jekyll.
In the beginning of its life,
it experiences its solitary grasshopper phase -
it is green and pleasant and good.
When food sources are scarce, the locusts group together.
Their legs begin to tickle each other
and they begin to release pheromones.
A biochemical change then happens inside their brain
and they transform into feeding machines.
(♪♪♪)
They turn a completely different color,
a bright orange,
with a black stripe on their back
and become smaller with shorter legs.
Their behavior changes too.
They go a little crazy.
They become extremely active.
This is called the "Gregarious Phase",
where they swarm through fields, devastating crops,
eating everything insight and laying their eggs.
Fields in their path are swept bare.
One swarm can eat 423 million pounds
of plants in a day.
This makes them one of the top agricultural pests in the world.
As time goes by, the groups of locusts disperse and separate.
Each group member returns to their original
grasshopper phase, as if nothing ever happened.
Now that Dr. Jekyll has returned and peace has been restored,
the grasshopper resumes quietly nibbling the grass.
The hippo is among one of the dangerous
and aggressive of all mammals in Africa.
But it's how they mark their territory
that will take your breath away.
(♪♪♪)
They are pudgy, round and kind of funny looking.
Their body's made up mostly of blubber
and they spent most of their time bobbing around in water.
The hippopotamus is a favorite in Saturday morning cartoons
and it's easy to see why.
They look almost like a Porky Pig.
Their name, "hippopotamus", is Greek for horse of the river.
Although, their closest relative
are actually whales and porpoises.
And though they appear gentle and even a bit goofy,
it might take you back when a cute Saturday morning cartoon
charges you with a big open mouth.
But it's always the one you least expect
that causes the most trouble.
The hippo is very aggressive, unpredictable
and impressively fast, running up to 18 miles per hour.
They are the third largest land mammal behind elephants
and rhinos and can tip the scales at up to 6,000 lbs.
Their massive mouths can open almost 180°
with teeth that can grow up to one and half feet long.
But these cranky creatures also play an important role
in the ecosystem around them.
On average, hippos dump 22 pounds
of dung every day.
And if you look closely, you can see them
fanning their tails to really spread it around.
Well, that's actually a good thing.
Their dung is very rich in nutrients
and is considered fine dining
for small animals like fish and snails.
These putrid droppings are also used by males
to mark territory.
They use their tails to fire the feces
several feet in either direction,
to lay claim on their turf.
Hippos spend most of their days in the water
but it's not because they're antisocial,
they can hang out in ponds of around 30 other hippos.
The water helps keep them from getting overheated
from the hard African sun.
The hippo's jawbone conducts sound waves underwater,
so they can actually hear below the surface.
Their eyes, ears and nostrils are perfectly designed
to peak out of the water,
while the rest of their massive bodies are completely immersed.
If they do hit the sun, they are prepared for that.
The hippo's skin actually produces its own sun screen.
A pink slime that is also called "blood sweat".
Even though it's neither blood nor sweat,
instead, being made up of two different amino acids.
But that still won't protect their skin,
which is up to six inches thick
from cracking if they're out of the water for too long.
So, hippos prefer to stay submerged.
After the sun sets, the hippo will come up onshore to eat,
usually stomping through the same path
to get to its favorite spot,
ploughing down anything in their way.
It's bad news for some but it's good news
for other animals who can now munch
from the underbrush that the hippos bring up.
Even though, a person would not get away with flinging feces
and knocking down anything in its way,
this behavior is routine for any hippo defending its turf.
If hippos had a Ms. Manners, she would approve.
In the jungles of Sumatra, there is a mysterious plant
that takes 10 years to flower for the first time,
maybe because it takes that long for it to build up
the incredibly strong odor that it emits when it blooms.
It's the tallest flower on the planet.
Beautiful.
Vibrant.
And a textbook case of looks being deceiving.
This is the corpse flower.
And a name like that gives you a pretty good indication
that you don't want to stop and smell these flowers.
The corpse flower was first discovered
in the rainforests of Indonesia in the late 1800s,
although, locals had already given it
that very descriptive name.
This time around, people gather around it
at the Floral Showhouse of Niagara Parks
in Niagara Falls, Canada.
If you want to get a clear picture
of just how stinky it is,
scientists actually studied the scent
and found the same chemicals that are found in sweaty socks,
rotting fish and mothballs.
It starts life as a bulb called a "Corn",
the same way a tulip would.
But, unlike a tulip, it's not very easy to grow.
Conditions have to be absolutely perfect.
After a month, the seedling stretches out
to more than a foot long.
But it can take up to 10 years
before it's finally ready to bloom
and release its stench to the world.
The putrid stench comes from the female part
of the flower, which blooms first.
The flower is stinkiest within a couple of hours of blooming.
At the time of blooming, the flower's temperature rises,
really maximizing the smell of death.
It's all a survival tactic.
The delicious corpsy smell is all to attract insects
like beetles or sweat flies,
who love to lay their eggs and feed in decaying flesh.
For these insects, the stench is irresistible.
They come in droves to feast and lay their eggs.
And in return, in a peaceful exchange,
the insects will provide the corpse flower
with pollen they've acquired from plants in the male cycle
somewhere in the area.
In essence, the female parts of these flower,
use the insects to fetch their other halves.
After this, the female part of this plant stops reeking
and the male part of the flower opens.
That releases the corpse flower's pollen
to these insects, who carry the sweet pollen
to hopefully make more corpse flowers across the land.
