[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 one.

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] [narrator] It's impossible to say baby animals without thinking the word cute.

So, we have a big task today, identifying the cutest of the cute in the baby animal world.

The bar is high.

The flag is raised.

These animals are ridiculously cute.

Get your Awwww face on and meet our Top 10 Cutest Baby Animals.

The animal kingdom is filled with babies of all shapes and sizes.

And there's one cute baby animal from Africa that grows up, and up, and up.

Meet number 10 on our Cutest Baby Animal Countdown - the giraffe.

The name giraffe comes from the Arabic word zarafah, which means one who walks swiftly.

And even a baby giraffe takes that seriously from day one.

Within an hour of birth, these almost two-metre tall babies are up on all fours, feeding and walking around.

They are perfect miniatures of their parents' - long legs, long tufted tail, budding horns or ossicones, and the sweetest faces.

But even though these babies can almost lick a basketball hoop, and weigh as much as a large adult human, they are vulnerable in the wild.

In fact, a giraffe has a high chance of dying in the first year of life.

Lions, crocodiles and even humans will prey on baby giraffes, especially when they are resting on the ground.

And that's where the herd comes in.

A baby and mamma stay away from the herd for the first week of life.

Then, they join the rest of their family.

The mothers need to eat a lot - up to 50 kilograms of foliage a day - to keep up their milk supply, so they leave the babies in a nursery group.

All the babies and juveniles together, watched over by a single female, until the mothers return to feed their babies in the evening.

Giraffes are a genuine feat of animal engineering.

With adults reaching 5.5 metres from hoof to horn and weighing up to 1,360 kilograms, simply getting blood pumping around is a challenge.

That's why a giraffe's heart is about twice as long as a human's forearm and weighs about the same as two bowling balls.

In addition, their lungs can hold about 55 litres of air.

Other impressive giraffe stats - an adult's hooves are about 30 centimetres across and their tongues are almost half a metre long.

A baby giraffe will start nibbling food at around three weeks of age but it will keep feeding from its mother for up to 12 months.

In that time, it will have added over a metre in height and mastered all the skills a giraffe needs, even the tricky job of drinking water.

Having such a long neck means a giraffe's heart has to work really hard to pump blood to their head.

And when a giraffe is drinking, there's a good chance a giraffe could suffer a massive rush of blood to the head.

But, inside that long neck, there is a complex series of valves that control blood flow which stops a thirsty giraffe from falling over.

In the wild, giraffe populations have suffered a 40% drop in numbers in the past 30 years.

The future of the species is being secured by safety or insurance populations being bred in captivity.

So, if you have been lucky enough to see a cute baby giraffe in a reserve or animal sanctuary, you are not only looking at a very cute baby but one that is also very special indeed.

Our next Cute Baby Animal isn't just adorable and it isn't just full of baby energy - it's also the largest of its species.

It's our number nine Cute Baby Animal - the draft horse.

Before humans had massive motor vehicles to do our farm work, we had massive horses.

And a lone draft horse can pull a 3.5 tonne load.

On farms, in mines, and on construction sites, you would find huge horses everywhere hauling things.

Today, draft horses are a very rare sight but the two most famous breeds are the English Shire and the Scottish Clydesdale.

So a precious baby like this is a true gift.

And a very, very large gift at that.

Around 57 kilograms at birth - that's similar to the weight of an average teenager - a Clydesdale foal will be on its feet within hours, standing over a metre tall.

It will spend six months right by its mother's side, drinking milk and slowly learning to eat grass.

Draft horses grow more slowly than other horse breeds, not reaching their adult height and weight until they're seven or eight years old.

And what a size that is , weighing anywhere up to 1,000kg, or the same as half an average car, close to two metres tall from the tips of their ears to their hooves, and those hooves are about five times the size seen on a racehorse.

A draft horse foal, quite literally, has big shoes to fill.

A horse's height is measured in hands which sounds odd, but it's actually not.

Hands are an historical measure used by humans since ancient times.

It means the width of an extended hand or handspan.

In England, in the 1500s, a hand was standardised to mean four inches or just over 10 centimetres.

And it still remains the official way to measure horse height today.

And when it comes to draft horses, you're going to need a lot of hands.

A Clydesdale measures at least 16 hands and can stand as much as 18 hands tall.

That's as tall as a pro-basketballer.

