Coastal kingdom | strategies for survival | season 1 | episode 1

>> [laughing] You can see -- So this is a little American alligator. It's not a crocodile. Okay, here we go. Here's a couple more. In fact, one of them just flew. Here's

an oyster toadfish in one of the tanks in our nature center. Notice the incredible cryptic coloration this guy has. Great camouflage. Tell you what -- let's scoop him out and get a

better look at him. Okay, I'm going to scoop this guy out of here and we'll get a good look at him. He's kind of in defensive posture because these guys have very impressive

spines and, if you're ever stuck by these, they really hurt. So I'm sure any predator that attacked this fish would pay the price for it. You know, animals have to protect

themselves. They use cryptic coloration, or "camouflage"; some of them are very, very quick, so they can literally flee from enemies; and then, other species taste bad,

they're either toxic or poisonous; and all these things allow animals to protect themselves in nature and keep from being eaten. Let's look at some LowCountry animals and some

"Strategies for Survival." What a cool habitat this is. This is a nice combination of sandy beach and mudflats and there's some oyster rakes over here, too, and what that

means is there's a lot of places for a lot of different types of animals to live. And many of these organisms remain underground almost their entire lives. They also have to deal with

the changing of the tides. It's a tough place to live, here, and animals have developed some really cool ways of protecting themselves. So let's get out and look around and see

what's here. Boy, the tide is really coming in and look at all the snails here. These guys are waiting for the tide to come in and cover them up. These are mud snails. And don't

let their slow movements fool you. Mud snails are voracious feeders. These little guys feed on just about anything, dead or alive, that they can catch and eat. Okay, I don't think

there's anything in here now, but there certainly was something here. This looks like a depression that was created either by a stingray or probably a horseshoe crab. And this thing

buried itself down underneath the sand and then, when it left, it left this depression. I see something right over here that's kind of cool and this looks like one of the chimney worms.

Or "decorator" worms, some people call it. This little guys lives under the sand. In fact, he has a tube that's about this long that goes down into the sand. It's

actually kind of a delicate worm, but this tube helps to protect him and you notice all this stuff up at the top up here. There's some pieces of shell, there's some algae, some sea

lettuce right here. He's created sort of a little garden around the top of the tube and what he can do is come out of that little garden, look around, feed on things, and then, if he

gets in trouble, he can go back down into this tube. Let's dig this guy up, so we can get a better look at him. Now, look at this tube. And you can see there's shells, little

coquina shells, attached to this. And all sorts of things. There's sand, there's sea lettuce. And I'm going to open this up and see if the worm is inside. And, sure enough,

yeah, there's a little guy right here. And this is one of the polychaete worms. And polychaetes have lots of little hairlike structures, which are actually what they use to move.

Chaetae are like little appendages, little feet, or whatever; and poly means "many", so this has lots of little, tiny footlike structures. And this is just one of many types of

polychaete worms. This wonderful tube is great protection from a lot of predators. Things can't get at this worm. He can go way down in the tube down here and even a sandpiper, who has

a specially modified bill that's designed for probing in little holes like this, can't get him, if he's all the way down at the bottom. Okay, now, here's something

really, really cool. There's a little hole here about the size of a nickel and, inside it, I can see a little siphon and I think I know what this is, but this one, I'm going to dig

up by hand. Boy, this is mucky stuff. I mean, there's all kinds of nutrients and stuff in here. I mean, this darker mud is from lack of oxygen. Boy, look, the tide is rapidly coming

in, so we got to do this quick. Just in the nick of time. Because the tidewater's getting very deep. But look at that. So this is an angelwing clam. And this is the siphon, so this is

the thing that was sticking up out of the top. And, I mean, this thing was, you know, this deep in the sand and so -- boy, talk about an amazing creature. Very delicate shell. Since this

guys lives underneath the sand, it doesn't require that real hard shell that a lot of either bivalves have. You've probably seen these as, you know, shells. You know, people

collect these for the shell trade and also, in other parts of the world, especially, people eat angelwings. They're supposed to be pretty good to eat. But, since it lives underground,

it's well-protected from a lot of things that might want to eat him. And, believe me, a lot of meat on that, so there's a lot of things that would probably want to eat it. okay,

let's put this guy back in and I'll tell you what -- the tide is coming in very rapidly, so we want to get out of here so we don't get covered up. I love flipping rocks

because there's always something kind of interesting underneath them. Oh, and here's something really, really cool. This is a bigclaw snapping shrimp. Let's see if I can pick

him up, get a look at him. I've got this neat little plastic container. Put a little water in here. So a lot of people call these "snapping" shrimp or "pistol"

shrimp. And the first thing you notice is this guy has this ridiculously big claw on one side, almost like a fiddler crab does. But I'll tell you what -- you know fiddler claws use a