The whole process doesn't take very long.
The big bloom is the tallest in the world,
growing up to 10 feet in height.
Because it's such a rare event,
people come from all over the world to see it
and most of them are willing to put up the stench.
This is one strange looking animal,
with an odd face, a goofy walk
and some really stinky habits.
(♪♪♪)
Here's a riddle.
What's black on the outside and white in the middle?
Nope, it's not an Oreo cookie,
it's the Malayan tapir.
The Malayan tapir is also known as the Asian tapir
because it's the only tapir species that's native to Asia.
In Thailand, they're called "P'som-sett"
which means "mixture is finished."
That comes from the Asian belief
that the tapir's strange coloring
is because it was created from leftover parts
of other animals.
But their disjointed has a purpose.
The tapirs are mostly active at night.
So their dark rump, white front and back
break up their profile in the dense forest
and might even be mistaken for a rock.
They need all the help they can get when it comes to hiding.
Some Malayan tapirs tip the scales at over 1,000 pounds.
But despite their size, they don't exactly sound threatening.
They're incredibly vocal, making high-pitches whistling noises
to show that they're excited.
And they make a strange hiccup noise as a greeting.
They also mark their territory with urine.
So, they squeak and spray
and hiccup.
And their Oreo coloring is a form of camouflage.
They also have terrible vision.
These small beady eyes are not the most useful.
It's a good thing then that they can run and swim.
It might be surprising
but the Malayan tapir is pretty nimble,
known for an impressive ability
to scramble up steep river banks.
Even though they can run fast, they won't exactly win
in a foot race against their main predator, the tiger.
The water is where their big floppy nose comes into play,
if they need to, tapirs can head for deep water
to get away from danger,
using their flexible nose as a snorkel.
Their nose, also called a "Proboscis",
is how they shovel food into their mouths.
They can eat up to 75 pounds of food each day.
So, this flexible nose gets a lot of use.
It's so flexible in fact that tapirs can explore one circle
of ground a foot in diameter without moving its head.
With a multitalented nose like that,
you just know that tapirs also have
an excellent sense of smell,
able to quickly suss out if predators are nearby.
Tapirs are also a super important part of the ecosystem.
When they roam, that's to all that fruit they eat,
they defecate and disperse seeds while fertilizing the soil,
promoting future plant growth.
This makes their smelly dung an important part of the forest.
It may have some questionable fashion choices
and make some strange noises.
(Squeaks and hiccups)
But if it means a lusher rainforest,
squeak on, Malayan tapir, squeak on.
The slowest land animal in the world
isn't built for life on land.
It lives in the trees and rarely comes down.
But when it does, it really stinks up the joint.
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In this fast-paced world,
there is one creature that's truly bucking the trend.
The sloth is the world's slowest mammal.
If they really hurry on land,
they can move a whopping 6h feet in one minute.
In a foot race, the sloth would lose to a tortoise,
who zips around at 14 feet per minute.
This sluggish creature has only a quarter of the muscle mass
of other animals of the same size.
They have very little strength, energy or speed.
Sloths move so slowly in fact that they become a hotel
for other organisms like moths, algae and fungus.
The name "sloth" is even a synonym for "lazy".
In Spanish, they're also called "Los perezosos",
which means "the lazies".
But is the sloth really the laziest animal in the kingdom?
Study show that sloth sleep less than 10 hours per day,
so they're actually no more lazy
than your average college roommate.
Although their favorite pastime is just hanging around,
sloths are masters of conserving energy.
They live in treetops eating mostly leaves.
When it comes to digesting these leaves,
the sloth has the slowest metabolism of any mammal.
It takes 30 days for their digestive system
to process food.
When they do go to the bathroom,
they put their life in danger to do it.
They only go once a week, coming down from the trees
and venturing to the same spot each time.
Among the leaves, they're practically undetectable.
Well, this bathroom ritual leaves the slow sloth
exposed out in the open completely vulnerable
to predators like jaguars and eagles.
In fact, half of all sloth deaths happen
when they're going to the loo.
How's that for a crappy way to die?
No one has completely figured out
why they go about their business this way
but some scientists suspect it's to allow the moths,
that live among their fur,
to lay eggs on their feces on the ground.
In exchange, the sloth gets a portable snack
living in its fur.
Other than their heart-thumping defecation adventures,
they eat, sleep and even give birth high up in the trees.
They hold on tight with their massive claws,
hanging upside down.
They luckily don't have to rely on strength
to grip the branches.
Their claws are like hooks,
so it's like having four clothes hangers
strapped to their extremities.
Some sloths even continue to hang on long after their death.
The sedentary sloth spend so much time upside down
that it's hair even grows upside down.
Starting from their belly, growing towards their spine,
so that the rain water flows right off
and they don't get waterlogged.
Even their neck is especially designed
so they don't have to move much.
Sloths have a wide range of motion,
so they don't have to expend a ton of energy moving their arms.
They can use their heads to twist and reach for food.
So, the lazy sloth might spend most of its time
just hanging around.
But considering they risk their lives by going to the bathroom,
it's no wonder they spend the entire rest of the week
in recovery mode.
There are all sorts of stinkers in the animal kingdom
but the sources of all these smells
play an important roles in nature.
They mark territories,
fertilize forests,
aid in reproduction
and ward off predators.
There is a method to their musky madness,
as they stink up their world one release at a time.
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