Deadly 60

- Season 3

(2012)

Steve heads to Indonesia in search of Komodo dragons, the world's largest venomous lizards. There he also demonstrates the incredible gliding technique of a tiny flying lizard and heads out on a hunt for the lethal green pit viper.

In the medieval Ethiopian city of Harar, Steve has a unique and potentially lethal encounter with a pack of spotted hyenas. In the mountains he meets the rarest wolf on earth and discovers why the gelada baboon has a deadly set of teeth.

Back on home turf, Steve feeds a giant conger eel off the coast of Plymouth, catches a deadly dragonfly and watches a kestrel fly before attempting it himself with the aid of a giant vertical wind tunnel.

Steve and the crew head to Alaska for another deadly adventure. Out at sea he tracks down humpback whales. Next he braves freezing waters to get a close-up view of a sea otter. Finally, back on dry land they go in search of grizzly bears.

Off the coast of South Africa, Steve and the crew attempt to get a glimpse of a great white shark in action. Back on land, Steve tracks down the large cape buffalo and is amused by the secretary bird's hunting technique.

Steve goes diving in Mexico's seas where he encounters the speedy sailfish and giant moray eel. Later he descends into the caves to witness the Mexican night snake hunting bats.

Steve heads into the outback to find the world's most venomous snake, then to Tasmania to meet the Tasmanian Devil, and finally goes in search of a toxic terror living right in the heart of Sydney, the blue-ringed octopus.

Steve and the team head to New Zealand for the first time, where Steve descends deep into the Waitomo caves to find an unusual predator.

Continuing his South African adventure, Steve goes up against a couple of cheetahs in a 'friendly' game of football, meets the monkey-snatching crowned eagle and turns the latest camera technology on a trio of Africa's deadliest snakes.

Steve and the crew are back in Australia where he is dropped into the nest of giant, wild saltwater crocodiles. He also goes in search of the box jellyfish and two lethal contenders for his list - the tiger snake and the copperhead snake.

In South America Steve searches for aquatic predators. In Venezuela he has a scary nighttime encounter with a group of electric eels. In neighbouring Brazil he goes fishing for the ferocious black piranha.

Steve and the crew head to the mountain kingdom of Nepal. Steve enlists the help of an elephant to track down a very grumpy rhinoceros and stalks the forests in search of the largest cat on earth, the Bengal tiger.

Steve is back in Mexico to find predators in paradise. He joins local wildlife expert Marco to search for the Morelet's crocodile before diving with bull sharks and visiting Yucatan's "Bat Volcano".

Steve Backshall and his team go in search of an animal that has eluded the wildlife enthusiast his entire life - the jaguar. They then turn their attentions to the sea and the killer whale, witnessing its unique method of hunting.

In Venezuela, Steve assists local conservationist Jack with collecting eggs from the nest of an aggressive but endangered Orinoco crocodile mother. In Brazil he hunts down the wolf fish and elusive jaguar.

Steve and his crew visit Sri Lanka for a rare encounter with the largest mammal on Earth, the blue whale. On land he comes face-to-face with a giant Asian elephant and finds two of Asia's deadliest snakes.

Continuing his search for Sri Lanka's deadliest animals, Steve lures out the shy mugger crocodile, goes fishing for the hook-nosed sea snake and tracks down a wild leopard.

In the Southern United States, Steve dives into the crystal clear waters of the Silver Springs River to swim with a wild Alligator and adds his first plant to the Deadly 60, a carnivorous Venus Flytrap.

In Florida's swamps, Steve finds all kinds of aquatic reptiles and the unusual eel-like salamander, amphiuma. In the woods he joins snake expert Bruce Means on a search for the diamondback rattlesnake.

In this behind the screens episode, Steve's team boasts its high tech camera equipment's advantages in showing more then the human eye sees, like slow-motion rendering of ruthlessly-rapidly-striking predators or speeding up seemingly-motionless creators' actions. Other techniques include pressure-resistant underwater cameras, infra-red night-vision and camera-triggers.

From leeches to tapeworms and cuckoos to mosquitoes Steve reveals the mind-boggling methods that parasites employ to survive, breed and feed by exploiting their animal and human hosts!

Steve and his team combine various open air wildlife recording with a Manchester natural museum visit to demonstrate how various predators' physical superiority compared to humans amounts to superpowers obtained by anatomical evolution. The cheetah is designed for record land speed, the peregrine falcon for the aerodynamic equivalent. Animals also excel in sensory performances, such an a bear's smell, a chameleon's 360 degrees vision or focus when combining detached eyes, a bat's sonar-hearing, a seal's sensitive whiskers and a shark's additional electric sense.

Steve's team looks at predators who wander or actually migrate into human living areas. Sometimes that's mutually beneficial, like falcons cleaning up monument-damaging pigeons. Sometimes it's barely visible, like foxes hunting rodents in sewers. Sometimes it's scary and dangerous, like alligators in swimming pools, snakes all over barefoot Indian farmers' villages or red-back spiders in Australian homes and gardens.

Steve's team looks at lethal and other methods employed by 'prey' species to ward off predators. Some use venom, like tree frogs, others have armor or horns like buffaloes. Some find strength in numbers as herds or colonies, like bees or army ants.

In this Deadly 60 Special Steve takes a look at the incredible methods animals employ to protect themselves against predators.

Steve's team looks at endangered predators who may well face extinction, possibly in our lifetime, like the magnificent tiger or the rhinoceros. He points out some of the threats, including absurdities like the unscientific belief in medicinal powers, besides habitat destruction, 'sports' hunting and even attempts to eradicate as pests. Luckily conservation efforts, while meeting obstacles, make some progress and there are examples of remarkably peaceful human-animal coexistence, like hyenas are welcome in Abessynia's ancient city Harrar.