The video captures the horrifying moment when a massive crocodile devours a newborn hippopotamus as it floats in its jaws.
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The helpless hippopotamus still has its umbilical cord attached as the crocodile bites into its flesh.
Frankie Adamson, a wildlife photographer working as the resident photographer for the safari operator Governors’ Camp Collection, filmed the incident from the banks of the Mara River in Kenya.
Describing vividly how the horrifying encounter unfolded, Adamson says there were no other hippos in this part of the river.
After catching the baby hippo, the crocodile initially stayed in the water but began to thrash the corpse when disturbed by fish trying to grab a part of its catch.
“It started lifting the carcass out of the water very violently,” the photographer told Live Science.
“The crocodile already had the baby hippo trapped in its jaws when I approached, and I was sure it was already dead,” he recalled.
The crocodile held the calf for 45 minutes before swimming off with its prey, Adamson said.
It’s a rare sighting – crocodiles don’t tend to bother adult hippos.
However, Adamson says this crocodile may have seen the calf as an easy catch, given its size and inexperience in the hostile environment.
Growing to about five meters, Nile crocodiles would make light work of a baby hippo.
However, a hippo mother, averaging five meters in length and weighing up to 4,500 kilograms, can easily dominate and kill a crocodile.
“It’s certainly not always that these relentless predators snatch baby hippos from their mothers – in fact, as opportunistic as crocodiles are – they often avoid hippos, as they know how aggressive a raging hippo can be,” wrote the Governors Camp Collection in an Instagram post.
Video reproduction: Instagram @governorscampcollection
