Baby Animals: The Top 10

[narrator] Growing up in the wild can be pretty hardcore.

Imagine learning to leap, roar, swim, or fly for the very first time.

You've got to get it right because the faster you are, the stronger you are or even the better you can camouflage yourself the greater your chances of surviving and thriving in the wilderness... when you grow up that is!

But with all this feral rivalry going on, you've got to wonder who really is Mother Nature's biggest or smallest or most dangerous untamed youngling of them all?

The answers will astound you, and we are counting them down from 10 to 1.

They are cute, they are "wild".

They are the "cover girls and boys" of the animal kingdom and they know it!

They are baby animals.

[theme music] It makes evolutionary sense that baby animals are small and adorable, it means they stand out from the pack and look ridiculously cute while they get on with the business of growing up.

But some baby animals really lift the bar in the "cuddly stakes", with feathers, fur, and fluff that would make the hardest heart go, "Awwww."

So, wrap yourself up in a fuzzy blanket and settle in for our "Top 10 Cuddliest Baby Animal Countdown".

[soft music] Number 10 on our list of cuddly baby animals is found almost exclusively in the coldest regions of the Southern Hemisphere, the penguin.

They might not seem cuddly when you look at the grown-ups.

Penguins are definitely goofy.

And clumsy.

But cuddly?

Well, for that, we need to zoom in on the penguin chicks.

[penguins warble] These little darlings are cuddled by their parents even before they are born.

[curious music] These king penguin parents are carefully swapping over custody of their egg.

One parent will keep the egg snug and warm in a brood pouch on top of their feet for up to two weeks or so.

While the other goes off to catch fish.

Then, they swap roles.

After a couple of months, the egg hatches.

The chick spends about a month on its parent's feet, growing the longest, fluffiest down feathers.

What emerges will spend the next year or so covered in brown fluffy feathers.

So cuddly that even its parent can't resist the odd hug.

But penguin feathers aren't just good for cuddling.

Emperor penguins - the largest of the penguin species at a maximum height of around 130 centimetres - have four separate types of feathers covering their bodies.

This layered coat gives them buoyancy and speed in the water and warmth on the harsh, icy land.

And their eggs and chicks are the main beneficiaries of that warmth.

While the females are off hunting fish for up to 2 months the males huddle together in their thousands.

With eggs and newborn chicks safe in their brood pouches these guys form a massive cosy pack.

To survive, these hardy dads use their stored body fat as fuel and their many friends for warmth.

The heat generated in this huddle can exceed 37 degrees Celsius, which is perfect, as that's an emperor penguin's ideal body temperature.

But all this communal penguin support is for a very good reason.

Emperor penguin chicks are precious cuddly cargo.

Covered in soft, grey down feathers, with a white face and a black helmet, these mini, flightless balls of sweetness spend about five months being fed by their parents - and entertained by their peers.

Adelie and gentoo penguins have a truly charming habit that plays a crucial role in their ability to create their cuddly chicks.

These are two of the smaller breeds of penguin and, unlike the larger breeds, like emperor and king penguins, they build nests.

And their chosen nest-building material?

Pebbles.

Not just any old small rocks.

Adelie and gentoo penguins spend a lot of time before the breeding season begins personally selecting the perfect pebbles.

And once they have created a secure, self-draining, snow-resistant show home, breeding can begin.

[soft music] As a penguin chick grows, it will moult and shed its fluffy baby feathers and eventually go on to breed itself.

But, in the meantime, there are a multitude of cuddles to help them on their way.

[soft acoustic guitar music] While we are hanging around cold coastal waters, let's spend some time with Number 9 on our cuddliest baby countdown, the puppy dogs of the oceans, the pinnipeds.

What is a pinniped?

Literally speaking, it's a fin-footed creature, a suborder of carnivorous marine mammals that includes seals, sea lions and walruses.

Pinnipeds are found in polar and subpolar waters, in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

And while the adults can be big, and a little bit scary, the babies are the very definition of cuddly.

[soft music] An Australian sea lion pup is a precious creature in more ways than one.

