‘I just screamed.’ Drone captures the moment crocodile lunged to attack in Australia
A crocodile jumped out of a lagoon and ate a passing drone, and the footage is giving people the willies on social media.
It happened in Darwin, Australia, where cameraman Dane Hirst was filming a documentary on saltwater crocodiles for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, according to a report he posted on YouTube.
His video was posted Thursday on YouTube, and it shows the crocodile bit down so quickly, it barely shows up on the camera.
One minute, the reptile is sitting completely still in the lagoon and the next, the viewer sees teeth, the pale inside of a mouth, and the video feed goes dark.
“There was one crocodile in particular that was holding its ground and really eyeballing that drone and I thought: ‘Great, I’ll use this fellow.’ He’s in a stationary spot. I can get some decent shots,” Hirst says in the video.
“I lined the drone up and moved over the top of him. And as I was doing that, I looked up towards the lagoon and saw a crocodile vertical out of the water, and heard the great clamping noise of a crocodile’s jaws coming together.”
Hirst says his video screen went blank, and then he realized what happened. It was a new drone, he added.
The drone was found on the banks of the lagoon about two weeks later, with a series of of teeth marks in it, it was reported. “Clever technicians ... managed to retrieve the footage,” Hirst said.
ABC Rural shared the video on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, where it has gotten thousands of views and comments. Some on social media note it proves how dangerous “an ambush predator” can be. Others joked the croc clearly didn’t like being filmed.
“I just screamed watching this,” Johnpaul Gonzo tweeted.
“That was crazy. ... That croc can jump,” another commenter wrote.
“They will have you too in the blink of an eye,” Jill Sparkes posted.
Saltwater crocodiles are carnivores that top 22 feet in length and can weigh more than 2,200 pounds, according to the Australia Zoo. They are “the largest, most fierce and most misunderstood reptile on the planet,” the zoo reports.
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 7:07 AM with the headline "‘I just screamed.’ Drone captures the moment crocodile lunged to attack in Australia."