Croc eats croc: Dramatic fight to the death at Australian national park captured on camera
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Lee Min Kok
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An amateur photographer who was "in the right place at the right time" has captured scenes straight out of a survival of the fittest documentary on wildlife.
Ms Sandra Bell, who visited the Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park off the coast of Queensland in late October with her son, had spotted two saltwater crocodiles locked in a ferocious battle.
The bigger of the two then ate up its smaller adversary after killing it.
Ms Bell subsequently sent the photographs of the savage act of "crocodile cannibalism" she took to Queensland National Parks, which put them up on its Facebook page on Tuesday (Dec 1).
The post has since been shared close to 3,000 times.
Speaking to the BBC, Ms Bell said she and her son had been on the way to a ranger station when they stopped to take some photos of a few crocodiles lying on the bank about 20m away.
What followed shocked them - a 5m-long crocodile, which had been lying in the water, suddenly grabbed a smaller one in its jaws and flung it into the air.
"It starting flinging the smaller one around, splashing it into the water. Then it started eating the tail, and then the legs. Just... chomp chomp chomp," said Ms Bell, who had spent the past year on a camping holiday in Australia with her 14-year-old son.
She estimated that the attack went on for as long as 15 minutes before the bigger crocodile abandoned the remains, and also speculated that the smaller one could have been dead or dying.
"It was totally amazing but so shocking".
