David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities: Season 1

The chameleon fascinated naturalists since the family's discovery, mainly on account of its color-shifting, while arousing various legends, even being a diabolic spy created from other animals. David focuses on another anatomical oddity, the extraordinarily long, fast-propelled tongue, aimed thanks to the two independently-controlled eyes combining to full circle-sight. Giraffes always fascinated humans, making them an ideal princely gift from the Egyptian viceroy for major European monarchs. Its entire anatomy is out of whack to accommodate for the exceptionally long neck and legs, presumably mainly to reach high leaves.

When the platypus was discovered in colonial Australia, its bizarrely composite anatomy seemed a gross hoax. It took generations of research to classify it, given that even its reproductive system combines elements of mammals, birds and marsupials. Unlike most amphibians, the midwife-toad has its eggs worn on the male's legs, and they copulate on land, not in water, for which purpose male toads have 'adhesive' paw pads. A brilliant zoologist discovered that breeding them in different conditions can trigger a reversal to the other method and anatomy, a Lamareck-like amendment on Darwinism, which was abused for political purposes. He committed suicide after probably false accusations of fabricating evidence, as the results, although never reproduced in labs, were later found in the wild.

David focuses on two mammal species standing out with excessively wrinkled skin from an early age and with longevity, for large viz. small size species. Elephants have many adaptations, including the 'extra' skin serving to cool them down, and family life allowing to pass on vital information. Bald mole rats are a kind of rodents who live full-time in moist subterranean colonies, fully and bizarrely adapted in behavior and anatomy, even without nervous pain receptor.

For centuries, superstition ascribed magical powers to the mythical unicorn. When the first tusks of the narwhal were brought to Western Europe, it was sold as unicorn corn, although the Vikings knew the whale species much earlier. The giant tooth's natural purpose remains a matter of speculation, especially as it's usually restricted to males. The twist is assumed to have a hydrodynamic stabilizing function. Snailhouses are generally twisted, a highly successful, strong design, as with the extinct ammonites, who ruled the seas a long time before the dinosaurs. For snails, it enabled conquering land.

The zebra, a never domesticated African equine, fascinates the Western public as well as naturalists. Most mysterious remain(s) the function(s) of its individually unique stripe patterns, possibly for mating or wider socializing rather then camouflage, or maybe to keep away the fatal tsetse fly. Butterflie species, numerous even by insect standards, exist in widely varied, often bright or bizarre color patterns. Some indicate being toxic, others mimic those. They see much more light frequencies then we vertebrates, enabling to distinguish 'invisible' pattern elements