Crocodile vs cheetah doesn't play out the way one might expect!
South Africa is one of the last truly wild places on earth where scenes straight out of a National Geographic documentary play out daily. By now, we have seen a bevy of crazy videos from the National Parks down there from rhinos, hippos, buffalo, and elephants attacking cars full of tourists to a jaguar vs wild dogs and hyenas as the fighting over the scraps of kills from larger animals.
One thing we did not expect to see was a cheetah ending up on the wrong end of the food chain. These big cats are the fastest wild animals on earth, fully capable of reaching over 60 miles per hour out in the open. There's no way a big croc can be fast enough to catch one, right?
Well, that's what we thought anyway. That was until we saw this stunning video of a young cheetah drinking at a waterhole. Suddenly, a big Nile crocodile comes out of nowhere and drags the young animal to its death as tourist cameras capture pics and video. Just a warning this video is graphic and tough to watch.
As hard as this was to watch, this is the harsh reality of nature in the African bush. Everyone expects animals like warthogs, zebras, antelopes, wildebeest, impalas and gazelles to be on the menus for crocodiles and caimans. Maybe even a baboon or baby elephant or rhino. This is what makes this video so shocking. Few people expect another predator to end up a snack. Especially since cheetah attacks are fast and ferocious. This is just one of those animals we assumed was too quick to have any natural predators. How very wrong we were.
The video's description gives a bit more background on what's going on here. Apparently, this is a mother cheetah and two cubs. It's one of the cubs that makes the mistake of drinking water while the large reptile is lurking. If you watch the video closely, the cub clearly sensed something was wrong only seconds before the attack. Unfortunately for this cat, he reacted much too late.
The harsh realities of nature may be difficult to watch, but they're a good reminder of how tough wild animals have it. We are glad the camera was rolling on this incident because it gave us a chance to witness a sight few will ever see and we learned more about why you should never take the stealth and speed of a hungry crocodile or alligator for granted! A good thing to keep in mind in case you ever visit South Africa or Kenya.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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