As ectothermic – or cold-blooded – animals, reptiles only require around a tenth of the food intake of a similarly-sized mammal to survive. Evolution has instead led them to consume their prey whole, digesting bones and all. Unlike mammals, snakes don’t chew their food and have no appendages with which to carve up a share of their quarry with their kin. Collectively, the actions of these snakes can appear terrifying, but once a snake eats it loses its desire to hunt again. The time of year when these iguanas hatch is for these snakes the equivalent of Black Friday bargain hunting – it’s every snake for itself, because if they miss out here, they’ll go hungry. Rather than capturing a coordinated attack from snakes hunting as a pack, the clip from Planet Earth II actually shows a number of snakes acting individually, on instinct. And rather than hinder my career, my stand attracted BBC producers with better judgement, and eventually led to me presenting my own primetime BBC One wildlife series, Rhys Jones’s Wildlife Patrol.īut while it worked out well for me in the end, the same cannot be said for the racer snake, which has already been roundly and colourfully attacked. A couple of days later, though, I received another call telling me that the documentary had been poorly thought out and that a decision had been made to cancel the production. I remember thinking that that would be the last chance I’d ever have to work for the BBC, but also feeling that I’d made the right decision. “Do you know anyone else that would be interested?” “Okay,” the voice replied, seemingly without hearing a word I had just uttered. A documentary of that calibre would present adders in a poor light, and it was not a project I would want to be part of. It was a delicate snake that could easily be injured, and it would be unethical to undertake such an exercise just for the camera. Taking a deep breath, I clarified through gritted teeth that Britain’s only venomous snake was both shy and reclusive and not at all aggressive.
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