Podcasts by The Wild Episode

Northern Gannet : Deep Impact from 2023-11-16T09:10:16

Northern Gannets are famous for one thing above all else: plunge diving after fish. So, an episode that's a bit of a deep dive into ... diving! How high, how deep, how dangerous, and how individ...

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Antarctic Krill : Maximum Swarm from 2023-11-01T15:03:50

The Antarctic Krill is one of the most numerous animals on Earth, probably responsible for the biggest single species aggregations you can find nowadays. So numerous, in fact, t...

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Tentacled Snake : J Stands For Death from 2023-07-05T08:15:28

The tentacled snake is one of the most unmistakable snakes in the world. And the story of how its tentacles connect to its extraordinary hunting strategy involves two letters: '...

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Mediterranean Monk Seal : The Seal in Hiding from 2023-06-14T08:45

The Mediterranean Monk Seal is probably the rarest pinniped in the world. It's had almost everything thrown at it - by us and by Nature - and survived, just, in part by changing...

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São Tomé Caecilian : Double Yellow from 2023-05-24T08:01:17

The São Tomé Caecilian is a fantastic creature: an extremely yellow legless amphibian living in the soil on a single volcanic island. An extraordinary example of an already extr...

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White-Barred Acraea : Where Did All The Males Go? from 2023-05-10T07:17:29

Something very weird goes on in mating assemblies of the White-barred Acraea butterfly - males and females swap roles. Why? And what can it tell us about a secret natural force shaping whole pop...

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Whirling Disease Myxozoan : Minimum Animal from 2023-04-26T07:48:14

Whirling Disease in fish is caused by a tiny parasite. But what is that parasite and just how tiny is tiny? The answers will astound you!

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Megamouth Shark : The Third Biggest Shark in the World from 2023-04-12T07:59:50

The Megamouth Shark is one of the biggest, yet least known, least understood, sharks in the world. Not entirely surprising, since we've only known it exists for about fifty year...

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Update and 2023 Preview from 2022-12-16T09:04:11

Just a quick update on the podcast, and a quick look forward to 2023! 

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Vampire Jumping Spider : Vampire or Van Helsing? from 2022-11-18T08:26:03

The Vampire Jumping Spider feeds - in part - on blood. Often, human blood. But how it does it makes it one of the most extraordinary spiders in the world ...

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Vampire Squid : Neither Vampire Nor Squid from 2022-10-31T10:39:23

The Vampire Squid is not really a vampire, nor is it really a squid. It's the last survivor of an ancient lineage that has arrived in the present with an astonishing array of ad...

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Corsac Fox : Two Foxes, an Eagle and a Marmot from 2022-09-28T08:27:30

The Corsac Fox is a small, elegant fox of Central Asia, Mongolia and China - a huge range, most of which it shares with four other animals that loom large in its life: red fox, ...

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Neon Flying Squid : You'll Believe a Squid Can Fly from 2022-09-07T07:21:23

The Neon Flying Squid is one of those animals that lives up to its cool name: a squid that can actually fly. And we're not talking just gliding - time to talk jets and rockets ....

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Scottnema : Maximum South from 2022-08-25T08:30:05

The most numerous purely terrestrial animal in Antarctica is almost certainly the nematode worm Scottnema lindsayae. An astonishingly resilient little creature that goe...

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Red-Crowned Crane : DMZ from 2022-07-28T08:09:57

The Red-Crowned Crane is a hugely charismatic, properly iconic bird, with symbolic importance in much Asian art, culture and myth. So here's me trying, in a way, to use it as a ...

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Emperor Scorpion : Very Good With Children from 2022-06-28T07:19:26

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...

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(REBROADCAST) Northern Fulmar : The Foul Gull of St Kilda from 2022-06-10T10:05:17

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...

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Pig-Nosed Turtle : One of a Kind from 2022-05-24T08:15:17

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 w...

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Fenyes's Strepsipteran : You Have Got To Be Kidding from 2022-05-12T14:44:12

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, sin...

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Tri-Spine Horseshoe Crab : Survivors from 2022-04-25T08:36:22

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

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Colugo : Glide Path from 2022-04-07T07:50:27

Colugos (often called, entirely inaccurately, flying lemurs) - there are two officially recognised species at the moment - are more dramatically and completely adapted to glidin...

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Wasp Mantidfly : Spider's Bane from 2022-03-24T08:38:43

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, phor...

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Great Slaty Woodpecker : The Haunted Bird from 2022-03-02T09:19:36

The Great Slaty Woodpecker (Mulleripicus pulverulentus) is probably the biggest woodpecker in the world. A spectacular inhabitant of Asian forests that's haunt...

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Greater Argonaut : The Aquarium of Jeanne Villepreux-Power from 2022-02-11T08:27:13

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 u...

