I have never really been that into animal documentaries, I do watch them but they’re not my first choice when flicking through the channels. However, when I found out about Spy in the Wild, whilst watching This Morning on Tuesday whilst having a cup of tea and a scone, I was extremely intrigued. This programme isn’t just a regular animal documentary, the creators used animatronics with cameras in to secretly document these particular animals in the wild. They call them spy animals and they are little robot animals. As I study Specialist Hair & Media Make-up, animatronics does interest me too so this programme seemed right up my street. Here’s the clip from This Morning which got me hooked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo_PWYuueYE.
This particular episode was about love so it captured the family relationships and courtship of different types of animals; each species behaved individually, however, there were aspects of each species which reminded me of our own.
Wild Dogs
The wild dogs are a very family focused species and have extremely strong family ties. They show affection right through to their extended family. I know my mum would do anything for me, whether it’s just giving me advice on the best way to washing my new jumper or travelling 2 hours to see me at uni just because I was lonely. The mother of the wild dog pups weren’t dissimilar. She protected her pups when there was a risk and put herself in danger then came back to the home to tidy up after!
Elephants
David Tennant explained that elephants have a developed sense of love. I just thought it was hilarious when the baby elephant tried to walk for the first time and the mum kept having to pick it up because it kept falling over. This reminded me of when I was drunk at my brother’s wedding and my mum had to support me to the car so I would get there vertically. It’s this instinctive care that the elephant has for her baby, like when she strokes the baby under its chin with her trunk, that warms the cockles of your heart!
Indian Langurs
These little baby monkeys were so cute! It was explained that the teenage monkeys all come in to look after the baby for the mums, so they can relax, and all these teenage monkeys were almost fighting over each other to hold the baby. This just reminded me of my sister and I and our nieces because we are always competing to give the most love to our nieces and we get so jealous if one of us is missing out on babysitting duties! I got so emotionally involved with these monkeys. I won’t ruin it for you but I cried at one point when they were being so affectionate to each other.
Prairie Dogs
They kiss each other!! On the lips!! Like humans do!! It is so cute!! Need I say anymore?…
image from Independent.co.uk