National Geographic: Australias Animal Mysteries Page #3

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he probes the sand.

With a sensitive spot either

in his bill or tongue,

he gets a reading as accurate

as any thermometer.

Regulating the temperature by

removing sand to release heat

or adding sand to conserve it is an

almost constant job for the bird,

a consuming task to

which he dedicates himself

for up to nine months of the years.

Roughly every two months,

a chick will work its way up through

the thick soil and wander off,

never to see its parents again.

From the depths of the forest echoes

a haunting and memorable sound...

the lyrebird, master of vocal mimicry.

Seemingly endless in its variety,

the lyrebird's repertoire

include other bird calls,

as well as man-made sounds.

The mating ritual is highlighted

by a shimmering display of

the bird's immense fan-like tail.

In central Australia,

heavy rains have flooded to desert.

But storms are few and short-lived in

this harsh, arid country.

As the claypans begin to dry up

the water-holding frog demonstrates

a remarkable adaptation.

Increasing its body weight by

as much as 50 percent

with water absorbed through the skin,

the frog burrows into the softened clay

to a depth of more than three feet.

Once underground, it will enter

a sleep-like state

its active life essentially over

until the desert once again sees rain.

Encased in a cocoon-like bag

of dead skin,

the frog will remain in its chamber,

sealed beneath the now dry

and hardened earth.

In times of drought, these amazing

creatures have been known to stay buried

for two years or more.

Only when the rains finally come

and the earth begins to soften

can the frog begin to emerge.

It must mate quickly

so that his young will mature

in time to soak up their own water supply

and bury themselves

until the next rains come.

In the forests of

southeastern Queensland,

a major scientific discovery

was made in 1972.

Since that time,

a bizarre animal unique in the world

has been making history.

The first noteworthy fact was that

it existed at all

Australians had always believed that

in their country

there was no such thing

as a frog that lived in water.

Since the time of the original discovery,

captured animals have been sent to

the Zoology Department

at the University of Adelaide

for study by Michael Tyler.

one of the countries

foremost takes on ton-frog.

Spending their daylight hours

hidden under rocks

these frogs are the most light sensitive

and shy of any Tyler has ever seen.

The only way he has been able to

observe them successfully

is to remove them from

their regular aquarium.

In a specially built tank with

one-way glass windows,

the frogs will be unaware

of Tyler's presence.

Because many have died in captivity

and in recent years

no more have been found in the wild,

these two remain to

unlock the mysteries of

some of the most unusual

animal behavior ever recorded.

But though action like this free-falling

is bizarre and unexplained,

it is the animal's reproduction

that has most electrified the world.

What is so unusual about the

gastric-brooding frog

is the fact that it carries

its young in its stomach.

Superimposed on an X ray,

an artist's conception follows

the growth of some two dozen tadpoles

until, at roughly eight weeks,

the female's stomach is completely

distended

with fully developed frogs

ready to be born.

The mother opens her mouth and then

she dilates her esophagus

and the babies pop up from the stomach

one or two at a time,

and sit upon her tongue.

And then they sit and look around,

look at the world outside,

and then just very, very gently step out.

Tyler's rare photo of an actual birth

has made headlines around the world.

Here we have an animal

which can switch off

acid being produced in the stomach.

An awareness that that would be an

extremely novel way

of being perhaps able to treat people

who might need to be able to

make use of that as an advantage.

For an example, during the treatment

for peptic ulcers,

it would be so useful to be able to

switch off gastric acid

secretion totally for a period of

time and do it very, very readily.

I say it's a long, long way.

between what we've done so far

and such a thing as a possibility.

But, I mean,

in the matter of a few years ago

no one would have dreamed

that the existence of this frog

with this habit could

possibly occur and so,

with that in mind,

I don't think it's impossible

or too far fetched to maintain hopes

that is may have clinical application.

In the reptile world,

Australia stands out as the continent

with the largest proportion

of venomous snakes.

The death adder is one of the

country's most poisonous snakes.

Without treatment,

half of its human victims will die.

Like all snake,

the death adder feeds primarily

on small animals like lizards.

Its approach is neither

timid nor aggressive,

for in the end it relies on

an extraordinary device

for enticing the skink within range.

Wriggling its tail tip as a lure,

the snake can lie quietly and wait.

Attracted by what must appear

to be a squirming insect,

the skink draws near.

The venom, five times more powerful than

that of its cousin, the king cobra,

paralyzes the muscles

that control breathing,

and the victim dies of asphyxiation.

The Australian reptile Park

was founded by Eric Worrell,

who has worked with snakes

for more than 50 years.

People overseas always

think of Australian animals

as being koalas or kangaroos.

They don't think very much about

our snakes, our other reptiles.

We have the deadliest reptiles

in the world.

Robyn Worrell is an experienced

snake handler.

With careful concentration

combined with skill,

she has been bitten

only once in ten years.

Though her snake-milking

demonstration may draw curious crowds,

the primary goal of her work lies in

the realm of science and medicine.

What I'm milking here is

the mainland tiger snake.

There's probably about

seven or eight different types

of tiger snakes in Australia.

It's the third deadliest

that we have in Australia.

What I'm actually doing now

is just enticing the snake to bit

over the rubber.

The fangs are penetrating through

that rubber and the venom

accumulates in the bottom of the beaker.

Generally we keep...

Over the years, the venoms collected

at the park

have proved invaluable to laboratories

developing snake-bite cures.

The work we do here is vital in that

it has been estimated that we save

one life a day from snake bite.

That's during the snakes' active season,

which is to say from

September until April.

And I think that works out to

something around 20,000 lives

that this organization

has saved since we started.

Thanks largely to the Worrells' work,

there are now antivenoms

for all Australia's poisonous snakes.

In addition to snakes,

Australia's reptiles include some

Lacking venom as protection

against predators,

they depend on an impressive

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