Planet Earth 2: BBC reveal more footage of Iguana vs. Snake chase

'They aren’t working together. It’s every snake for itself'

Two snakes hunting down baby iguanas (BBC)

The first episode of Planet Earth II was, by all accounts, phenomenal, blending stunning cinematography with tense drama and Hans Zimmer's excellent musical compositions.

One scene in particular, featuring newly born marine iguanas and nightmarish snakes, caught the attention of the general public, being heavily shared across social media platforms.

"There was so much good footage that we couldn't tell the story of just one iguana so we found a way of using all the great chase moments,” editor Matthew Meech told The Independent in an interview.

Turns out there certainly was more footage as a new behind-the-scenes featurette from the BBC reveals yet more poor iguanas being hunted by packs of snakes.

“This is the first time snakes have been filmed hunting en masse,” reads one caption as dozens of the slippery serpents engulf one lizard.

“But they aren’t working together,” the caption continues as two snakes collide. “It’s every snake for itself.”

While speaking to The Independent, Meech spoke about how the cameramen shot the high-speed scene: “One of the amazing things about the encounter was that it was shot at such a high speed. So in real life those things are moving much, much faster.

“It's incredibly hard to film them while running and keep everything in focus. But sometimes the focus didn't matter as the moment was so intense. The music and sound design was obviously a big part of it too. The work everyone did was amazing.”

Planet Earth II returns with its second episode on BBC One on Sunday night at 8pm, this time focusing on mountain-dwelling animals.