A Shire horse is just a squeak bigger standing between 16 and 19 hands tall.

While they wait to grow bigger, the foals have a few things to keep them busy, such as chomping on grass, learning from Mum, and occasionally getting an attack of the zoomies.

In a world of Cute Baby Animals, there is one baby that is basically a postcard image for cute.

But its adorableness doesn't last long.

So you have to be quick to appreciate number eight on our Cute Countdown, the duckling.

A duck egg is generally thicker than a chicken egg.

So a baby duck has to work hard to make its way out into the world.

That means they are exhausted after hatching, and often have to rest for a day or so.

But once they are dry and up on their feet, these tiny aquatic birds are all business.

And when we say business, we mean cute business.

Big inquisitive eyes, comical flat beaks, flat webbed feet, at the end of short stubby legs, making them walk like actual cartoon characters and all of that is in a body that weighs about as much as a small box of paper clips.

Ten centimetres from beak to tail feather, ducklings will waddle in a group called a brood behind their mother for about two months.

They learn to forage for food, swim in the water, and eventually to fly all under the instruction of their attentive mother duck.

In the short amount of time it takes to learn all the vital duck skills, a duckling will develop adult feathers, grow taller and end this journey looking pretty similar to a mature duck.

And while we don't want to throw shade on adult ducks, they're objectively not as cute as their weeny adorable ducklings.

You know the saying water off a duck's back?

It comes from the fact that adult ducks have oil in their feathers that helps to keep them buoyant in the water.

Ducklings don't develop that oil until they are about a month old.

So, until then, baby ducks hang close to their mother to keep safe as they learn to swim.

Duck species are divided by their behaviour.

There are dabbling ducks, diving ducks, and perching ducks.

A dabbler feeds by tipping its head forward in the water.

A perching duck doesn't mind sitting in a tree.

And a diving duck?

Well, you can work that one out for yourself.

Ducklings may be gorgeous, but they do not have the easiest of lives.

Most are born in late spring and, depending on the extremity of winter, up to 50% of a brood can perish.

This is why, even though each mother duck can lay up to 12 eggs a season, the world isn't completely overrun by ducks.

There's a very good reason why ducklings don't spend long being cute babies.

And that is because ducks are migratory birds.

Most species will decamp to warmer places where there is more available food over the winter.

And that means ducklings have to grow up fast, so they will have the skills and the stamina to join their flock on an epic journey which seems like a lot of pressure for an adorable baby.

So, let's just bask in this cuteness for a little bit longer.

Just because something is very common, doesn't mean it can't be cute.

And this is true for our next Cute Baby Animal - the calf.

There are about one billion domestic bovines on planet earth.

That's like one cow for every eight humans!

The word cattle comes from the French word chattel which means possession.

That is because humans domesticated cattle somewhere around 8,000 years ago, and for all that time we have lived alongside each other.

Whether they are male or female, all baby cattle are called calves, weighing anywhere up to 45 kilograms at birth.

That's similar to an average 10-year-old child.

Calves are precocial.

That means within an hour or so of birth, they are basically good to go - standing... drinking... starting to check out the world.

But calves do take the first months of life relatively easily.

A calf likes to rest a lot while it works out what's what.

In fact, in its first two months, a calf will sleep for 10 hours a night.

For the first six to 10 months of life, Mum is the most important thing in a calf's life.

She provides milk, protection, and handy lessons in what grass is best to start nibbling.

And calves are very social creatures.

Early on in their lives, they engage in play sessions with other calves... making the most of their free time before it's finally time to get cleaned up for dinner.

While your average calf is above average cute, there is one breed that tops the cute calf charts.

And they are Highland cattle - the oldest registered breed in the world.

Originally from the Scottish Highlands, where the air is bitterly cold and wet, these cattle have developed a long coat that would not look out of place in Antarctica.

And while the adults are adorable, the calves?

Ah.

They are so cute, you'll want to have one as a cuddly toy.

But don't, because one of these babies will end up weighing over 900 kilos.

There's a lot of language around cattle.

Here's a quick guide so the next time you have a bovine-y conversation, you will sound like a pro.

OK. A bull is a male that is capable of breeding.

A cow is a female that has given birth.

A heifer is a female that has not given birth.

And a calf is an adorable, sweet, fuzzball.

You're welcome.