Undeniably adorable, this pup is one of very few of its species.

Only 30% of these babies survive to adulthood.

This is possibly due to fishing nets in their habitats in southern and western Australia, claiming the lives of their mothers, leaving the helpless pups to die on the shore.

[solemn music] Australian sea lions are also the only endemic pinniped found in Australian waters.

And while numbers are improving under government protection, some estimates say there are 12,000 or fewer of these animals left in the wild.

Australian sea lions have a very long gestation period.

It takes almost 18 months for a single pup to be born.

And after that, a sea lion mother raises her tiny ball of fur and blubber for another year and a half.

And while a cuddle from a mother that's ten times your size might not be your idea of a good time, mother love is literally all that's protecting this tiny Australian sea lion pup from death.

So, it's not complaining.

[soft music] Their pinniped cousin, the Australian fur seal, comes into the world weighing anywhere between 5 and 12 kilograms.

By adulthood, it could top 350 kilos.

But that is at least six years away.

For the next 7 to 11 months, pups are solely dependent on their mother's rich milk for survival.

After that, a fur seal pup will venture out into the water to practise the vital skills it needs to survive - swimming, hunting, and cuddling up to Mum.

The soft, waterproof fur of Australian fur seals and sea lions is the very thing that caused these species to be hunted into near extinction 200 years ago.

Within 30 years of the commencement of seal hunting in the early 1800s, entire colonies of fur seals and sea lions were completely wiped out.

Only the most remotely located colonies were left to breed in safety.

While these animals are now protected and their numbers are secure, it is thought that there could be fewer Australian fur seals on the planet now than there were before sealing began.

The pinniped community is complex.

Fur seals are actually a part of the same family as sea lions.

They can be identified by the fact they can raise themselves up on their front fins and walk on land.

Though when you are a pup and you are still learning most things, the whole walking thing is a work in progress.

[birds chirp] Time to swap the sea for the trees.

Let's take a look at a tree-dwelling marsupial baby that may as well be wearing a t-shirt that says cuddle me.

Number 8 on our countdown of "Cuddliest baby animals", the possum.

Before we delve into the pouch to look in detail at possum babies, it's worth noting that while possums and opossums are related, they are not the same thing.

Opossums live in North America.

They have pointy noses, sharp teeth and light grey to white fur.

They aren't really what most people would describe as cuddly.

But hey, maybe cuddly is in the hands of the cuddler.

The possums that have made our cuddly countdown are Australian species.

The ring-tailed possum, the brush-tailed possum, and the get-out-of-here- that-is-a-cuddly possum.

OK, we may have made up that last one.

[upbeat music] Possum babies are known as joeys.

Before we even see them, they have spent anywhere up to two months developing inside their mother's pouch.

After that, joeys spend time travelling around on their mother's back, clinging to her fur and slowly learning the secret ways of the possum.

[curious music] Possum fur is pretty special stuff.

It is made up of fine hollow fibres and it is very dense.

It's actually very similar in structure to polar bear fur, which gives you a hint as to how good it is at keeping a possum warm.

Possums may be super cute and cuddly, but unfortunately, unless you are a licenced wildlife carer, you need to keep your hands off.

In Australia, all species of possum are fully protected.

If a possum is injured, orphaned or trapped in a building, then trained professionals are permitted to handle them.

But beyond that, as sweet and fuzzy and cuddly as these guys look, touching them is actually illegal.

The most common possums in Australia are the ringtail, identified by their thin, flexible, prehensile tail, and the brushtail possum, which is kind of self-explanatory when you look at what's hanging off their back end.

If you can't get a look at its bottom, then a peek at a possum's ears will help you identify it.

Ringtails have small ears, and brushtails have larger ones.

And if staring at the various parts of these gorgeous creatures isn't cute enough, here's one last set of facts that will make you want to virtually cuddle them.

You know that a possum baby is a joey, but did you know a female possum is a jill?

Or that a male is known as a jack, which, if it was possible, makes these gorgeous creatures seem just a little bit more cuddly.

[soft music] In almost every environment on Earth, if you look really carefully in tree hollows and crevices, and even buildings, you will find our next cuddly baby.

Number 7, owls.

Tiny balls of fluff, eyes, and hungry beaks.

A baby owl, or owlet, is covered in soft, fluffy down.

The chicks are completely dependent on their parents.

Generally speaking, the female owl remains on the nest for the early days of chick life.

The male takes care of hunting for food and bringing it back to share.

And these baby birds are very keen to eat.

Owlets will devour as many meals as their busy dads can deliver.

And in between meals, the chicks cuddle into their mother's warm feathers.

[curious music] In a couple of weeks, an owlet will grow a new coat called a mesoptile.

These feathers are more complex, dense, and closer to the colouring of their parents.

They give the owlets more capacity to move around.

And the camouflage they provide means the chicks can have adventures further from their mother.

From there, owlets will grow their adult feathers and slowly become completely independent of their parents.

But owl feathers aren't just cute, they are also incredibly aerodynamic.

[crickets chirp] Owls are nocturnal birds of prey.

Because it tends to be quieter at night, owls need something to help them sneak up on their prey.

And that something is their flight feathers.

They have a fringe on them that muffles sound, meaning an owl is almost completely silent as it swoops down to catch food, which would come in super handy if you wanted to sneak into the kitchen and swoop up a sneaky snack.

Owls have adapted incredibly well to living in a broad range of environments.

Great horned owls are found throughout Central and South America.

And in that diverse landscape, food comes in all shapes and sizes.

To make sure they get a good meal, great horned owls have developed some of the most powerful and dexterous talons in the animal world.

These feet are weapons.

They can span up to 20 centimetres across from talon tip to talon tip.

And if you are anything from a scorpion to a small mammal, they can easily scoop you up and carry you away.

Probably best not to think about what happens after that.

[soft music] We can't leave the owl world without talking about one of their most impressive skills.

Under those fluffy feathers, owls have a complex set of bones, ligaments and blood vessels that allow them to turn their heads a maximum of 270 degrees.

If humans did this, we would end up literally breaking our necks.

But for owls, old and young, these flexible necks aren't just great for maximising hunting skills, they also make owls seem like the cuddliest creatures in the skies.

[upbeat music] Over on the continent of Africa, some of the cuddliest babies on Earth are working hard at learning.

And they are looking absolutely cute while they do it.

Number 6 on our "Cuddliest Countdown" is a delightful duo of African monkeys.

Colobus and Vervet monkey infants might just rank amongst the most adorable animals on Earth.

Colobus monkey babies are basically teddy bears - they are born completely helpless, covered in white downy fur, and built for cuddles.

But their appearance isn't just designed to make us go "Aww", it's actually a piece of evolutionary genius.

It is common among Old World monkeys for the troop to share the care of young.

It's also common for predators to take the babies first.

The distinctive white fur of a Colobus infant means that any adult will immediately see a baby and protect them when danger comes calling.

[upbeat music] Another unique bit of Colobus monkey evolution is the very thing that gave them their name.

The word 'colobus' comes from the ancient Greek word for mutilated.

This refers to the fact that these monkeys have underdeveloped thumbs, which makes harvesting their leaf-based diet much easier.

Vervet monkeys, on the other hand, are omnivorous, using their dexterous hands to gather a vast range of foods.

They are medium-sized by monkey standards.

An adult male will top out at around 8 kilograms, about the weight of an 8-month-old human.

By contrast, a Vervet baby weighs around 350g at birth - about the same as a can of soda pop.

And that's not a bad comparison, really, because these babies are sweet.

Born covered in black fur with tiny pink faces, baby Vervet monkeys spend their first month clinging to their mothers.

At three to four months, their coat will have morphed to look more like the adults.

Greenish-grey, dense, long fur with a white ring around the face.

But their developing monkey skills won't match the adults for another couple of years.

Luckily, there are many females and juveniles in the Vervet monkey troop that are willing to teach a baby everything it needs to know.

And when the learning is done, there's always a pair of arms to provide a warm, fuzzy monkey cuddle.

[upbeat music] Many African monkey species engage in something called "allo-parenting".

This means all of the mums in the community help to care for the babies.

When you are a monkey, that means someone else will be grooming you, carrying you, and, if you are old enough, showing you what is good to eat.

Monkey babies are busy babies, so having more hands to help is a huge advantage.

Even if those hands get a little more in your face than a monkey baby wants.

Anyone who has had to deal with an overly enthusiastic aunty feels you right now, baby monkeys.

[tranquil music] We are officially halfway through our "Countdown of Cuddliest baby animals" and we find ourselves deep in the North American wilderness on a sunny spring morning to meet black bear cubs.

[upbeat music] Winter is over.

The snow is melting.

The perfect time for young cubs to explore.

For the first time, their baby fur coats encounter the sun.

These tiny cubs might be tentative on this first journey out into the world, but that won't last long.

There are 16 subspecies of black bears that make their homes in the forests of North America.

Though they are smaller than their grizzly bear cousins, an adult black bear can weigh up to 300 kilograms.

These little balls of fur will not be little for long.

Having started life at around 300 grams, less than a small loaf of bread, they can weigh more than a hundred times that by their first birthday.

And while they are growing, they have their mother by their side, teaching them everything they need to know to be big bears.

[soft music] For about 17 months, mother black bear has one, two or even three shadows that hang on her every instruction.

Or not, depending on what they encounter.

These cubs have a lot to learn in a relatively short length of time.

And this is because they have six months from their first emergence from the den until they enter a light state of hibernation, called torpor, in the fall.

And their mother is doing double duty.

Not only does she have to teach her babies the way of the black bear, she also has to find enough to eat to get her through anything from two to seven months of winter torpor.

Plants, berries, fruits, fish, carrion, pretty much anything is fair game to black bears of any size.

As adorable and cheeky as these baby bears appear, survival for a black bear cub is not guaranteed.

An estimated 30% of black bears will die of natural causes in their first year.

And many will find themselves abandoned when their mother is killed by hunters.

So it's more important than ever that these small cubs pay attention to what they are being taught by their mum.

Even if wrestling with her face seems like much more fun.

[soft music] That thick dark fur on a black bear is more than just a cuddly warm coat during winter.

It also acts as a protective shield.

Everything about bear life is determined by the climate - what food is available, what trees they can climb, and when it's time to bulk up and enter torpor.

And their fur that grows in the cold then moults as summer approaches will always protect a black bear cub as it develops from a baby to a master of the wilderness.

[soft relaxed music] In the deserts of Australia, there is a marsupial that is so small, so soft and so sweet, that it has bumped the Easter Bunny off its perch.

Meet Number 4 on our "Cuddliest Baby Animal Countdown", the bilby.

[soft upbeat music] It's hard to spot a baby bilby when it's very young and that's because it develops inside its mother's backward facing pouch.

But don't worry, these tiny creatures are not tiny for long.

At around three months, bilby joeys emerge from the pouch and less than a month later, they are weaned and independent.

In the wild, baby bilbies hide with their families in their complex underground burrows through the heat of the day, and only emerge to feed on insects, seeds, fungi and fruit at night.

So the best way to get your eyes on a cuddly bilby baby is in a sanctuary or animal park.

And it's here you can really see why Australian kids receive chocolate bilbies in their Easter baskets.

[soft music] These babies are cute, with soft silky fur, pointy whiskered noses, and a completely adorable half hopping, half galloping way of getting around.

Bilby babies just make you want to hug them.

From the very beginning of their out of the pouch life, bilbies love to dig and they aren't just doing it for fun.

Bilbies work together to dig their underground burrows using those tiny paws.

In addition, the insects in their desert habitat lurk below the surface of the sand.

So digging means dinner for a baby bilby.

And as an added benefit, all that digging distributes water and fungi through the arid desert soil, providing nutrients that help grasses to grow.

Bilbies are often referred to as rabbit-eared bandicoots, a nod to their bunny-like ears and their bandicoot heritage, the family of marsupials they belong to.

The name "bilby" comes from the Yuwaalaraay Aboriginal language of northern New South Wales and south-west Queensland.

It means long-nosed rat.

Because Aboriginal languages are specific to the regions in which they are spoken, bilbies are known by other names as well.

In some parts of Western Australia, a bilby is a "mankarr" or a "dalgyte".

In South Australia and the Northern Territory, you might hear an indigenous person use the name "ninu".

And in the Northern Territory, an Arrernte person might call a bilby an "aherte".

Baby bilbies might be small and cuddly, but they are also very well adapted to their tough living environment.

Their eyesight isn't their strongest sense, but their ears are some of the best in the marsupial business.

Not only do they have a large, hairless surface area to let heat escape from a bilby's body, they can also rotate to allow a bilby to hear any approaching predator or threat.

One last thought about the bilby - these little creatures definitely look cuddly to us, and they seem to find each other quite cuddly, but if you are out in the Australian desert and you see a baby bilby, remember, it's a wild animal, and it definitely doesn't want a cuddle from a human.

[soft music] When Mother Nature was dealing out cuddliness, some animals definitely got more than their fair share.

Let's just say there might just be something extra cuddly about redheads, like Number 3 on the countdown, the red panda.

[soft music] Now, you might think, given that this delightful animal is called a red panda, that it's related to a giant panda.

But it turns out that this little guy is unique, so it is classified in its own animal family - Ailuridae.

The link between the giant panda and the red panda is their diet.

They both choose to eat bamboo.

Of all our cuddly candidates, the red panda has to take the award for the most adorable at all ages.

So, it probably won't surprise you that red panda cubs are beyond cuddly.

Hidden away by their mother until their adult coloured fur grows in, red panda cubs have all the "Awws" and "Oohs" and "OMGs" all crammed into a smaller and slightly darker body.

[soft industrious music] Red pandas are solo creatures.

They exist around each other rather than with each other.

Except for their first year of life, when cubs stick close to their mother.

And that is necessary because red panda cubs are vulnerable to pretty much everything.

Predators, extremes in weather, falls, until they master the art of climbing high trees.

But don't worry too much about these little guys, red pandas have the business of baby protection nailed.

The dark underside of this cub's fur is designed to camouflage them against the trunks of trees.

Even their face and tail markings mimic the shapes and colours of the bamboo plants they love to eat.

And their digestive and nervous systems are designed to allow red pandas to spend their days doing as little as possible.

They are crepuscular, which means they are active at dawn and dusk.

And the rest of the time, they rest.

Well played, red panda, well played.

[soft music] If you look closely at a red panda climbing about in the trees, you might see them doing a little wiggle.

As much as we want to say they are dancing, they aren't.

Red pandas are very territorial.

That little wiggle is a scent marking strategy.

And while that looks kind of cute, the way red pandas check who left those scent markings is most definitely not cute.

Yep, they use their tongue.

Eugh.

These cubs might be uber cuddly, but they are also endangered.

In the wild, you will find red pandas high in the Himalayas, across Nepal, India and Bhutan.

But you won't find many.

Despite government protection, it is believed there are fewer than 10,000 left in the wild.

Which makes sanctuary-based red panda families like these absolutely critical.

[soft music] We have covered the gamut of cuddly creatures from tree dwellers, to snow bunnies, to marine-based puppy impersonators.

And here we are at the Top 2 "Cuddliest Baby Animals".

But first, a pop quiz.

If we say cuddly toy, what pops into your mind?

Is it perhaps a teddy bear?

Then you won't be surprised that's what naturalists were thinking hundreds of years ago when they named Number 2 on our cuddliest baby animals list the common wombat.

Or Vombatus ursinus if you're a fancy scientist.

Vombatus, for wombat, and ursinus, meaning bear-like.

[soft upbeat music] But wombats don't start out their lives looking cuddly.

In fact, it's the opposite.

Another name for this tiny, hours-old wombat joey is a pinky.

Which makes a lot of sense, as this baby wombat is essentially a foetus.

These joeys are orphans being raised by trained wildlife carers.

For the first nine months of their lives, baby wombats spend their time feeding on milk.

Usually doing that inside their mum's backward-facing pouch.

And if you are wondering what is going on inside that pouch, here it is.

This joey is around a month old.

And while you can see its eyes and nose starting to develop, it is still basically a milk-drinking machine with teeny tiny claws.

Without the protection of their mother's pouch, this orphan's delicate skin needs to be oiled daily for protection until their fur starts to grow in.

And they really do start to look like tiny bears.

[upbeat cheery music] Baby wombats might look like the cuddliest thing you have ever seen, but beware.

At full weight, a male wombat will come in at about 30 to 40 kilograms.

And it's all packed into a solid, muscly body with a tough butt and claws that can turn hard desert ground into topsoil.

[bird squawks] This cute little face is hiding a truly miraculous secret.

For around a third of their day, baby wombats are eating grass.

And when their bodies are done getting the nutrition out, that grass comes out the other end as cubes of faeces.

Yep, we really did say cubes.

Around a hundred of them a night.

It turns out wombats have very particular intestines.

And as they process the wombat's grassy diet, they shape the unneeded parts into teeny tiny poo cubes.

[acoustic guitar music] Wombat fur is pretty special stuff.

Capable of insulating in temperatures ranging from above 40 degrees Celsius to sub-zero.

And growing with colour variations, that provide wombats with amazing camouflage across all the habitats in which they are found.

[soft relaxed music] But back to the cute and cuddly part of a wombat baby.

It takes around two years for a wombat to reach sexual maturity.

And while it grows, a wombat joey will remain very close to its mother, suckling for the majority of that time.

And occasionally heading back into the pouch when life gets too hard.

We have reached the top of the heap of cuddly baby animals.

And without a doubt, we have saved the cuddliest for last.

Animals that come from the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.

Meet our "Cuddliest Baby Animal", the orangutan.

[soft upbeat music] A couple of kilograms of fuzzy orange attitude.

The name "orangutan" means "person of the forest" in Malay language.

Which makes sense, as orangutans share 97% of our human DNA.

And when it comes to the babies, perhaps a better name is "cuddly goofball of the forest".

These young ones are on a mission to master adult life.

And nothing is going to hold them back.

Except maybe their mother.

[tranquil music] She looks calm on the outside, but like all orangutan mamas, she has a serious task ahead of her.

These beautiful creatures are critically endangered in the wild, and it is left to the mothers to keep their babies safe.

A mature female orangutan will only breed every eight years or so.

Orangutan males are not much concerned with the care of their offspring.

So an orangutan mother is captain of the family team.

And the business of raising an orangutan is not for the faint-hearted.

[upbeat music] Like human babies, newborn orangutans are entirely dependent on their mothers.

Between birth and three years of age, a baby orangutan clings to its mother's chest, drinking milk, slowly learning how to eat fruit and building their climbing skills.

From three to around seven years, orangutan life is basically mayhem.

Climbing, wrestling, [soft shrieks] And testing out the limits.

[upbeat music continues] That orange colour isn't just a sign that orangutan babies are a bit cheeky.

It's a unique adaptation to a rainforest environment that actually protects these amazing animals.

As sunlight filters through the canopy, the vegetation absorbs the red and orange spectrum.

That means it is difficult to see those colours with the naked eye.

And orange orangutan babies can hide safely among the trees.

[soft music] Protecting the orangutan is a high priority for the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Many wild orangutans live in protected reserves now, to limit the impact of poaching and habitat loss.

But it is estimated that up to 80% of the world's orangutans are living outside those protected habitats.

And that puts their babies at extraordinary risk.

While it is understandable that people would want to get close to these human-like infants, it makes a lot more sense for us to have that contact with sanctuary-based babies instead.

While male orangutans are solitary creatures, keeping to themselves unless they are seeking a mate, orangutan babies are the opposite.

These little great apes are determined to learn as much as they can, as quickly as they can.

From their mothers, from each other, and from their environment.

And if we humans can learn anything from orangutan babies, maybe it should be to take life head-on.

And to make sure you get plenty of cuddles along the way.

[upbeat theme music]