A resident of Lakeland, Florida spotted an awe-inspiring sight: A 12-foot alligator eating another of its kind.
Alex Figuero was walking along a trail on the Circle B Bar reserve, a protected area spanning 1,200 acres, when he and several others noticed a large gator chomping down on a smaller, less fortunate one.
Luckily, he was able to capture the event in the video above, which has unsurprisingly gone viral.
The gator can be seen shaking and chewing the smaller reptile, a method they use to break the bones of their prey to make it easier to swallow and digest.
Generally, alligators eat fish, snakes, turtles, birds, and small mammals. However, cannibalism is considered a typical behavior for this species. In fact, one study of a Florida marsh showed that 6 to 7 percent of the resident juvenile alligators were eaten by their larger counterparts over the span of a year. The majority of those cannibalized were under 3 years old.
Rates of cannibalism likely increase when food is less abundant, and may actually help prevent gator overpopulation.
A similar extraordinary sighting of an alligator being cannibalized was shared by Taylor Soper on X.
Watch:
This happened in my parents backyard today… The snack is a 6ft gator #lowcountrylivin pic.twitter.com/O7Omsw42uL
— Taylor Soper (@Soper_TandC) September 30, 2021
Soper went on to mention that he and his father had just seen the victim cannibalizing an even smaller gator the weekend before. “There’s some craziness going on over there,” he said.
Nature is crazy, indeed.
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