Here's a hot tip for anyone who wants to make friends with a cute calf.

Don't cross one!

Studies have shown that a calf will hold a grudge.

If someone is unkind to them, they will remember and they will not play nice after that.

And nobody wants to be around anyone who doesn't play nice.

The next baby on our Cutest Countdown comes from the rainforests of South America.

In amongst the leaves, on the back of a parent, you will find number six on our list - the cotton-top tamarin.

These tiny New World monkeys manage to up their already substantial cute factor with the fact that they live in committed, loving family units, surrounded by other committed family units.

So, there's a lot of cuddling, a lot of grooming, and a lot of feeding.

Tamarins are usually born in pairs.

For the first two to five weeks, they cling to their parents and feed.

This is actually quite challenging as a baby tamarin weighs almost one fifth of the weight of their parents.

This adorable sight is like a human adult carrying a pair of eight year olds around 24-7 for five weeks.

Somewhere in the second month of their lives, baby cotton-top tamarins will venture off the parent-mobile and start to eat on their own.

And by three months of age, a baby tamarin is pretty much capable of doing what the big tamarins do, though it will spend another 15 to 18 months hanging pretty close to its family being gorgeous, because that's what tamarins do.

With white chests and bellies, black bodies, and crazy hairdos, cotton-top tamarins look like they would be at home in a wacky science fiction movie.

Their long tails act as rudders as they climb and jump through the leafy canopy.

And their long claws give them extra clinging ability, whether it's a tree or a family member they are hugging.

Cotton-top tamarins aren't just squirrel-sized cuddle machines, they are also key players in the success of the rainforest ecosystem.

These little monkeys eat a lot of fruit and flowers, along with the odd invertebrate.

And inside those fruits and flowers, there are seeds.

Those seeds work their way through a tiny tamarin's body, and when they come out the other end, somewhere in the tamarin's 10-hectare habitat, that tiny, chewed-up seed will eventually become a new plant.

Cotton-top tamarin hair is as cute as 10 cute things.

But it also lets other tamarins know how they are feeling.

The more sticky-uppy the hair, the more excited the tiny monkey is.

One last secret to understanding these cute babies - if a tamarin is threatened, it will shake its butt at you.

So, if you want a cotton-top tamarin to remain cute and keep its butt to itself, maybe don't threaten it.

We've hit the halfway point in our Cutest Baby Countdown.

So, let's jump continents and head beneath the red soils of Africa to meet number five on our list of Cute As A Button Babies.

Because our next animal has its babies in a burrow below the surface - the meerkat.

Despite the name, a meerkat is not a cat.

It's a member of the mongoose family.

Meerkats are tiny, feisty and ridiculously cute, especially when they are babies.

Deep underground, the dominant female of the mob gives birth to two to four pups after only 11 weeks of pregnancy.

While the rest of the gang get on with their meerkat business, the mother and pups stay together in their den for a couple of weeks until the pups' eyes have opened and they can move independently.

And then, the pups emerge... into the sunlight... into the care of the mob... into a world of solid food.

And solid food for a meerkat is pretty interesting stuff.

These tiny carnivores are known for taking on some fearsome foodstuffs.

Pups will learn pretty quickly to disarm a scorpion although sharing that meal with your brothers and sisters is a lesson yet to be learned.

Mob life for a meerkat pup is a balance of awesome and terror.

On the one hand, a pup will generally be assigned a mentor meerkat.

This is an adult, not their parent, that takes extra care in teaching a pup the ways of the world.

On the other, meerkat hierarchies are so rigid, that rival adults to the dominant female will not think twice about killing her pups to show their strength.

Meerkats are highly territorial.

They will defend their homes with teeth and claws and screeches.

But in the meerkat world, territories overlap.

So a mob needs a way to mark where their place begins and another mob's place ends.

How do they do this?

Under their tails, meerkats have a scent pouch.

They rub that scent pouch on rocks, trees and anything else they can find to let anyone that cares to know that you are on their turf.

And if you have ever seen meerkats at an animal park, you will know the scent we are talking about.

A day in the life of a meerkat is completely determined by their habitat.

The African desert is harsh - freezing in winter mornings and evenings, boiling in the heat of the day.

So generally speaking, a meerkat mob will spend the beginning and end of every day foraging for insects, spiders and lizards plus the odd tuber or plant root, if it's really dry and they need water.

