Brilliant Creatures

Meet the brilliant climbing leopard, and we put the leopard to the test to see if he really can drag a carcass up to a platform 4-meters off the ground. Plus in the first of our South African films meet a girl who was trapped in a toilet by a venomous, spitting cobra and was forced to make an extraordinary decision.

Meet a boy who had a close encounter with a deadly black widow spider that was living in his fridge here in the UK! We travel to South Africa to meet a family that shares their house and their bed with a three-year-old hippopotamus and there are two owls with a very usual sporting ability they skateboard.

In the South African film Stephen helps to track and dart a wild white rhino and gets the shock of his life when it charges his vehicle. Meet a real life monster the biggest rabbit in the world and Stephen is challenged to present part of a bird of prey display to a live audience, find out how he gets on in today's show.

Meet a real life monster of the deep, a fish that can grow as long as a great white shark and which could be living in a lake near you. Gail is challenged to shear an alpaca in the studio, find out how it looks after she's finished! In the South African film meet a man who was trampled by a stampeding 8-tonne elephant and lived to tell the story just about!

Meet the bizarre Mata Mata turtle that sucks up food like a vacuum cleaner and has a head like a wrinkly snorkel. There are three ferocious killers in the studio all of them fish; between them they use lights, ambush and fishing lures to attract and annihilate their victims. And Gail is challenged to perform a routine with a dancing dog.

We take a look at some of the animals people keep as pets, there are loads of do's and don't on animal ownership and the studio is absolutely overflowing with the cutest puppies on earth. Check out one of the most extraordinary bits of behaviour we've ever seen on Brilliant Creatures; can a snake with a head the size of your thumbnail swallow an egg the size of a golf ball?

There are loads of do's and don't on owning a pet rat and you can find out ifs it's true that hospitals are using live maggots to eat rotten flesh. We travel to South Africa to meet a woman who has adopted 300 baboons and find out if the pig really deserves its reputation as a stupid animal when we challenge a pig and a dog to an obedience test and obstacle course.

There are loads of do's and don't on owning a pet snake. We travel to South Africa to meet a man who survived a terrifying 45-minute attack from a wild African buffalo. Stephen is challenged to perform a dance display with two tiny horses and is it true that hospitals are using leeches to suck people's blood?

We've got loads of suggestions on animals you could keep as a pet if you're short on time and space or working to a tight budget. We travel to South Africa to meet Ed Hern who gave up life as a city banker to open his own safari park filled with loads of brilliant creatures including rare white lions and Gail gets a nasty shock. And meet two surprising animals that can both take to the air.

Check out some surprising behavior from an animal with a neck like an umbrella. There are loads of do's and don't on owning a pet chinchilla. We've got three fantastic scaly predators in the studio, a 7-meter python, a tree python and an anaconda all of which kill their victims using ambush. How quickly can a vulture strip a piece of meat to the bone? We put one to the test to find out!