10/5/2023 0 Comments Fernandina island racer snakes![]() The marine iguanas of Fernandina Island are better fed because they venture into the ocean and dive for sea algae and seaweed. ![]() So many of them were going hungry most of the time,” Dr. “I feel sorry for the snakes because the island has so little food. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, Planet Earth II presents the animals as characters, and the snakes come across as the villains in this clip, which is edited like an action sequence from a Hollywood blockbuster with the iguana as the hero, but the snakes aren’t motivated by malice, or greed, or a thirst for power, of course-they need to eat. They literally may have had just a few minutes experience of life, and they get caught, and that just seems brutal.” “As a filmmaker, half of you wants the snakes to win,” she admits, “and another half of you is like, ‘I want this little one to get away!’ You kind of feel like you get to know an animal even if you are just watching it through binoculars for a few minutes. “The fact that he made it up the rock safe was absolutely amazing,” Dr. Elizabeth White, a former research biologist and Planet Earth IIproducer who has worked for the BBC Natural History Unit for 13 years and produced the “Islands” episode, says that it wasn’t easy for anyone on the crew to watch the scene portrayed in this clip-not to mention the other iguana/snake showdowns-unfold. ![]() This is a wildlife documentary series, after all, so someone has to be eaten.ĭr. This victory is one to be savored, but just so you know, not every iguana in this episode is so lucky. It is unnerving to watch, and it looks like the poor iguana is doomed when it gets tangled up in a bunch of snakes, but the reptile wriggles out of the cluster and scurries up the rocks, making a dramatic leap to safety as one snake lunges-its mouth wide open-in a failed last-ditch effort to catch its prey. The iguana, a mere hatchling, instinctively stays still at first, hoping to elude detection, but when it becomes clear that the snake is going to strike, the iguana starts running, and racer snakes pour out of cracks in the rocks along the beach, joining the chase. Do you want to live in a world without adorable marine iguanas that make for some of the most gripping TV scenes of the year? I don't.I never knew I could care so much about an iguana until I saw one running for its life with a swarm of snakes in hot pursuit in a clip from the nature documentary series Planet Earth II.Ī marine iguana sits on the beach on Fernandina Island, one of the unspoiled volcanic Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, when a racer snake slithers up from behind. Still, the show's most important takeaway isn't the outcomes of individual animals, but the long-term survival of these species in the age of man. To do that he needs to make us empathise with its most colourful and jeopardised inhabitants." ![]() While I personally believe that marine iguanas are undeniably charismatic, the clever editing of Planet Earth producers, along with the trusted appeal of Attenborough, allows viewers to consider the fate of species we might've otherwise never cared about.Īs The Times noted, with each episode, Attenborough asks us "to fall in love with a natural world embarrassingly red in tooth and claw. While most of their fare is comprised of small lizards, geckos, and mice, it's not unheard of for these snakes to snatch a marine iguana when the opportunity arises. Galápagos racers are endemic to the archipelago, and are actually known to hunt for fish, a "unique behaviour of terrestrial snake not observed anywhere else is the world," according to the Galapagos Conservation Trust. At one point, it didn't look like the determined reptile would make it, but with surprising agility for a clunky lizard, it managed to escape to safer grounds-for now. No matter how fast it sprinted across the sandy coast, the snakes were always dangerously close behind. When it scrambled, the snakes would strike. Much to the horror of audience members, our young iguana was shown running for its life away from a seemingly-endless onslaught of Galápagos racers. These gentle giants can reach lengths of up to five feet, but as juveniles are especially vulnerable to predators like raptors, crabs, and, apparently, pits of Galápagos racer snakes. Like miniature, beach-loving Godzillas, marine iguanas prowl the Galápagos Islands not for flesh, but for seaweed and algae. Amazing footage: a hatchling sea iguana makes a run for its life to the safety of the shore, but will it escape the runner snakes? Rob SSilver Surfer November 6, 2016
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