Bhubaneswar: When the hunter became the hunted and when curiosity killed the cat. A video footage has been rending on social media. It shows a cheetah being dragged into the river by a 13-foot crocodile in South Africa. The cheetah is struggling hard to save himself, but in the end it is the powerful crocodile which wins and drags the big cat under. The video was captured by South African ‘WildEarth’ safari guide Busani Mtshali at the ‘&Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve’, according to the ‘Daily Mail’.
The cheetah appears comparatively young, probably in the adolescent stage of its life. It had ventured to the watering hole for a drink. It never knew that death was lurking below. As the cheetah started lapping up the water, the crocodile struck. It dragged the big cat under water in flash.
Footage shows the crocodile leaping out of water to grab the cheetah in its powerful jaws. Then it pulls the struggling animal into the water.
“It is so painful,” the guide can be heard saying, in the video. “It is more than the word painful. There is nothing really we can do because the croc was just ambushing the cheetah when the young cheetah cub went down to drink water,” the guide added.
“On a live safari for WildEarth, &Beyond Phinda guide, Busani Mtshali, came across a mother cheetah with two cubs,” wrote ‘WildEarth.TV’ on Facebook while sharing the footage. “As the male cub approached the waterhole to quench his thirst, Busani noticed a crocodile was lurking in the water nearby. What followed was sad and hard to watch. While we would prefer scenes like this to have happier endings, every animal has its role to play in the ‘circle of life’, even the crocodile,” WildEarth.TV added.
The video has gone massively viral on social media, racking up millions of views across different platforms.
Crocodiles residing in the Nile are the largest among the species. Some of them even grow to up to 16 feet in length. They are very aggressive and have an extremely strong and powerful bite.