Wild Stories

Do octopuses play football or basketball? This and other essential questions will be raised in this week's episode as I chat with the fantabulous Dr Jennifer Mather about her 50 years of finding out incredible things about octopuses (and spin off on a tangent about octopus gambling).

Hyenas are smart. They put young women in charge. But they're also classist bastards. On this episode, the fantastic Dr Eli Strauss shares the secret that allows just a few enterprising low-born hyenas to beat the odds, rise up and take the crown in this game of clans.

When sheep and rabbits made the British introduce stoats to New Zealand, millions of kiwi got munched. This is the story of the sneaky conservation heist - Operation Nest Egg - bringing them back from the brink recounted by the wonderful Lindsey Gray.

This week on Wild Stories we're joined by the insect researcher who discovered how elephants talk - Caitlin O'Connell Rodwell. I learnt how Botswana doubled its elephants whilst populations across Africa were halved, the reason pregnant ellies are brutally booted out of herds and how a Hawaaian bug unlocked the secrets of elephant communication through the ground.

When is half an acorn better than a whole one? The great Dr Karen Munroe joins the show to fill us in on one of the most chaotically fascinating squirrel-acorn-forest studies ever conducted, nut evolution and the scientific value of hoovers.

We shot them into oblivion for stealing our pants. But thanks to this week's guest, the incredible Dr Mike Pienkowski, red kites have made themselves a comeback. This is the story of how it happened, and why it changed one nation's outlook on conservation forever.

It's Easter and because eating chocolate is irresponsible we're doing an episode about the closest thing: wombat poos. This isn't an animal celebrity individual like our normal specials. This is a whole species fallen from grace, robbed of the spotlight. But one man and his robots are clawing wombats back to fame with some of the strangest headlines in science. This is Dr Scott Carver. And he's saving my all time favourite animal. Happy Easter everybody!

Once upon a time in Belize people worshipped crocodiles, swam alongside them, treated them as family. Then within two generations the nation turned against them and almost wiped them out. This is the story of how a greedy empire with an eye for gossip obliterated an entire country's wildlife - and what happens now - with ethnozoologist and crocodile wrangler Dr Marisa Tellez.