Nick Baker
TV presenter and naturalist
Television wildlife presenter Nick Baker has travelled to the wildest parts of the planet in search of weird, bizarre and incredible creatures. Nick writes a monthly Hidden World column in BBC Wildlife Magazine where he shares wildlife stories from around the globe.
Recent articles by Nick Baker
“The fish’s brain, nervous systems and internal workings of the head are visible.” Meet the see-through deep-sea dweller
Down in the twilight zone, this fish’s head is see-through for a reason
"The result is a medieval-looking bit of engineering designed to lodge and entangle the limbs, palps and mouthparts of any attacker"
Loaded with a weaponised derrière, this baby beetle dares to go where few insects would: right into a spider’s web.
"It can handle the ionising radiation of space, exist in suspended animation for 30 years & will be the last beast standing in a nuclear holocaust"
Tardigrades are one of the toughest and most intriguing creatures on Earth. Nick Baker takes a look at these microscopic bear-like creatures, also known as water bears
"To survive the winter it builds itself a life-support bubble. We can assume that the structure is more or less sealed..."
Nick Baker takes an in-depth look at the marsh fritillary's winter survival skills
"Dice it any which way and each fragment will in time become a fully functional creature. How, though, is not fully understood..."
Discover one of the bizarrest creatures in the world
The vampire spider that drinks human blood and has a liking for smelly socks
Too small to bite a human, this arachnid manages to get a taste of the red stuff elsewhere. Nick Baker introduces us to the vampire spider
"A bubble appears at the top of the head, over the snout. It expands, stretches, connects with the rest of the air pocket surrounding its body"
Discover the riparian reptile that evades danger by blowing bubbles.
"Its eyestalks pulsate and throb in high-contrast patterns of green, black and red in a light show fit for Mardi Gras..."
Nick Baker takes a look at the fascinating life of a green banded broodsac, which turns snails into disco zombies
“It can live forever & devour prey many times its size, which stand no chance of escape; the more the victim struggles, the more tangled they become”
Nick Baker takes a look at the fascinating hydra
The Ohio River is full of tiny monsters that “resemble a vicious Pac-Man”
The larvae of this freshwater mollusc hitch a ride – in a fish’s gills
"This acoustic assault appears to be an effective deterrent to stop it from being eaten by its host and the host from losing its friend with benefits..."
For a long time, biologists were puzzled by the curious appearance and behaviour of the New Zealand bat fly. Now they think they've figured it out. Nick Baker reports...
“It can almost leap, quickly smothering its unfortunate prey with a blanket of flesh.” Meet the deadly snail that gallops across the sand
In the battle of the beach, this meek-looking mollusc has all the moves
"Within a few hours the prey has become a nutritious soup, broken down by digestive enzymes released from the inside of its prison..."
The sinister secret of this free-floating pond plant lies beneath the water’s surface. Meet the bladderwort and its highly effective trap
"The male rubs a ridge on its penis against ridges on its abdomen, thereby setting the pond – and any female in it – abuzz..."
Nick Baker and Richard Jones take a look at this fascinating aquatic insect
“It was moving like a worm and a mole simultaneously.” This strange creature has a pair of ‘hands’ and uses its head as a battering ram
This freakish mole-worm hybrid is well-equipped for burrowing life
"It makes one or two priming pumps of its abdomen, before starting to secrete the first of many clear liquid droplets from its anus..."
Nick Baker takes a look at cuckoo spit, a common sight in our countryside also known as spittlebugs, and its role in protecting and nourishing the juvenile common froghopper
"She emerges, not looking like a moth at all, but rather a peculiar pale thing with reduced legs and antennae that you could easily mistake for a maggot..."
Nick Baker takes a look at the weird and fascinating life of a bagworm
"It has – proportionally – the longest penis in the animal kingdom. The human equivalent would be a man impregnating his neighbour via the letterbox."
Nick Baker reveals all you need to know about acorn barnacles
Devoured, paralysed, enslaved: The alien-like horror that drills inside and turns its victim into a very sinister, nursery
Discover a sinister creature that is like an alien character from Star Trek
It looks like bird poop, is armed with a deadly projectile weapon and imitates ‘perfume’ to lure prey
The spider that looks like bird poo and sports a lethal hunting weapon
It’s longer than a blue whale, is thousands of years old and drinks fog – meet this weird ‘living fossil’
This living fossil (having unchanged for more than 200 million years) can survive some of the harshest conditions on Earth
It’s the oldest individual living creature in the world, survives at 400m deep underwater and uses its ‘foot’ to move along the seafloor
A slower pace of life is behind the longevity of the world’s oldest ever animal, the ocean quahog
‘Over the next hour, it’s dispatched, dismantled and butchered, piece by piece.’ This may be the most savage ambush attack we’ve ever heard
Discover a delicate alliance between shrub, fungus and tiny forest guardians in the Amazonian understorey
This parasitic creature penetrates its host with potent venom and injects its eggs – and could be lurking in a pond near you
Discover the fairy wasp, a dastardly winged insect that parasitises beetle eggs in the depths of garden ponds
