TV review: Inside Nature's Giants

Published on Monday 29 June 2009 19:28

INSIDE NATURE'S GIANTS, CHANNEL 4

THERE are things we need to know and things we don't but might like to know all the same. There are things you wish you didn't know (often involving Kerry Katona), there are known knowns and unknown knowns and nothing you can know that can't be known. And then there are things that you never even thought of wanting to know about at all, such as what an elephant's intestines look like.

The answer, if you missed Inside Nature's Giants, is that they look like huge, fleshy worms (I hope you are not eating), that when taken out and laid on the floor stretch for metres and metres. By golly, elephants really do have guts.

This televised animal autopsy is a perfect example of how TV is constantly bringing us extraordinary things. You don't have to like them, or watch, but isn't there something amazing about the idea that, if you choose, you can see what an elephant (or, in future instalments, a crocodile, giraffe and whale) looks like under the skin? When you think about it, it's remarkable that something previously shown only to veterinary students – who were in the audience for this most peculiar tutorial, safely behind glass – is now accessible to anyone with a passing interest.

It was, obviously, absolutely gross at first. And in the middle and at the end, to be honest. But putting queasiness aside, there was a sort of beauty to it. The dead elephant was a four-year-old zoo resident who had been euthanised after a serious illness; watching the skinning and dismembering (really, please don't be eating) of this large creature by experts in orange protection suits was hard to watch. Yet it was fascinating, too: I may not have needed to know the details of how this giant body works, but now that I do, I appreciate their power and clumsy grace even more.

There were some darkly wacky details. The autopsy began with someone sticking a carving knife in to let the large build-up of methane out, in a loud, smelly wheeze.

Elephants, presenter and scientist Mark Evans explained, need such big skulls to support those heavy tusks the males have, which grow so large through sexual selection. In other words, to elephants, size matters so much it literally went to their heads. As a result, they couldn't bend to graze the ground, hence the trunks. And, as they spend their entire lives standing up, those four stumpy feet have evolved a sophisticated system to take all that weight, even to run. Nifty computer imaging helped make this all clear. The autopsy found very severe arthritis in one foot of the dead elephant, which, Evans said, would have been so painful that it vindicated the decision to have it put down. But the programme's reminder that elephants are the only species other than us which have rituals around death did make its gory, educational end seem particularly sad.

Richard Dawkins also popped up. Having argued against the idea of a God, his next target appears to be Rudyard Kipling, as he "revealed" that the Just So Stories' account of "How The Elephant Got His Trunk" (nose pulled by a crocodile for his 'satiable curiosity) is not actually true, best beloved. Now, come on – that really is heresy!