Nature shows are simply brilliant television. Sharks devouring seals in midair, a Golden Eagle dragging a helpless mountain goat to a savage death, and monkeys getting wasted off fermented fruit -- these are things dreams are made of.
Now South Floridians can puff out their chest with local pride and get ready to start obnoxiously emailing YouTube clips of a few Burmese pythons caught in the Everglades getting sliced open in the name of science.
PBS premiered a new show earlier this month called Inside Nature's Giants. The network's description: "In each episode, veterinary scientist Mark Evans, comparative anatomist Joy Reidenberg, biologist Simon Watt and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explore the anatomy of a distinct giant predator to reveal how it works."
Our description: "In each episode, a bunch of dudes way smarter than you'll ever be cut open a terrifying animal to demonstrate how awesome it is at killing and digesting things."
The second episode, scheduled to air this Wednesday, takes viewers into "a swamp camp in the heart of the Everglades," where the above-mentioned über-nerds "dissect two captured pythons -- a 9-ft. male and an enormous 14-ft. female."
The twist, according to the preview, is that one of the snakes has "ovaries bulging with 40 egg follicles ready to be fertilized."
Yikes -- that's a lot of fertilizing to be done.
Viewers will also get to see Watt, the biologist, get a "first-hand experience of what it feels like to be constricted by a python." He likely deserved it.
Future episodes focus on great white sharks, big cats, giant squid, and camels.
Camels? How the hell did they sneak on to that list of badass predators?
Anyway, here's the preview:
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