The Most Extreme is a documentary television series that aired on Animal Planet. Each episode focuses on a speific animal feature and examines and ranks ten animals that portray extreme or unusual examples of that quality. There are 5 seasons and over 50 episodes total.
Season 1
Speed
" You can run, but you can't hide from the fastest animals on the planet. We are counting down the top ten most extreme speed freaks in the world and comparing them to human attempts to race their way into the record books."
- Program Intro -
This episode tackles the fastest animals from the air, on land, and in the water.
10. Basilisk - sprints at about 11 kph ( 7 mph). If we wanted to copy the Basilisk, we would have to have feet the size of open umbrellas and take 20 steps a second.
9. Earthworm - it's the fastest thing under the ground and with no legs at all. Earthworms can go at least 15 meters per hour (.01 mph)
8. Hare - If the hare entered the Olympics, they'd be chasing human sprinters that could run at 35 kph (22 mph). The hare can hit a top speed of 72 kph (45 mph), which mean it can win the olympic 100 meters in a time of 5 seconds.
7. Mantis Shrimp - It only takes 2/10's of a second for the fastest slingers to draw and shoots (0.219 sec.). The front legs move as fast as a speeding bullet. It's nickname is the thumb splitter. It's almost 100 times faster than the fastest gun slinger.
6. Ostrich - the fastest thing on two legs. At 80 kph ( 50 mph), they are more than twice the speed of our fastest olympic sprinters, they can be as fast as an olympic sprint cyclist. They can maintain that speed for only 30 mintues.
5. Mako Shark- its ten times faster at 48 kph (30 mph). We can only swim at a rate of 008 kph (5 mph).
4. Cone Snail - has a venom that moves faster. They are wanted for over 70 deaths in the Pacific Ocean. A former marine was posing for a photograph with two snails, which both simultaneously stuck him in the neck. He just died in 4 seconds.
3. Cheetah - It can go from zero to over 100 kph (62 mph) in less than 4 seconds.
2. Peregrine Falcon - diving at 320 kph (199 mph) making it the fastest bird.
1. Tiger Beetle - fastest thing on six legs. It moves only 8 kph (5 mph), same speed as a human out for a brisk walk. However, if it was the size of a human, it would only take a second to win the 100 meter sprint, it would be moving at a speed of 482 kph (299.5 mph), we would need a drag racer to keep up.