1997 VHS • Really Wild Animals: Secret Weapons and Great Escapes 60 FPS

About

Really Wild Animals: Secret Weapons and Great Escapes is a National Geographic children's nature documentary narrated by the animated globe character Spin. The program is divided into two distinct segments. The first segment surveys animal defense and predation strategies organized as numbered secret weapons, covering the Australian frilled lizard's threat display, the owl butterfly's eyespot wing markings, the puffer fish's inflation defense, skunk spray, the Hemispharata beetle's adhesive feet (60,000 bristle-tipped sticky pads), the bombardier beetle's boiling chemical spray, the tomato frog's skin adhesive and inflation, the Surinam toad's dorsal brooding pouch, the mantis shrimp's punching claws, the cone snail's venom-tipped harpoon, green tree pythons' heat-sensing pit organs, king cobra venom, and army ant colony teamwork. A segment on black widow spiders features the Christensen family of Utah, who raise thousands of black widows in their basement to harvest venom for antivenin production.

The second segment shifts to island ecosystems, visiting Madagascar for ring-tailed lemurs, sifaka lemurs and their scent-marking behaviors, and chameleons. Subsequent island stops cover the Galapagos giant tortoise and the impact of introduced goats on native species, and close in New York Harbor, where herons have colonized restored wetland islands. Both segments feature original songs performed by child and adult vocalists throughout.

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

The Vista Group®

Language

English

Subtitles

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed