Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
ORIGINAL AIRDATE: November 10th, 1985 —
THIS is how you get ants, with ornithologist Dr. Charles Alden [SPECIAL GUEST: Peter Jurasik!]
OPENING GAMBIT: A geologist is abducted and held captive in a small Basque village, when MacGyver shows up to bust her out and face his greatest fear once again.
MISSION: MacGyver and his old pal Dr. Charles Alden butt heads with Lucien Trumbo, an Amazonian landowner in the path of a trillion ravenous soldier ants.
This week’s highlights include:
SPECIAL GUEST: PETER JURASIK!
This week, we learn Peter Jurasik is the kindest man in the universe. He is perhaps best known for his long-running television contributions as Sid Thurston on Hill Street Blues/Beverly Hills Buntz and as Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari on Babylon 5. He also made an appearance in Tron as Crom, the unfortunate victim of Flynn’s ring game prowess. Here is a link to the upcoming film he mentioned in our interview.
In case we lost you with our “do it live” comments, check this out.
Army Ants (Zoology)
Soldier or Army ants refers to any group of ants that are nomadic in nature and display aggressive foraging methods spread out over a wide area.
Check out the article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_ant.
Watch S1E6: “Trumbo’s World” on CBS’s website or check the alternative streamability of this episode here.
I liked the idea of a battle between survival artists and I found the ants’ organised efficiency fascinating (when I was a kid I used to feed them other insects and they could easily pull a wasp down!), especially when they crossed the water. I remembered it different though, that they formed a ball and rolled across the water surface so those on top could breathe, perhaps I saw that in an Attenborough nature documentary. And I liked that Trumbo’s single ant crushing was filmed in a way that not even that one ant had to be killed for the sake of the film!