And in the middle of the day, apart from one sentry meerkat keeping a look out for threats like raptors and jackals, the mob settles in the shade or underground for a nice family nap.

And when they do, it makes these miniscule mammals look as cute as cute can be.

In a few select forests in the south-west of China, lives our next candidate for World's Cutest Baby Animal.

And this one is not only cute, it is unbelievably rare.

Number four is the giant panda.

These precious creatures have needed a tremendous amount of support to maintain a wild population.

Currently it's estimated there are just over 1,800 giant pandas living in the forests... with another 600 living in animal parks and panda sanctuaries.

All of which means their babies are precious.

Giant panda infants are the exact opposite of giant.

Almost one nine hundredth the size of their mother.

Born underdeveloped, baby pandas are one of the planet's smallest newborn mammals relative to the size of their mother.

Born pink and blind, a giant panda cub weighs around 100 grams.

That's like two small chicken eggs.

Mother pandas cradle their tiny offspring, feeding them milk and never letting them out of her sight.

These sanctuary-born babies also receive round the clock care.

At around six to eight weeks, the cub's eyes and iconic coat have developed and it's not long before they're finding their feet in the forest.

It will take a year for a giant panda cub to be weaned from its mother.

By that time, it will have grown a thick black and white coat, perfect for protection from the climate extremes in a panda's mountainous habitat.

Curious fact about giant panda cubs - without a DNA test, which is hard to get if you live in a remote forest, a mother panda has no way of knowing the sex of her baby until several months after birth.

This is because panda cubs are born very underdeveloped and it takes those few months for their genitals to appear externally.

Not that gender matters all that much in the early months of panda life.

Milk, Mamma and bamboo matter a lot more.

Giant pandas will eat a range of plants, and even small mammals like rodents if they have to.

But they don't want to.

Giant pandas want bamboo and they want a lot.

As adults, they will munch through about 40 kilograms of bamboo a day, spending up to half their day eating.

The other half of the day is basically spent sleeping.

Or if you are a panda cub in a sanctuary, a few hours will be devoted to wrestling.

So, why are pandas so endangered?

Part of the problem is on us.

Habitat loss has a real effect on panda populations.

The other part comes down to panda biology.

Tiny underdeveloped cubs are born into harsh conditions.

And cub raising is all up to the mother panda alone.

But when it is good, baby panda life might be the best life - eating, climbing... and being insanely cute.

You can't be unhappy with that.

In our Countdown Of Cutest Baby Animals today, we have met lanky-legged wonders, adorable paddlers, and crazy-haired tree climbers.

And there's three more to go.

First, number three.

It's furry, it lives in the water, and it's cute.

It's the otter.

There are 13 species of otters found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

They come in a range of sizes from 4.5 kilogram Asian small-clawed otters to sea otters that weigh 35 kilos or more!

Some live in freshwater, some live in the ocean, but all of them are very cute.

Especially the pups.

The average otter pup is born weighing less than half a kilogram.

Whether they are freshwater or marine species, otter babies have to be able to deal with extreme water temperatures.

This ability comes from their mother's milk, which they will live on almost exclusively for the first three months of their lives.

This liquid gold is 24% fat so otter pups gain weight fast.

An otter pup in its first weeks might be gaining weight, but it takes a bit longer for them to grow their adult coat.

And that warm, insulating adult coat is important.

Without it, a baby otter can't survive the cold dive to catch food, which is why you will see otter pups bobbing on the surface waiting for Mum to return.

Otters have the densest fur of any animal.

If you got close enough, you would find half a million hairs per square centimetre of otter fur.

But don't get too close, because mother otters are very protective of their babies, and are not afraid to let you know about it.

Otter teeth are perfectly designed for their diet.

Powerful canines and sharp incisors shred fish and crack crustaceans.

Pups will eventually develop a set of 32 teeth, and use them every day to chomp through anywhere between 25 and 40% of their body weight in seafood.

Otters are unique among aquatic mammals for a few reasons.

Firstly, they naturally use tools to access their food.

Secondly, otters are the only marine mammals that catch fish with their forepaws instead of their mouths which, apart from being unique, makes them look like tiny hairy humans chowing down while carefully holding their food.

Otters are considered a keystone species in aquatic ecosystems.

This is because their participation in the food chain is key to maintaining balance in the environment.