claw to attract a mate? This guys uses his big claw for something entirely different. This guy has the ability to pop that claw very loudly. And it's audible -- you can actually hear

these things making noise in the marsh. And they pop it with such force that they cause a little bubble to form. And that bubble, as soon as it forms, it implodes and, when it does, it does

so so quickly, it causes friction, it creates light, it creates a pop, and it also creates concussive force that can stun other animals around it. So they can use this for hunting, they can

find a little fish or another little shrimp or something and pop that claw and stun it, and they also can use this to protect themselves from certain predators. Absolutely incredible. This

is a creature that lives right in our own backyard. It's right in our own waters. This is sort of like science-fiction, or something, but this thing can create in excess of 5000° in the

water directly around, in that bubble and right next to where he fires that claw. Now, of course, this is a little guy. He's only about that long, so we're talking about little,

micro amounts, but, still, phenomenal, what these little guys can do. So this is a neat little wetland. I've got a dip net here and I thought I'd poke around and see what we can

find. Here's something really neat. Looks like a little lizard, but, actually, it's a newt. It's a type of salamander. A red-spotted newt, or "Eastern" newt, and he

gets that name because he has little, tiny, tiny, little spots on it. And this is an adult. And newts -- You know, there are a lot of fish in this pond. Newts do okay with their fish and

that's because these things are toxic to fish. And if a fish grabs one of these things and starts to swallow it, he's probably going to spit it right out. Newts have a really

interesting life cycle. They start in the water. Eggs are laid in the water. Those eggs hatch into larvae and those larvae get big enough where they're, you know, almost adult-size and

then, these guys actually go out on land and walk around on land as terrestrials efts, they're called, e-f-t. And an eft lives on land for a while and then, eventually, it comes back to

the water, becomes an aquatic adult, and then lays eggs and the whole process is repeated. Fabulous life cycle, very different from most amphibians. Let's let this little guy go. I

feel something with my feet. Yeah. Thought we might find one of these. This is a slider turtle. In fact -- let me look at it closely -- it looks like a young female slider turtle. Now, this

is an adult. They get bigger than this -- I've seen females get this big or so -- but I think this is a female. I'm looking at the length of the claws. Males have very, very long

claws that they use sort of during courtship. Now, when you think of protection, turtles are a great example. Of course, they have this hard shell. Now, this shell is wonderfully protective.

It protects them against raccoons and all sorts of other predators that might especially try and eat them when they're crossing land. I guess the one exception would be alligators. And

if you get a really big alligator -- of course, it's going to take a 10-footer or so -- it can crush a turtle shell. And they can work them to the back, to those big crusher teeth, and

they can actually bust through one of these shells and eat a turtle. But, again, it would take a pretty good-sized one. Now, the thing is, turtles aren't always big like this. At this

size, they're fairly well-protected, but I've got something really cool I want to show you and these guys are not nearly as well-protected. So we have some baby turtles and these

are ones that we hatched out in the nature center and the eggs were collected very close to here. Incubated them in the nature center for about, I think, 65 days, and they hatched into these

cute little guys. And so these are babies that normally would've come out of the nest, walked down to the water, and then started life on their own. Now, turtles this size really have

a much more difficult time. Although they do have a shell, they're just not big enough to really protect themselves. A lot of things can just gulp them down whole. So what they rely on

is hiding. They are tremendous at hiding. In fact, they have wonderful cryptic coloration, or camouflage. If you put this guy in algae and other vegetation, it's going to blend in

beautifully and you can barely see him. In fact, I would imagine that these guys just hide in the vegetation for the first several years of their lives and just hope they're not seen by

predators. Now, we're going to release these little guys right here because the eggs were found very close to here, but it's not a good idea to have a pet turtle for a while and,

when you get tired of it, just go release it in a wetland. There are actually some introduced species, like red-eared sliders, that don't occur here and a lot of people get tired of

them as pets and let them go in their local wetland. That's a problem because they can outcompete the local turtles and then cause all sorts of problems. This looks like an ideal spot.

