Steve Backshall takes a look at the adaptions that make animals lethal predators or ultimate surviors
Steve Backshall takes a look at animals that are lethal in their own environment. These creatures have awesome adaptations, tricks and techniques that make sublime hunters or exceptional survivors.
- Deadliest apex predators in the wild: which ruthless mammals are the best killing machines?
- Deadliest animals to humans – discover the world’s most lethal creatures
Meet nature’s deadliest hunters
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Deadliest at night
The ghost or false vampire bat is the largest carnivorous bat in the world. It’s not just an insect eater and uses its Dracula-like fangs to catch frogs, lizards, birds and even other bats.
Most fearless
The wolverine and honey badger vie for this title; both are mustelids (weasel family) and both are capable of taking on animals many times their size, The honey badger can drive lions off their kills, while the wolverine can bring down a full-grown moose by ceaselessly nipping at its heels.
Fastest in water
Though a few fish may swim faster in short bursts, the bluefin tuna’s streamlining, muscle structure and complex circulatory system allow it to maintain speeds for uncommonly long periods of time. Its hydrodynamic shape is much like a torpedo. When cruising at speeds of around 16kmph, its fins extend outwards, allowing it to turn on a sixpence. But when it hits its top speed of 65kmph, the fins then fold into slots in its body to reduce drag
Finest teamwork
Unlike most raptors, harris hawks hunt together. When one bird spots a rabbit, it pounces, flushing the quarry into the open where it can be picked off by comrades. Studies have shown that this method provides twice as much food for each bird as individual hunting
Top detective
Their choice of prey explains that bizarre head, which earns the hammerhead shark a place on our weirdest sharks list. All sharks have receptors in their snouts that detect electrical pulses in the moving muscles of their prey l(even a heartbeat). The broad hammerhead spreads out these receptors, making these sharks so efficient they can locate a buried AA battery from 10m away
Swiftest punch
Mantis shrimps are champion boxers that can punch their way through bulletproof glass. This ferocious hunter grows as long and as thick as a man’s forearm and is armed with barbed forelegs. It digs vertical burrows in the sand in which it hides. When a fish lingers too close, the mantis strikes, kills and vanishes in a millisecond. It’s one of the most impressive predatory acts you’ll ever see.
Strongest bite
The alligator snapping turtle is an aggressive, deadly reptile, which lurks in the dark, dank vegetation of the Louisiana swamps. Its huge beak’ is as sharp as a kitchen knife, and can exert a thousand pounds of pressure per square inch. Inside the mouth is a dangling piece of tissue that the turtle can wriggle like a worm. Fish think it’s a tasty snack and swim right in.
Quickest colour change and strike
Many animals are able to change colour rapidly using chromatophores (colour cells beneath the skin) like those found in chameleons. But the giant cuttlefish can change its entire body hue from white to purple in less than a second, pulsing waves of colour through its mantle like neon disco lights. Even swifter is the cuttlefish’s strike – it fires its tentacles at prey so fast the human eye can barely register them.