Imagine giving it your all, and this is how fast you can get away.
When most animals see they are being sought out as dinner by another animal on the food chain, they often scurry away in the opposite direction. If it is a more fair matchup, they will battle it out, trying to show their strength over the other.
But as Mother Nature would have it, sometimes the food chain has to exist, and the pecking order falls into line. This turtle was giving it all to ensure that the food chain did not allow a massive gator to take his life.
In the backyard of Hilton Head, South Carolina, a rare moment was caught when an alligator was trying to chomp down on a giant turtle. Thankfully for the turtle, its protective shell saved his life as the reptile couldn’t get a good grip on the round shell to make his fatal bite. While the gator tried to keep the turtle in his vicinity, once it tilted its head back, the turtle slid out of its mouth and made his triumphant escape.
Well, triumphant might be a stretch. He made it out as quickly as a turtle could.
The turtle makes a painfully slow escape, hopping away back towards the body of water, and the gator just sits there. At the same time, the gator was accepting defeat or wallowing in the fact it just got shown up by a turtle. The person behind the camera giggles while watching the whole encounter because it almost looks like it’s out of a children’s book how the entire interaction went down, like a second installment of The Tortoise and the Hare or a new version of The Little Engine That Could.
This turtle lives to see another day…
While this video is a few years old at this point, the comments never fail to make me laugh.
“I like how the alligator just stops and thinks about his life choices.”
“That has to be the laziest alligator I’ve ever seen.”
“The rejection on the alligator’s face is priceless.”
“Now that turtle has something to tell his grandkids in the future.”
“The alligator saw the cameraman and decided to change his main course.”
“Legends say the gator is still recovering his pride to this day.”