There's lots of vegetation, lots of places to hide, and there's a good chance that the mom is in this wetland somewhere. So I'm going to let these guys go. Insects have some

fascinating ways of protecting themselves and this is nicely exemplified by some of the caterpillars. And the trick to finding caterpillars is to find the host plant because female

butterflies will lay their eggs on a host plant so that, when those eggs hatch into larvae, those larvae can feed on that plant. Next to me is a sassafras and I'll bet, if we look

around, we might be able to find a particular type of caterpillar that feeds on sassafras. I see some of the telltale signs that a caterpillar's been feeding. One is this leaf looks

like it's been fed on. Also, a lot of these leaves are folded over and the particular caterpillar that we're looking for has a tendency to fold those leaves over and hide inside

it. So I'll bet, if we look inside these... and, sure enough, there's a caterpillar inside this and it was the one I was thinking about. It's the spicebush swallowtail and

spicebush swallowtails have something really cool. First of all, they fold the leaf over, which protects them against certain predators. But if we peek inside and just open the leaf up, like

a predator might do, we see an eyespot. And that eyespot looks just like a snake or a lizard or something much bigger that a predator probably wouldn't mess with. In fact, this eye is

so detailed, it actually has accents on it. It looks like somebody sketched this, an artist sketched this, to make the eye look realistic. These guys also can rear their head up and, when

they do, they look even more like a snake. And this is probably about the best snake-mimic that we have around here, spicebush swallowtail. But if we want to find a couple of the other

species that I'm interested in, we're going to have to look at different host plants, so let's see what we can find. [whispering] If you look right over my right shoulder

here, there's a giant swallowtail and that's an adult and it's been flying around. It's obviously laying eggs here, so, if we look around, I'll bet we can find the

larvae. This is the plant we're looking for. This s toothache tree, or Hercules' club, and it's got these razorsharp spines along the base of it and these get quite a bit

bigger than this. This is a little one. But here is the little larvae I was looking for, right on the edge of the leaf, and these things look remarkably like bird droppings, bird poop, and

so they're really hard to see. Now, obviously, this is a very small one, but, even when they get quite a big bigger, they look just like bird droppings. And one of the best ways to

protect yourself is to hide, use cryptic coloration, or camouflage, and, if predators can't see you, then they can't eat you. It's kind of hard to believe that this little

birdpoop-looking caterpillar is going to grow up to be one of our most magnificent swallowtail butterflies. We've identified one of the other host plants we're looking for. This is

water hemlock and water hemlock is the host plant for the black swallowtail. And so we've located one of these little guys and this is a black swallowtail larvae and look at how

different this guys looks. Now, he doesn't really have those eyespots, but he's got a really neat way of protecting himself. And if I squeeze it very gently on the thorax, it will

evert these glands and it's very strongsmelling and it's covered with a chemical and an odor that repels predators. See if I can get him to do it again. It's really

cool-looking! And you can imagine how this might really startle predators. Other species of swallowtails, like spicebush, also can, you know, shoot those tentacle-looking things out, but

this one is the one that's most known for doing it. Okay, here's another type of insect and I'm going to grab a stick. Okay, let me see if I can get him to crawl up on this

stick. [laughing] Okay, you notice I'm being very careful not to let this thing get me. I've been stung a couple times by velvet ants, or "cow killers". These are

awesome, awesome little guys. And they're brightly colored for a reason. This bright color means that they can walk around in the middle of the day, everybody can see them, but you know

what? Nobody messes with them and that's because these things have a powerful sting and it hurts and you can see where people got the name "cow killer" -- because the sting

is very, very strong. This is actually a solitary wasp, a mutillid wasp, and, you know, everybody has to have a way of protecting themselves and this guy just happens to have this sting and

animals learn to stay away from it. And I'll tell you what -- if an animal gets nailed once, it's not going to do it again. And that's one of the best ways to protect

yourself, is to be dangerous or to scare your predators off. These guys are really fast. [laughing] Man, he's just zipping up and down this stick. But I'm going to put him back

down and let him go and he'll just kind of run off. I absolutely love old farms like this. They provide a lot of cover, there are things to eat in here, and so there's a lot of

wildlife species that will utilize a habitat like this. So I thought what we'd do is take a look around, see what we can find. Spots like this are excellent for all sorts of neat

creatures. Oh, and here's a canebrake rattlesnake and this is a gorgeous, gorgeous snake. Canebrake rattlesnakes have this wonderful rusty stripe down the back and this looks pretty

bright out here, but it's actually really good camouflage in the habitats they live in. And I'm going to try not to spook this guy and get him to sit here for just a minute.

Canebrake rattlesnakes are very dangerous, but they're actually pretty docile and, most of the time, if you uncover one, they might not even rattle. This is absolute maximum size. This

is about as big as canebrake rattlesnakes get. But these guys are really good at protecting themselves with camouflage and then, a lot of times, they'll rattle, but one of the things I

noticed -- this guy does not have a rattle and this is the first time I've ever seen this. I mean, a lot of times, they'll have just sort of a button or just sometimes the rattle

breaks off. In this case, it looks like maybe, when he was young, the rattle was bitten off, or something, because it looks like there's scar tissue on the end of his tail. Gorgeous

snake. I mean, I just absolutely love these things. Now, they're big and impressive and, of course, they're dangerous. Notice I'm staying well out of striking range, but

it's just a beautiful animal and fairly common in some parts of the LowCountry. The really sad part is big rattlesnakes like this don't do well around people. As you can imagine,

since they're potentially dangerous, people will kill them, run over them with cars, and things like that. And the reality is canebrake rattlesnakes like this are very important to pest

control. They control rats and mice and squirrels and other things, and so they do some very good things for us. And they have tremendous venom and this guy has venom glands that are right

here in the back of the head and those venom glands are filled with a very toxic venom and so, when he bites a rat or a mouse or a squirrel, he injects venom and it kills it fairly rapidly.