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Stoplight Loosejaw : Jaws Sees Red from 2021-12-29T09:13:26

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 spectacul...

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Giant Hummingbird : Life At The Limit from 2021-12-13T08:37:32

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 ext...

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Death's-Head Hawkmoth : The Mad King's Moth from 2021-11-29T08:52:27

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 unus...

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Armadillo Lizard : The Armoured Ouroboros from 2021-11-10T08:22:03

The Armadillo Lizard has a fantastic scientific name - Ouroborus cataphractus - which connects it to ancient mystical symbolism and ancient heavy cavalry. In fact, it s...

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Crab Nemertean : The Egg Thief from 2021-10-27T08:08:23

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,...

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Black-Headed Duck : The Cuckoo Duck from 2021-10-13T07:15:05

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 cause...

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Orca : The Ultimate Predator from 2021-09-22T09:41:28

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 ...

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Rakali : Carnivorous Rodent Eats Poison Toad from 2021-08-03T09:27:32

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 li...

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Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake : All At Sea from 2021-07-20T09:21:37

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 ha...

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Electric Eel : Maximum Shock from 2021-07-06T07:16:41

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 scien...

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European Beewolf : The War on Fungus from 2021-06-15T07:54:26

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

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Colossal Squid : When Giant Isn't Big Enough from 2021-05-12T08:44:44

The Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is the biggest invertebrate on Earth - a truly enormous mollusc that weighs as much as a bull moose. Yet much about it r...

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Olm : Larval Dragons in Black and White from 2021-04-21T08:20:22

The olm (Proteus anguinus) is a very unusual animal: a large cave salamander, with an extraordinary life and an interesting history of research, that comes in (at least...

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Madison Cave Isopod : Standing in the Shallows of the Aquifer from 2021-04-06T08:10

The Madison Cave Isopod is a small aquatic crustacean living an extraordinary subterranean life: not in underground rivers, but in the groundwater. In the aquifer. 

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Oilbird : Humboldt's Chupacabra from 2021-03-24T10:24:08

The Oilbird is a bird not quite like any other: first described by one of history's greatest naturalist-explorers, it is a cave-nesting nocturnal fruit-eater, whose nestlings ha...

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Eleonora's Falcon : The Lady-Judge's Bird from 2021-03-09T09:34:19

Eleonora's Falcon is a very elegant, very unusual bird of prey. It nests in big colonies on Mediterranean Islands, and on one of those islands may have been the first bird in th...

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Greater Noctule Bat : Bat versus Bird from 2021-01-26T08:58

The Greater Noctule bat is Europe's biggest bat, but also probably its most mysterious and least studied. In the last twenty years, though, remarkable details of its life have come to light. Suc...

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Purple Frog : The Frog That Thinks It's A Fish And A Mole from 2020-12-23T13:42:16

The purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) was only described by scientists in 2003. Naturalists actually knew about it - knew a little about it - way back in the early 20th century, but its...

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Mormon Cricket : The Cannibal Swarm from 2020-12-11T09:18:11

Cannibals on the march ... The Mormon Cricket (Anabrus simplex), which is found across western North America, is prone to outbreaks: the mass movement of millions upon ...

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Labord's Chameleon : All Together Now from 2020-11-25T08:30:09

Labord's Chameleon (Furcifer labordi) may look like just another chameleon, albeit a small one. But it isn't. In one crucial respect, it is one of the most unusual anim...

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Lowland Streaked Tenrec : Of Rafts and Spines from 2020-11-10T13:05:47

The Lowland Streaked Tenrec (Hemicentetes semispinosus) is a small, worm-eating mammal from Madagascar. It has yellow stripes, a shared evolutionary history with elephants and sociable ...

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Halloween Moths : Sweat, Tears and Blood from 2020-10-30T10:55:57

Moths for Halloween! If you can drink nectar, or fruit juice, as many moths do, you can drink other kinds of liquids too. Such as ... the bodily fluids of other animals. Up to and including the ...

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Loricifera : Oxygen from 2020-10-15T09:08:26

The loricifera are a group of microscopic animals that, despite being abundant and widespread in marine sediments, no-one knew existed until the late 20th century. Once they wer...

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Bat-Eared Fox : It's A Dog's Life from 2020-09-29T09:47:04

The bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) may not look out of the ordinary (apart from its big ears) but it is. Known as the only insectivorous dog in the world, it has the...

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Wandering Glider : A World in Perfect Harmony from 2020-07-24T14:16:16

The Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens) may look like just another dragonfly, but it is in fact one of the more remarkable insects on Earth, undertaking some of the m...

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Bearded Vulture : The Bonebreaker and the Acid Test from 2020-07-07T07:56:30

The Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is Nature's greatest bonebreaker and bone-eater, and it uses two very different tools to make that possible: gravity and acid. I...

