Well this is a matchup you’d never expect.
When it comes to alligator videos, we typically see the gator making light work of its prey, or absolutely terrorizing a group of tourists that aren’t used to be around these types of creatures.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the alligator is incredibly strong, fast, and also incredibly dangerous.
However, very little do we see an alligator on the wrong end of a feast…
But this video is a perfect example that the gator doesn’t win all the time.
This one went down in Lake Apopka, Florida, at Florida Wildlife & Exotic Animal Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Center, which is just northwest of Orlando.
Owner Shellie Gilliam just so happened to capture a wild scene on video…
And it was a Great Blue Heron making light work of a juvenile alligator.
As you can see, the heron has the small gator in its mouth. It’s hard to tell for certain, but the gator appears to be already dead, or has simply given up on the fight to the large bird.
Once the heron is able to get the gator vertically in its mouth, that’s when the creature begins to consume the gator whole.
This just goes to show how much a heron can consume in one sitting, without even really taking a bite.
Gilliam said it took the heron about 25 minutes to finish the gator off.
Great blue herons are massive, blueish grey birds that can grow to be four and a half feet long with a wingspan up to six and half feet.
The birds are excellent fishermen, using their size while they wait patiently for fish to swim by and dive in at them using their beak as the weapon. They’ll generally eat anything that gets close to the water, mainly feasting on fish but also eating bugs and other small mammals.
And apparently they like a gator every now and then too…
Check it out:
