The croc is shown tossing and turning in the river with the viper clamped and thrashing beneath his powerful jaws. Despite an intense fɪɢʜᴛ, the croc came off on top and taking the easy victory.
Captured in Yala National Park in Sri Lanka, the images were taken by Rishani Gunasinghe, a Patent Technology Specialist.
She described how the other guests and she had stopped to take a closer look at what was going on when she first noticed something little and white nearby.
When an alligator suddenly placed something white in its mouth and lowered its head to reveal a snake, they initially thought it was a python due to its immense size and exposed underbelly.
After a few quick photographs, she noticed the unmistakable chain of dorsal spots and realized it was actually a Russell’s Viper. Facing a Russell’s viper in the wild, one of the world’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅʟɪᴇsᴛ snakes, is truly a ᴛᴇʀʀɪfʏɪɴɢ.
However, with the great strength of the crocodile, the reptile was quickly defeated. The superb spins and tosses displayed by the croc in trying to ᴋɪʟʟ and ᴅᴇᴠᴏᴜʀ the viper, was quite a show and possibly a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.
“When I was taking the pictures, all I was thinking was getting both the croc and viper sharp and freezing the super-fast action as best as I could. Now I feel we were extremely lucky to witness such a rare event,” she shared.
“The Russell’s viper is an aggressive snake and in Sri Lanka, it is responsible for the highest snake ʙɪᴛᴇs, highest number of fᴀᴛᴀʟɪᴛɪᴇs and it’s the second most venomous viper in the island. It is said to have the longest fangs of any Sri Lankan snake. It feeds mainly on rodents and other arthropods, so it’s hard to think it targeted a croc.”
