Five truly remarkable moments captured on film in Planet Earth II

A pair of racer snakes lay in wait for a hatchling marine iguana as it attempts to make its way to the safety of the sea. Photograph: BBC

The baby iguanas and the racer snakes

Six weeks ago, barely anyone had heard of sea-faring iguanas. Since then, many tens of millions of people worldwide have watched and cheered as the hatchling iguanas scrambled to escape the snakes – and just a few of them made it.

A pygmy three-toed sloth swims to find a mate on a nearby island. Photograph: BBC

The swimming sloth

On a tiny island off Panama, a male pygmy three-toed sloth can hear the call of a female – the problem is, she’s on another island. There’s nothing for it but to swim. Slowly.

Planet Earth II film crews used camera traps to capture images of a snow leopard. Photograph: David Willis/BBC

Snow leopards

The producers called it “pee-mail” – the messages rarely seen snow leopards leave for each other by spraying urine on particular rocks. Without the latest camera-trap technology, these scenes would never have been recorded.

A young Nubian Ibex prepares to head down a steep cliff in search of water far below. Photograph: BBC

The fox and the ibex

Young ibex in the Arabian peninsula have to clamber down terrifyingly steep slopes to reach water. But a fox is waiting, so there’s no time to take it slowly.

Night vision technology was used to photograph a leopard hunting domestic pigs in Mumbai. Photograph: BBC

The urban leopard hunt

For the forthcoming final episode on cities, the filmmakers managed to capture a hunt by the most densely concentrated population of leopards in the world – in Mumbai. The local teenagers seem unbothered, the domestic pigs less so.