Cannibal Crocodile Eats Rival After Smashing It Into The Water

A cannibalistic crocodile has been caught on camera chowing down on a rival after what appeared to be a brutal battle in Australia.

Sandra Bell photographed what looked like a killing at the Catfish Waterhole in Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park in Tropical North Queensland over the weekend, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The larger creature, which park staffers believe to be a saltwater crocodile, grabbed its smaller victim in its powerful jaws, shook it around in the air and then smashed it into the water before gulping it down.

Queensland National Parks, or QNP, posted the astonishing sequence of images to Facebook on Tuesday, and they're now going viral.

"It happened just a couple of hundred meters from our warning sign, so it's a good reminder to remember to be croc wise in croc country," the QNP said, with a link to the Queensland government's "Be Croc Wise" advisory webpage that reminds people how to behave around the deadly animals.

The exact breed of the victim is not known, and the QNP later speculated in another post that it may already have been dead when it was attacked.

Crocodiles are cannibalistic, and have been known to eat other crocodiles to control their population.

Male saltwater crocodiles -- or "salties," as they are known in Australia -- typically live for about 70 years in the wild and grow on average to around 17 feet long and weigh 1,000 pounds, according to National Geographic. But it's not uncommon for a salty to weigh up to 2,200 pounds and measure 23 feet.

Filmmakers for National Geographic rigged small boats with GoPros in September. A crocodile attacked the boats, resulting in footage that shows a crocodile attack from the prey's perspective.  

Last year, a massive crocodile was filmed fighting a lion over access to a dead elephant at Kenya's Samburu National Reserve.

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