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Ice Worm : Life on Ice from 2020-06-16T08:52:38

The glacier ice worm Mesenchytraeus solifugus might look unremarkable, but it is an extraordinary animal. Above all, it's extraordinary in where it lives: on and in gla...

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Greater Honeyguide : The Bird of Light and Dark from 2020-06-02T09:17:32

The Greater Honeyguide (Indicator indicator) is famous for its extraordinary co-operative relationship with humans. Less famous is its ruthlessly destructive relationsh...

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Bonnethead Shark : The Shark That Eats Grass from 2020-05-12T13:27:32

The Bonnethead Shark (Sphyrna tiburo) is a shark that packs quite a bit of unique into its smallish size. It's a member of the hammerhead family, so you know its head i...

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West Indian Fuzzy Chiton : The Argus Shell from 2020-04-28T15:27:25

The West Indian fuzzy chiton (Acanthopleura granulata) is a relatively unobtrusive, modest-looking marine mollusc with an extraordinary secret. Its shell is not just fo...

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Barbary Macaque : The Monkey That Killed A King from 2020-04-14T11:57:59

The Barbary Macaque (Macaca sylvanus) is the only macaque that lives outside Asia, hanging on in pockets of the wild Atlas Mountains in North Africa. And, famously, liv...

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Yeti Crab : The Abominable Crustacean from 2020-04-01T09:31:02

Yeti crabs (Kiwa spp.). Hydrothermal vents. Life built not on sunlight, but on chemistry. We're going for a visit to some of the strangest places, with some of the stra...

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Alpine Chough : The Black Feather of the Neanderthals from 2020-03-17T11:01:41

The Alpine chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus) is, as far as birds are concerned, pretty much the ultimate mountaineer. It has bred at higher altitude than any other bird, and been seen hangi...

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Solorzano's Peripatus : The Giant Red Velvet Glue Gun from 2020-02-25T12:12:30

Solorzano's Peripatus (Peripatus solorzanoi) is the biggest velvet worm in the world. Which makes it the biggest example of a very, very unusual group of animals: cute,...

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Portuguese Man-o-War : The Flagship of the Blue Fleet from 2020-01-14T11:16:31

The Portuguese man o’ war (Physalia physalis) is the most famous and spectacular member of the Blue Fleet. Questions to be asked and answered: What is the Blue Fleet? What obscure conne...

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Anelosimus eximius : The Social Spider from 2019-12-05T16:41:09

Most spiders live solitary lives, but Anelosimus eximius is an example of a different lifestyle: colonial living. A very social spider, that maintains and defends a communal web and hun...

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Great Northern Tilefish : The Great Dying of 1882 from 2019-11-19T16:06:11

The Great Northern Tilefish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps) is a big, beautiful fish from the western Atlantic. It's one of those rare animals that is capable of reshaping its physical ...

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Bone-House Wasp : A Halloween Ossuary from 2019-10-29T20:54:06

The Bone-House Wasp (Deuteragenia ossarium) is recently discovered species of spider wasp that has some remarkable habits. So, three questions. What is a spider wasp? What is an ossuary...

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Ruppell's Vulture : The Seven Mile High Club from 2019-10-09T14:55:19

Ruppell's Vulture (Gyps rueppelli) is one of the biggest vultures in the world, but it's real claim to fame is more spectacular. It is the highest flying bird on Earth. Certain risks co...

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Bootlace Worm : Maximum Worm from 2019-09-24T19:30:55

The world record for longest animal is held by the bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus), a Nemertean or ribbon worm from the North Sea. In fact, it's held by a Scottish bootlace worm that...

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Exploding Ant : Pop Goes The Ant from 2019-09-03T11:56:45

Colobopsis explodens is one of a group of ants known as exploding ants. Highly social insects that have developed an extraordinary approach to the defense of their colonies - a mass of ...

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Cuvier's Beaked Whale : Maximum Dive from 2019-07-25T10:36:34

Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) is a member of a rarely seen, little known and little studied group of whales – the beaked whales – that are in fact widespread, relatively c...

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Bone-Eating Worm : Whalefall from 2019-06-25T10:10:42

The weirdest animals yet to appear on The Wild Episode: Osedax, a whole genus of bone-eating worms that for tens of millions of years have been colonising giant carcasses in the deep se...

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Russian Tortoise : The Big Sleep from 2019-06-04T10:07:52

Come and meet the tortoise that went to the moon! The Russian Tortoise (Testudo or Agrionemys horsfieldii) was the first vertebrate animal to fly around the moon. It spends mor...

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Antarctic Midge : Antarctica's Biggest Pedestrian from 2019-05-14T14:44:24

What is the biggest terrestrial animal native to Antarctica? It's the Antarctic Midge (Belgica antarctica), a wingless fly that at no more than a quarter of an inch in length is by some...