This is very toxic venom that's designed to kill rats and mice and things like that. I don't want to do anything to hurt this guy, but I want to put his habitat back together, so

I'm going to move him out of the way and see if we can -- Boy, this is a big snake. He is very impressive. And I'm staying well out of harm's way. Okay, here's something

that looks like a reptile, but it's not. This is an armadillo and armadillos are so cool! And, first thing I notice is this is a little guy. And you know what? Either it has three

brothers or three sisters because armadillos always come in fours and they're quadruplets, so one egg cleaves twice and you get four identical quadruplets. So this one probably just

came out of a burrow and I'm sure it has three siblings. Now, of course, sometimes predators will get one or two or other members of the clutch. But, God, talk about cute. At this size,

they're really, really cute. They're built like tanks. This is a short, muscular little guy. They're tremendous jumpers and they're deceptively fast. These things can

race across the ground really quickly. They have excellent hearing, so they can hear danger coming; they have a strong, powerful tail; and the whole body is covered with these armor plates

and armadillos are made out of sort of industrial-strength stuff. Good claws for digging burrows and they spend a lot of the time hidden. Now, one of the things about armadillos is they can

actually contract Hansen's disease, or "leprosy", so I'm being very, very careful with this one and you have to be really, really careful, handling them. Okay, I'm

going to let this guy go about his business, go find his burrow. Okay, so this is a hognose snake and you can see this guy is already exhibiting some of the defensive behaviors they have.

He's spreading his head out like a cobra. That makes him look much bigger than he actually is. And they do some other kind of neat things, too. First of all, hognose snakes are

nonvenomous. I would not pick up a venomous snake like this. The reason why I say that is look how the neck looks wide. This guy looks like he has kind of a triangular head, but you also

notice he has a very upturned nose and that's where he gets the name "hognose snake". Hognose snakes don't pose any danger to anybody, unless you're a toad -- they

eat almost exclusively toads -- but they have some great defensive strategies. One is the ability to spread the head out, almost like a cobra. Now, they're not trying to look like

cobras because we don't have cobras here in the LowCountry, so why mimic something that doesn't exist here? What they're probably trying to do is make their bodies look

bigger. And so, a lot of times, in nature, animals will make themselves look bigger and more impressive and therefore they might be less likely to be eaten by a predator. The other thing

hognose snakes will do is gape the mouth open. And so they spread the head out, they gape the mouth open a little bit, and sometimes they'll even strike and this can be pretty scary,

too. Let's see if we can get him -- And so he's pretty agitated. And so, like I said, bluff is their first line of defense, but if that doesn't work, the next thing

they'll sometimes do is play dead. They'll thimble their tail like this, which is kind of a neat behavior, and then, sometimes they will literally turn over and play dead. If

they've eaten a toad recently, they'll regurgitate that toad, which is always a treat, and then, they turn over and they look dead. Now, the way you know they're alive is if

they're lying upside down looking dead, if you flip them back over onto their belly again, they'll "die" again, or flip right back over. So I messed with this guy too

much and look what happened. I mean, he looks like a dead snake, but he's not. He is very much alive, but he's playing dead. I'll bet you, if I put him upright, he's

going to turn right over and look like he's dead. And there he goes. [laughs] Hognose snakes make me laugh, every time I see them, because this is very much a bluff and this snake is

alive and, eventually, he's going to turn back over, look around to see if the coast is clear, and then he's going to crawl off. We found a beautiful gravid female cornsnake on the

road near here. Since she was full of eggs, we took her back to the nature center, she laid those eggs, and we hatched them out. Took about 2 months and hatched into these beautiful little

guys. And what we're going to do is release them right here in this stump. And they are really pretty little guys. You know, the reality is these guys face some real challenges in these

woods. Fortunately, nature's provided some mechanisms that are going to help. They, first of all, have a big clutch size -- there's lots of them. Also, they have great cryptic

coloration, or camouflage, and they're good hiders, so some of these little guys might just make it. Thanks for joining us on "Coastal Kingdom." >> [laughing] You can

see -- So this is a little American alligator. It's not a crocodile. Okay, here we go. Here's a couple more. In fact, one of them just flew.