Wild Stories

Ex-zookeeper and wildlife creator Jordan Veasley a.k.a. Jungle Jordan swings by to reveal the chillest animals, why so many people think giraffes lay eggs, what okapis smell like and of course the challenges of sexing porcupines!

Happy 2026! To kick off a year of incredible stories here's the tale of the baby giraffe that walked to Paris and changed history forever. My favourite, Zarafa. And joining us on this cross-continental romp, special guest Heather Sharkey. Thanks for listening everyone!

Tom Hird a.k.a Blowfish, presenter of Netflix's latest wildlife reality show smash hit All the Sharks and the world's ONLY heavy metal marine biologisy stops by to chat diving hydrothermal vents, the hazards of shark chumming and the most bastardly fish on the planet.

Australia hasn't yet described 1/4 of its native bees. So how do we find and conserve them? Dr Kit Prendergast joins the podcast to fill us in on this crazy unexplored world of science, of insects lost and rediscovered, and the favourite bees she's discovered.

Ethical wildlife travel guru, monkey saviour and influencer Connie Needham swings by to chat African vs. Asian elephants, hedgehog adjectives and the evolutionary benefits of being a rascal. But how on Earth did I make her say 'Eupleridae'?

What do headless ants do? It's the worst job in the colony, but saves millions of lives. And humans do it too. Professor Adam Hart joins as guest to tell the story of how he discovered mutant waste collector ants in Panama and to finally reveal the value of ant poo!

Zookeeper, podcaster and all-round animal nerd Rick Schwartz calls in to the show to discuss raising meerkats, the intelligence of fossa and what binturong pee smells like. But did I get him to say 'hectocotylus'?

They're the last survivor of a genus 20 million years old and about to go extinct because of an argument. John Payne joins the podcast to tell the story of Sumatran rhinos from being skinned for Chinese armour to fire-breathing fables to the 40-year-old debate that screwed it all up. But is there still a chance of saving these hairy hornsters?

The Mayan bat God Camazotz was a nasty piece of work. But there's a more terrifying myth (for bats at least): that bats can't see. In this episode, Swedish scientist Johan Eklöf tells the story of how he used moth lollipops to prove bats hunt with their eyes as well as their ears.