We were in the Namib Desert
transporting an endangered desert rain frog
to a conservation breeding and release program.
Everything was going great until it wasn't.
Yes! Uncle B just made contact with a desert rain frog.
Good. I wanna go home.
It's cold, damp and sandy, like borrowing my uncle's speedo.
Ew!
Look at you!
You can't swim, you can't hop.
Your only defense against predators is to a scream like an asthmatic chew toy.
You adorable little snot bubble. How are you even alive?
Luckily, I know your secret.
You emerge on foggy nights to eat poo bugs.
Not a very good secret now that I think about it,
but I have just the thing to… Huh?
What's he doing?
Why isn't he using the sample platter I made for him?
The poo-poo platter?
Damn it, Dietrich!
Damn it, Dietrich.
Poopy num-num! Poopy num-num!
Poopy num-num.
Gotcha!
White knuckles! Tight butts, everyone! We're hitting some turbulence!
Oh God! I'm gonna puke!
Make sure you puke outside the biplane, Dietrich!
It's a rental!
Outside the plane!
I said outside!
Back you go, little guy. He's antsy.
Maybe there's not enough poo in your beard.
Oh, don't you worry, there's plenty of poo.
- Whiteout! - Oh my God!
We're flying blind!
Uncle B, look out!
Namaqua sandgrouse!
Such hardy, unassuming bird.
The baked potatoes of the sky.
It's about to get very exciting! Buckle up in the back!
What? Buckle up with what? There's no seat belts!
A-ha! I know, right?
Safest place in the world is inside my beard.
Everyone good?
I'm fine. My arm hair burned off, but…
Mmm…
Smooth and smoky.
I like it.
I'm fine, too.
- Mmm. Did your arms look like that before? - Ahh!
- I don't know. - Better take care of that, just in case.
Good as new.
All right. Our supplies are toast,
except for one water canteen and one chocolate bar.
Ugh! And it's white chocolate.
Good work, Bonnie. His skin was really starting to dry out.
There you go, matey. Soak it in.
Soak it in. That's nice.
You wasted the last of our water on a frog?
His survival is our mission,
and we're gonna do whatever it takes to keep him alive.
What about us?
Eh, in the grand scheme of things, we're basically expendable.
All right, just stay focused on the task ahead, okay?
The Namib is a living hell, with searing days, freezing nights,
no food, no water, giant predators, and devastating sandstorms.
Oh my God, we're gonna die!
We're gonna be just fine.
And so we set off in high spirits.
Chapter 36, the desert rain frog,
an archetype of unaesthetic durability.
Ipso facto, survival is ugly.
What am I doing here?
I could be teaching biology students at UC Davis right now.
You were offered a professorship at UC Davis?
No.
Okay. That's it.
All our food and water is officially gone.
That's okay, no need to panic.
What the hell?
You said, "Don't panic!" You're already eating bugs?
You say bugs, I say protein and water.
To survive out here, you need all the fuel you can get.
So, if you see a grasshopper that's not red or blue,
shove it down your pie hole.
Mmm. Well, I'm stuffed! Be free, little friend.
Oh no.
Whoa, buddy. Did you eat a blue one?
Relax, it might not kill you,
but if it does, let me know how it feels.
I'm genuinely curious.
Lion! Lion! Lion!
It's a Namibian Desert lion!
Awesome!
Crazy rare! There are fewer than 150 of these in the entire world!
We're just crunchy grasshoppers to him.
I don't say this often, but Dietrich is right.
Desert Lions don't just wanna eat our flesh and bones,
they want to drink our blood.
Vampire lions?
Eh, kind of? Sure.
Namibian Desert Lions can survive in an extremely dry habitat.
They can only stay hydrated by drinking the blood of their kill.
Our blood is half protein…
…And half water.
It's basically liquid meat.
Put these on. We need to assert our dominance.
I will end you, lion!
I will rip your tongue out and use it as a loofah!
Maybe a little less dominant?
I can't get mine on!
Wait, no! I can't see!
Probably for the best. Let's move in.
He's not bluffing. We need to pee our pants, right now!
No way! I haven't peed my pants since I was in college!
I mean, six. Normal aged!
We stink of weakness!
Fruity soaps and spicy colognes!
Only our pungent, dehydrated urine will convince him
that we are dangerous predators and deserve his respect!
Pee or perish!
I can't pee if the lion's watching! Ask him to turn around.
Ooh, I got a little droplet! No, it's just crotch sweat.
Curse my bulging thighs in this heat!
I can't see!
Don't eat me!
Oh God, no!
I'm peeing my pants, and there's the pee!
It's so much pee!
Bravo, Dietrich! Ha!
- Your crybaby piss attack saved our lives! - You're a hero!
Me is?
Uh, I mean, I am?
Sandstorm! Take cover!
Oh no! My pee went in my face!
Ahh! We need to dig.
Sandstorms carry deadly objects,
just like a tornado.
Most animals take cover underground.
Be careful.
Horned baboon spider.
Highly venomous!
You know, the hump on his back is like a camel's hump.
It creates extra space for food and water.
Maybe we should stop digging. It seems like there's some venomous...
Look at that! A black hairy thick-tailed scorpion!
They can sting you… Ooh!
