If you were doing anything other than watching David Attenborough majestically present Planet Earth II last night, then you need to take a long hard look in the mirror and re-evaluate.
Every shot in the episode was mesmerising, but there was one in particular that had me in more suspense than I have ever experienced…people all over the world were sweating and screaming when this new-born iguana fought for it’s life.
Representing their natural role as the actual devil, the racer snakes ganged up to hunt the baby marine iguana who was the embodiment of ‘survival of the fittest’.
We forget how easy we’ve got it, natural selection isn’t a thing in modern human society and this iguana reminded the millions of viewers how incredibly shit baby humans are…they can’t even hold their fucking heads up and this little lizard lad just escaped about 100 snakes.
He hatched out, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and was full of positivity for his journey to the sea. What could have been a pleasant stroll turned into the most tense battle of speed, intelligence and persistence.
Having just seen the serpents devour one of his compadres, the iguana was thrust into a race and we were all cheering him on. We thought he was doing so well when another pack of the cunning snakes came at him from the opposite direction.
I let out a moan of grievance as we saw our favourite iguana being wrapped in a web of writhing coils slowly compressing his little body…
…BUT THEN, out of nowhere he finds an opportunity to escape and, with a Hans Zimmer engineering us a beautiful crescendo in the music, he scrambles and pelts to safety up a rock face.
Look how evil they look!
The adrenalin rush is like nothing I have ever experienced and Twitter exploded in merriment at his survival.
This girl has been inspired! The iguana is an inspiration to us all…
I know a lot of people who natural selection would have filtered out a long time ago (me included), so I’m just going to kiss the ground and thank evolution that we’re at the top of the food chain.
I challenge you to watch this and not feel anything.
