Tourist Sandra Bell was poised to photograph a sedate scene of two crocodiles sunning themselves at the edge of an Australian waterhole when the picture unexpectedly exploded into violence.
Bell was startled, but managed to snap about 20 graphic photographs as a 5m estuarine crocodile killed and devoured a far lighter 2.5m crocodile in 15 minutes.
“It was super amazing, but pretty terrifying as well,” Bell said yesterday. “It looked like it was pretty much dead pretty quickly.”
Photo: Reuters / Sandra Bell
The extraordinary pictures were taken on Oct. 26 at Catfish Waterhole in the Rinyirru National Park, where Bell had been camping with her 14-year-old son in north Queensland. The mother and son, from Shark Bay in Western Australia, were on a year-long vacation driving around the nation.
Without warning, the large crocodile suddenly clamped its jaws around the other’s tail and flung the smaller crocodile’s entire body repeatedly through the air and into the water.
Although Bell was 30m away from the action on the opposite bank, she found herself backing away through fear as she continued to take photographs.
“I had no idea how forceful and powerful it was,” she said.
“There were waves and splashes going everywhere, and you could hear the little one getting thumped into the water,” she added.
Crocodile expert Grahame Webb said cannibalism was common among crocodiles, although humans rarely witness such attacks in the Australian wilderness.
While birds and fish prey on hatchlings, the only predator a crocodile fears is another crocodile.
“Once a croc gets to one to two years old, its survival depends on how many big crocs are around,” Webb said.
Webb said the violent throwing of the smaller crocodile was an attempt to tear away body parts to swallow.
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