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Gelada : The Monkey on the Mountain from 2019-04-02T21:10:08

The gelada (Theropithecus gelada) is the only living member of the Theropithecus genus. It's the only grass-eating monkey on Earth. It's probably the most terrestrial primate o...

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Spider-tailed Horned Viper : Possibly the Coolest Snake in the World from 2019-02-19T09:33:50

The spider-tailed horned viper (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) is in many ways an unremarkable snake. But in one very particular way - its tail, and what it does with it - it is utterly ...

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Mariana Snailfish : As Deep As A Fish Can Go from 2018-12-13T10:43:15

The Mariana snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei) was only discovered and described a couple of years ago: and it was a big deal, because no fish has ever been brought up from greater depth. How do f...

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Crowned Eagle : The Predator Next Door from 2018-12-04T09:40:41

The Crowned Eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) is one of the largest birds of prey in Africa. It's probably the most powerful and almost certainly the one that regularly goes after the biggest prey...

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Violet Oil Beetle : The Hitchhiker From Hell from 2018-11-20T09:38:35

The violet oil beetle (Meloe violaceus) is our way into a discussion of leaky leg joints, toxic oil, aphrodisiacs, the cantharidin world, hitch-hiking, egg-laying on an industrial scale...

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Australian Trumpet : Maximum Snail from 2018-11-06T09:55:17

The biggest snail in the world, Syrinx aruanus, turns out to be a highly specialized and effective predator. And we'll get to it via dolphins, mistaken identity, a unique human culture ...

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Epomis, Cymothoa, Hymenoepimecis : Halloween Horrors from 2018-10-23T09:09:20

In recognition that Halloween is almost upon us, we pay a visit to Nature's dark side. A beetle, a crustacean and a wasp that do really pretty extraordinary things. But not, let's be honest, thi...

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Baikal Seal : The Seal That's Never Seen The Sea from 2018-09-25T10:06:40

The Baikal seal is the only purely freshwater seal species in the world, and it lives in precisely one place: Lake Baikal in Siberia. A lake which is itself extraordinary - the deepest in the wo...

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Spectral Bat : Maximum Bat from 2018-08-28T14:34:40

The Spectral Bat (Vampyrum spectrum - which is pretty cool as scientific names go) is the biggest bat in the Americas, and the biggest carnivorous bat in the world. A properly ...

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Shark, Stick, Crake : Updates and Supplementals from 2018-07-25T19:01:01

Revisiting the subjects of the first three Wild Episodes! Just how common is the huge, ridiculously long-lived Greenland Shark? New research has the beginnings of an answer. The Lord Howe Island...

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Archerfish : Bullseye from 2018-06-26T14:20:30

You've probably heard of Archerfish (Toxotes spp.), the Robin Hoods of the natural world. I discovered them when I was a kid, burning through wildlife books from the library. What I did...

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Coelacanth : The King of the Sea from 2018-06-05T13:24:49

The coelacanth(s) (Latimeria chalumnae and Latimeria menadoensis) must be amongst the most famous fish in the entire world. And rightly so, since their discovery was one of the...

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Large Blue Butterfly : The Wolf In Ant's Clothing from 2018-05-22T11:28:16

The large blue butterfly (Maculinea arion - or Phengaris arion, depending on who you ask) is both beauty and the beast. Beauty because ... well, it's a pretty little butterfly,...

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Banteng : The Horns of a Dilemma from 2018-05-08T15:15:50

Wild cattle don't come much more beautiful or impressive than the banteng (Bos javanicus), one of three (or is it two?) surviving cattle species that are as much a part of wild Asia as ...

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Steller's Sea Cow : Steller's Menagerie Part Two from 2018-04-24T18:43:18

Part two of two, and the amazing Steller's sea cow (Hydromalis gigas) - a sirenian bigger than an African elephant - finally makes its appearance, as the wheels come off the Great North...

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Steller's Sea Cow : Steller's Menagerie Part One from 2018-04-10T15:24:27

Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) was one of the most surprising, dramatic and generally amazing animals to have shared the world with modern humans. To tell its story is going to ...

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Corn Crake : The Undiscovered Song from 2018-03-27T13:54:09

Vikings! Monks! Poetry! Plus, a bird that is next to impossible to see, but almost impossible not to hear. The corn crake (Crex crex) has one of the most distinctive v...

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Lord Howe Island Stick Insect : The Lazarus Stick from 2018-03-13T18:38:03

This Wild Episode is all about what was once the rarest insect in the world - the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis) - and the bizarre story of how it escaped extinct...

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Greenland Shark : The Shark in Darkness from 2018-02-27T12:53:50

Where better to start The Wild Episode than with a shark? Specifically, the Greenland Shark. Somniosus microcephalus.

One of the least well known, and most mysterious, top predat...

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