Have sex for 40 hours then rip his head off? That’s a REAL bad girl
Few things are cuter than a fluffy baby monkey — except a fluffy baby monkey throwing a full-on meltdown tantrum because it’s being ignored.
The odd thing is that, when human children pull a stunt like that in a supermarket, everyone else scowls and shoves their fingers in their ears. In fact, no matter how much you love your toddler, two minutes of shrieking will drive any parent to the brink of murder.
Monkeys, on the other hand, have perfected the art of being adorable, even when they’re being vile. And as presenter Liz Bonnin discovered on Animals Behaving Badly (BBC1), most creatures can get away with the most disgusting deeds, just because they’ve got fur or feathers.
The names that neighbours would hurl at Madam Risbee, if she were human, don’t bear thinking about. Fortunately, Risbee — short for Racing Stripe Black Bottom — is a Gunnison’s prairie dog living in the deserts of New Mexico.
That marvellous name isn’t a show- dog pedigree. It’s a description: scientists have painted Risbee with hair dye, to make her easily recognisable, with a racing stripe down her side and a liberally dunked backside. It suits her — all the better for sashaying those hips, dearie.
As prairie dogs go, Risbee is no better than she should be. She’s a flirt, she’s a goer, she’s a shameless trollop. Risbee is the original Loose Prairie Dog.
On date-nights, she likes to set the boys fighting over her, before luring them one by one to her burrow. That sort of behaviour will get a girl a reputation, even on Love Island.
But, we were told, Risbee is also a great mother. She’s fertile for only six hours a year, and she needs to be serviced by as many males as possible, to ensure a broad range of genes among her pups.
This works for prairie dogs, which can share several fathers across a single litter, but not humans.
when most people read about a woman with five children by as many blokes, they don’t immediately think: ‘what a great mum.’
The combination of first- class animal photography and unexpected moral twists made this an entertaining hour. The opening shot in the segment about praying mantises was especially good: the insect’s shadow loomed against the lens, making it look 50ft tall, like the approach of Godzilla. The randy mantis then proceeded to have sex for 40 hours before ripping off her lover’s head and eating his innards. Risbee is a paragon of virtue by comparison.
The girls of Mrs Appleyard’s academy, in Picnic At Hanging Rock (BBC2), were required to write ‘I shall strive for patience and virtue’, in endless lines on the blackboard, as a punishment — unless they had really misbehaved, like Miranda, who went out without her shoes and socks.
She had the palms of her hands slashed with a cane by the sadistic Miss Lumley, who was squealing with excitement. The headmistress (Natalie Dormer) watched coldly — definitely no paragon, as we already knew, though just how criminal she was became clear in a flashback: she had once been a burglar and a murderer’s apprentice.
will the mysterious box, taken from her room by poor orphan Sara (the outstanding young Inez Curro), betray her past? we can only hope so.
The mixture of melodrama and eerie chills is captivating. This episode flitted about, trying to fill too many gaps in the story, but the rich, dark mystery more than made up for that.