Crocodile Eats Baby Hippo in Gruesome Video

A gruesome video captured the moment a crocodile got ready to eat a baby hippo with the umbilical cord still attached.

Frankie Adamson, a domestic animal portrait photographer and wildlife photographer, captured the footage while in Kenya's Masai Mara. Adamson, who works as a resident photographer at Governors' Camp, told Newsweek that tourists often ask about how crocodiles and hippopotamuses co-exist in the Mara River.

"It's generally accepted that crocodiles would not approach or threaten an adult hippo, but I have heard that they are opportunists and if it's possible they would take a chance to snatch a baby. It is something I had never seen with my own eyes, however," Adamson said.

The Mara River has a high population of Nile crocodiles—the biggest of its species in Africa. The river provides a water source for many other African animals, such as the hippopotamus.

The footage of this encounter shows the huge crocodile with a newborn hippo gripped in its jaws. The crocodile appears to secure the hippo more tightly in its jaws before starting to thrash it around.

"On this occasion, I was alerted to a crocodile with a hippo in the section of the Mara River running through Governors' Camp, where I was staying during my photography residency, by a colleague. He suggested I bring my camera to the riverbank as it was quite an unusual sighting," Adamson said.

"The crocodile already had the baby hippo held in its jaws by the time I approached, and I was fairly certain it was already dead. This raised questions in my mind as to whether the crocodile had killed it, or whether it had been still-born and the carcass snatched, as I later saw the baby's umbilical cord still attached."

Although Nile crocodiles have a huge bite force and are able to take down a number of large prey, a hippopotamus can weigh between 3,500 to 9,920 pounds and is known for being highly aggressive. For this reason, it is exceptionally rare for a crocodile to attempt to bring down an adult hippo. A baby, however, would be easier for a Nile crocodile to take down.

Once Adamson found the sight, she sat down on the river bank and took some photographs of the strange sighting.

Adamson said that as she observed the incident, she noticed some catfish splashing around in the water near the hippo's head.

"In this section of the river there were no other hippos around during the incident, so it's still unknown whether the baby floated downstream and was snatched or taken by the crocodile which swam away with it. When I saw the catfish were disturbing the crocodile, I hit record on my camera and it started lifting the carcass up out of the water and very violently thrashing it around," Adamson said.

"The crocodile would be very still with the baby in its mouth for periods of time, and would repeat this thrashing behavior two or three more times before it eventually swam downstream with the carcass. I must have sat there for around 45 minutes to an hour watching this, and did not see it eat any of the carcass because after it swam away I called it a day having captured some images and footage of this remarkable sighting."

Update 10/16/23, 10:12 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include Adamson's job title.

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