…Or they can squirt venom at you like a cobra.
That smarts.
It really feels like we should stop digging!
Nonsense! My eyesight should return momentarily.
Zebra Cobra!
Ooh, that's a lot of venom in my eyes.
We're good, though. I can still see shapes.
Enough! Enough with the digging already!
Uncle B!
Agh! Oh no.
Am I dead?
Is this hell?
I'm fine.
We're all a lot tougher than we think.
No. No, no, no, no, no!
He's gone!
You're right!
Dietrich! Dietrich!
Oh, I was talking about the rain frog, so…
We searched the desert for hours, but Dietrich was nowhere to be found.
We had no choice but to carry on.
Oh, I feel woozy.
Ugh, me too.
Double shot of venom on a hot day, that'll really do your head in.
Oh, look! Those vultures are preparing to feast on our corpses.
They start their meal by pushing their head through your anus
to get to the nutritious organs inside.
That's why they're bald,
so the blood and poop washes off their heads.
Bald really is beautiful.
They also defecate on their own legs to stay cool.
Butts are so important for survival.
Aah! Now that's refreshing.
Oh my God!
It's an oasis!
Last one there is a rotting oryx corpse!
You can do so many things with a butt.
Whoo-hoo!
Hey! Fitzroy River turtle!
I breathe through my anus!
Look at that little pearlfish!
I hide from predators by living inside a sea cucumber's butt.
You, sir, are an artist and a magician.
I escape predators by blasting a smoke screen
of liquid poo out of my butt.
Liquid poo cloud!
We're having a good time.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!
Something's not right.
Oi! I'm not dead yet!
Come on, Bonnie, snap out of it.
Wait your turn, elephant legs.
I'm still drinking.
Save a little sand for dessert, okay?
Our beautiful butt oasis was just a febrile hallucination.
Who stole my cocktail wieners?
Bonnie, it's time to face the ugly truth.
Our rain frog is most probably dead.
- What about Dietrich? - He would have died hours ago.
Poor scared, dead Dietrich.
Field zoology takes no prisoners,
and Dietrich could've died a thousand horrible deaths over his career.
Heatstroke doesn't even make my top ten field assistant death list.
How many field assistants have died working for you?
Let's see. Including Dietrich… 22 and a half.
And a half?
One just vanished in the Himalayas. I'm not sure if he's dead or retired.
On the bright side, I need a new field assistant.
- What do you say? - It is way too soon to ask me that.
You can't let pain, misery, and certain death
stop you from doing what you were born to do.
You see that big slab of turkey jerky?
The turkey is dead, but the flavor remains.
So too the value of our field work endures
long after we die horrible, horrible deaths,
- and that's all that matters. - Wait!
That's no turkey jerky! That's Dietrich!
Shoo! Shoo! Get out of here!
When's lunch, Mrs. Peterson?
I would like a cheese-free option.
You poor fellow, the cheese is the best part.
- Come on, mate. - You're really here?
This isn't another fever dream?
Ugh, sure doesn't smell like a dream. What happened to you?
When that storm hit, I thought I was a goner.
BTG? BTG?
Help!
I was alone.
More alone than I've ever been in my life.
- And then I found an unlikely companion.
You found the desert rain frog?
More like we found each other.
At first, I thought the frog was my only chance of survival.
I wanted every nutrient and every drop of moisture from its body.
You didn't!
- I would have, but I couldn't.
Something in its pathetic screams gave me pause.
You know, we're not so different, you and me.
Okay, we get it. You found the frog.
The burning desire to survive unites all living things.
- It's actually kind of beautiful. - Ugh! That's enough.
Glad you're alive! The end.
Here. I was holding onto this for emergencies.
There is something wrong with you.
Spurred on by Dietrich's remarkable story of survival
and the power of love, I guess,
we marched onwards until…
This is great.
All we have to do is climb that cliff, and we'll be home free!
Oh, is that all?
What a relief.
My ear!
Whoa!
My testicle!
Sorry, but it's either this…
Or we stay down here and become free-range fertilizer.
But if that happens, you can eat all the flies and beetles
that land on our bloated, putrefying corpses.
Does that sound good?
Almost there!
I am victorious!
Oh! We made it!
Ugh! That's disgusting!
Well, it's mostly rhino piss and zebra feces, so…
Mmm.
Tastes like…
survival.
Go on, froggy friend.
The future of your species rests entirely on your amphibious gonads.
Yeah!
- Worth it! - Worth it!
How's it going, big guy?
I'm pretending to be dead,
so as to reveal that vulture's malevolent intent
once and for all.
Who knows what horror is lying in wait for my tender pink anus?
- Oh. - That's life in the wild.
- Is there something on my face? - Just Rosie.
That's great.
Tarantulas are a perfect example of ugly survival.
You know what her secret is?
- What is her dark secret? - Her hairy back.
But unlike my thick, matted, hairy back,
her hairy back is armed.
Every single hair is basically a throwing knife,
and when alarmed, she can throw off these hairs
to embed themselves in the eye, nose, and trachea of her enemies,
any would-be predator.
Now, that's exquisite ugliness at work.
I'm gonna lie here for an hour, a day, a week,
until her dark intentions are revealed.
So, uh… I'll see you for dinner?
- Sure. - Okay.