If otter numbers decline, the species they prey on multiply in numbers, which can lead to these populations of prey animals starving.

The vital balancing role that otter's play in the ecosystem is one of the reasons why otter species around the world are protected giving future generations of gorgeous otter pups the best chance of survival.

Our next baby animal is one that many of us have at one time or another cuddled and thought - This is the cutest thing ever!.

It's number two - the puppy.

Across the planet, there are at least 360 different breeds of dog, depending on who is doing the counting.

Some are purebreds... some are crossbreeds... and some are just loveable mutts.

But each one of these breeds have one thing in common and that is that their babies are super-cute.

Puppies are basically small balls of soft cuteness for the first three weeks of their lives.

Their senses haven't really kicked in fully yet.

They just feed and sleep and grow.

A little over halfway through their first month, their eyes open, their little legs start bearing their weight and the world gets to meet the dog a puppy will become.

As independent as a puppy might think it is, very young dogs still need their mother for milk, cleaning, and the reminder that food going in one end has to come out the other.

Domestic dogs are descendants of wild dogs and, even though puppies are cute, you might notice that some of their behaviours are a little bit wild.

Puppies are born with no teeth, but at around three to four weeks, razor-sharp puppy teeth grow in.

And puppies are keen to test these new weapons out on anything and everything.

Dogs, as with their ancestor the wolf, like to live in a dominance hierarchy.

They come pre-programmed to live in packs and some puppies are keen to establish themselves as the leader of that pack.

This means rumbling and wrestling to establish dominance.

Luckily, young pups still have their mother around to remind them of their place.

It's hard for people who are interested in getting a dog to know which dog is best for them.

Experts suggest observing a puppy and looking for youngsters that don't show signs of fear, touch sensitivity, reactivity to sound or aggression.

What they don't suggest is looking for the cutest puppy.

Because how could you choose?

Between eight and 12 weeks of age, most puppies are ready to leave their mother and make a home in a new pack - your family.

And once they are there, you and your family form a new world for your dog... which makes it very important that your rules are appropriate for a dog, and that can be hard when your puppy looks like a toy and not a living, sentient being.

Archaeological evidence suggests that humans domesticated dogs over 30,000 years ago.

Dogs are considered one of the first domesticated species, living alongside humans long before larger animals like horses.

So, the relationship between you and your puppy is an important and ancient one, a source of companionship, comfort and fun that has continued through millennia.

Though we are guessing that prehistoric families didn't buy soft snuggly beds and chew toys for their tiny cute puppies.

We have reached the top of the pile of Cute Baby Animals and we've seen some serious cute today.

But some creatures lift the cute factor to the stratosphere, like our final animal that doesn't have to do a thing to get Ooohs and Aaaahs out of people.

It is number one on our Cutest Baby Animal Countdown - the polar bear.

Found exclusively on and near the sea ice of the Arctic polar region, the largest bear on the planet is one of our most admired and most vulnerable animals.

The species name of the polar bear is Ursus maritimus, meaning bear of the sea.

They are actually classified as marine mammals, as they live almost exclusively on and around sea ice.

While an adult polar bear can tip the scales at more than 650 kilograms, a cub weighs less than a kilo at birth.

Polar bear cubs are born November through January.

They come into the world inside a den, away from predators.

After three to four months, the mother bear ventures out of her birth den with her offspring and that's when the real polar bear cub adventures begin.

These little ones are full of life - inquisitive and adventurous.

But they have a lot to learn.

An ideal polar bear diet consists of seals, and seals spend a lot of time under the water.

Adult bears hunt seals in freezing conditions, waiting patiently by seal breathing holes in the ice.

But cubs lack the thick layer of fat and fur that protects the adults on and off the ice.

So they don't swim.

In fact, a high proportion of polar bear cub deaths come through hypothermia and the lack of sea ice to climb on and escape the cold water before they are able to swim.

Adult polar bears have black skin.

And it is part of what gives polar bears their vibrant white appearance.

This is because their thick, double-layered fur is actually hollow and translucent.

The white colour we see is the colour of the surrounding snow contrasted against hints of the black skin beneath.

Watching polar bear cubs wrestling and playing is undeniably gorgeous.

But what these cubs are doing is actually much more serious.

They are learning how to hunt... finding their strength, building their chasing skills, and looking ridiculously cute while they do it.