The internet has been captivated once again by the sheer majesty and drama of nature, in a new “Planet Earth 2” video of animals struggling to survive.
This time, there are no homewrecking penguins. It’s reptile on reptile as a hungry snake gives chase to a lizard — before a gang of his snake buddies joins in on the hunt.
Soon, it’s an army of snakes slithering, climbing, even jumping and flying through the air to catch the poor, lone lizard, who does everything he can to scale a rock that’s out of reach.
At one point, the footage from the BBC TV series shows the lizard literally engulfed in snakes curled around and nearly squeezing him to death — but that isn’t the end either.
Not-so-hyperbolically called a “miraculous escape” by the way-too-calm narrator, the lizard somehow disentangles himself and at last pushes himself up onto a rock, where a friend is waiting with a comforting cuddle.
The stomach-turning chase is so literally life-or-death dramatic that Twitter immediately exploded, sharing the video more than 20,000 times in a span of a few hours.
“Those camera men were REALLY in the right place at the right time. Almost like it had been scripted!” said one Twitter user, prompting another to reply, “The lizard is actually Andy Serkis.”
“Me & my girlfriend were practically SCREAMING at the TV,” said another riveted viewer. “What tension, what scale & what a sense of good vs evil.”
“Where is this place, so that I may know to never go within 500 miles of it?” said the wisest of them all.
Possibly the greatest scene in documentary history. Incredible. #PlanetEarth2 pic.twitter.com/01dDjDJcdX
— ✏️ ???? (@MrLukeJohnston) November 7, 2016
The lizard is actually Andy Serkis
— niko (temporarily out of references) (@nikodimov) November 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/Davlonian/status/795612182209818624
@bibliographing “Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes."
— Dr Dr Dr Unquiet Bat Person, JD, PhD, Time Lord (@jamescappio) November 7, 2016
Where is this place, so that I may know to never go within 500 miles of it?
— Alex Jordan – Protect Women, Kids, and Democracy (@AlejandroDaJ) November 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/djchubakka/status/795662388406140928
@Brad_Glasgow Ruuuuun, you scaly motherfucker! Ruuuuuun! Jesus. My heart is still pounding.
— Shadilad ? (@DoxBait) November 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/DamnAnts/status/795669183203778560