Super Small Animals
From a primate no bigger than a mouse, to a chameleon that can fit on a fingertip, the world is full of miniature marvels. Patrick Aryee discovers the secrets of their success.
From a primate that’s no bigger than a mouse, to a chameleon that can fit on your fingertip, the natural world is full of fantastically small animals. Biologist Patrick Aryee explores the fascinating secrets behind these miniature marvels and shows that they’re not the underdogs you might think they are. Super Small Animals follows him as he meets the leading experts on these pint sized superstars, and finds out what makes them some of the most successful on the planet.
First up, he reveals the huge benefits that being small can bring. There’s the little lemur whose diminutive frame helps it to exploit a unique gap in the eco-system, the tiny hummingbird that uses its size to out-manoeuvre the competition, and the world’s smallest seahorse that never has to leave home. He also explores why small animals are proportionally the strongest in the world, and introduces a peanut-sized beetle that can pull over a thousand times its own weight.
Next he explores the challenges that animals face when they shrink in size, and the ingenious ways they overcome them. We find out how the smallest armadillo in the world manages to control its temperature in the searing desert sun, and the how the world’s smallest fish can survive in nothing more than a puddle, because it never really grows up. Patrick meets a secretive hippo that lives in the dense jungle, and looks like it’s been shrunk in the wash, and some of the world’s smallest snakes that give birth to enormous babies. He also meets a scientist that studies how really tiny spiders have a surprising trick that enables them to travel an incredible 40 miles per day, using almost no energy.
Then there are the animals that refuse to be pigeon holed as small, and manage to punch way above their weight. He puts some astonishing invertebrates to the test, to see how they work together to become much bigger than the sum of their parts and meets a pint-sized predator that takes on some of the largest and most dangerous creatures on the planet, getting hands on to discover how its build helps it to be brave. Finally he uncovers the incredible lengths that deep sea anglerfish go to in order to be big and small at the same time, and has an endearing encounter with a tiny carnivore that manages to be small in just one direction.
Whether their size helps them to hunt, hide or survive, all these remarkable animals prove that good things really do come in small packages.
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Clips
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The perfect disguise
Duration: 02:15
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The leaf chameleon - small but perfectly formed
Duration: 01:47
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Sailing money spiders
Duration: 02:05
Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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00:00George Ezra
Don't Matter Now
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00:05Eliza Doolittle
Go Home
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00:07Amon Tobin
One Day In My Garden
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00:09Marc F. Teitler
Emergence
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00:16Take That
And The Band Plays
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00:29Eliza and the Bear
Make It On My Own
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00:33The Cinematic Orchestra
Man With The Movie Camera
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00:34Submotion Orchestra
In Gold
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00:35Kate Nash
Mouthwash
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00:41Bastille
Campus
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00:41Bastille
Campus
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00:44Royal Blood
She's Creeping
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Executive Producer | Jo Shinner |
| Executive Producer | Doug Hope |
Broadcasts
Super Senses: The Secret Power of Animals
Biologist Patrick Aryee explores the extraordinary and surprising world of animal senses.
