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Komodo dragons
At 10ft long, these almost dinosaur-like creatures are the world’s largest lizards. Planet Earth II follows a pack of the huge reptiles...
Ten years ago Planet Earth redefined the way we see our planet. Now the sequel, Planet Earth II, goes even further, using the most cutting- edge technology – from aerial drones to the latest camera-stabilisation techniques, militaryissue heat-sensing cameras and a new generation of miniature and low-light lenses – to bring you eye-to-eye with the world’s most intriguing animals.
From rain-lashed mountains to sunbaked deserts, the team have braved every possible terrain and climate – often spending weeks in situ to capture the most dramatic footage ever seen. And none is more dramatic than the fight over a female between two Komodo dragons, the world’s most ferocious lizard, looking for all the world like two gunslingers in a Hollywood movie.
The dragons, which live on Komodo and a few neighbouring islands in Indonesia, have a venomous bite that kills their prey hours after the initial attack, but when two did battle for the right to mate it was the dragons’ massive tails, which flail around with the force of a sledgehammer, that worried the crew. ‘It’s not the most epic dragon fight ever filmed,’ says producer of the Islands episode Elizabeth White, ‘ but it feels like a dirty fight, because the handheld cameras give a sense of being immersed in it.’
On Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean, and on six of the 21 Galapagos islands in the Pacific, the planet’s biggest tortoises, which are more than 3ft long, sometimes live for more than 100 years. Like many other creatures on the islands they were castaways, having floated across the ocean some 620 miles from mainland South America. So why are they so big? One theory suggests that although they can go for months without food and water, only the largest tortoises survived the journey. Another surprising
feature is that those on lush, wellvegetated islands have domed shells and shorter necks, while those on dry desert-like islands have ‘saddleback’ shells and long necks, presumably to help them reach taller vegetation.
For the pygmy three-toed sloths living on the Caribbean island of Escudo de Veraguas, the mating season produces a frantic scramble... in slow motion. The sloths have a problem common to island inhabitants. Cut off from the rest of the world, animals adapt to their environment. The pygmy three-toed sloth is perfectly adapted but threatened by the very thing that keeps it safe – its limited habitat. Though they’re half the size of other sloths they have no predators, and Escudo is dense with red mangroves, their favourite food. It should be idyllic. But the population is divided into pockets by the canals that crisscross their habitat.
When a female pygmy sloth is in heat and eager to mate, she gives a piercing howl, the cue for males to come running... or rather to inch their way through the undergrowth in her direction. The biggest challenge is the network of waterways that flood Escudo’s mudflats at high tide. The sloths are strong swimmers, however, and the team used underwater cameras to capture footage of the animals’ enchanting swimming style.
For sheer courage in the water, the prize must go to the chinstrap penguins of Zavodovski in the Antarctic ocean. Waves up to 50ft high crash against the rocks here and cameraman Max Hug Williams captured spectacular footage of the brave birds plunging into the waters to catch fish in feeding grounds up to 50 miles away, before returning to feed their chicks. If they mistimed their leaps they could be dashed against the rocks. Many hobbled back to their nests trailing a broken wing. Yet every day the parents take it in turns to set off on this deathdefying task to feed their babies.
The most surprising shots in the Islands documentary come from Fernandina in the Galapagos. The crew lived offshore on a boat for three weeks, landing on the beach every day to film the marine iguanas which have adapted to life in the sea, making them unique among the planet’s 4,500 species of lizard.
The team witnessed iguana hatchlings emerge from the sands to make their way towards the shore. But the slightest movement attracted racer snakes, which pursued them across the beach. What happened next provides one of the most exciting pieces of wildlife film ever shown on the BBC. As the babies pass the rocky lava, dozens of racer snakes emerge from the crevices. In an instant, the snakes are all over each baby, trying to swallow it whole – yet some escape. ‘This had never been filmed before, and we had no idea what was going to happen,’ says Liz. ‘We knew at that moment that we had to drop everything to capture it.’
The latest camera techniques enabled the team to get spectacular shots of Verreaux’s sifaka lemurs in Madagascar. This rare animal lives among the spiny thicket plants that grow more than 30ft high. On the ground, these lemurs adopt a strange gait, with their arms outstretched as they skip sideways. But in the thorny forests they’re agile and graceful, leaping from trunk to trunk to pluck the green shoots that no other creature can reach.
The aim on Planet Earth II, according to executive producer Mike Gunton, is to give viewers the sense that they can see what the animals see, and by mounting cameras on drones the team in Madagascar were able to do just that – soaring with the lemurs at the top of the thorn plants.