Sydney photographer Andrew Paice was on a tour with his family on Australia's Adelaide River on Tuesday when he saw an 80-year-old saltwater crocodile (locally known as Brutus) with a juvenile bull shark clenched between its jaws.
The 5.5-metre (18 ft) croc has become quite the tourist attraction because of its missing front leg which according to local lore was lost to a shark (fact or fiction, who knows?). Brutus's toothy grin has become so popular that local tourism operations offer cruises to witness the giant's jump-feeding behaviour.
"We’d fed Brutus on the bank earlier and were coming back past," Paice tells Northern Territory News. "[We] saw something in his mouth ... Brutus took the shark back into the water and then started to shake it around a bit, [then headed] back into the mangroves like he was protecting his prey."
What was a shark doing in the Adelaide? We tend to think of sharks as ocean dwellers, but like saltwater crocodiles, bull sharks can handle both salt and fresh water. According to river cruise operator Morgan Bowman, bull sharks pop up from time to time in the area ... looks like this battle was bound to happen eventually.
Salt-water crocodile catches & eats bull shark in brutal NT wildlife encounter: http://t.co/MyPDr4ufkh Photo: A Paice pic.twitter.com/jfAujGAWXa
— Wildlife Land Trust (@wlt_au) August 6, 2014
Crocodile vs shark: Tourists capture astonishing photos in the NT http://t.co/RGa79NO1S7 pic.twitter.com/vAFGXUM2K7
— smh.com.au (@smh) August 6, 2014
Jaws v Claws. Claws wins. http://t.co/fhyD5Tv8YV pic.twitter.com/64YcrbpJwe
— Barney Henderson (@barneyhenderson) August 6, 2014
Australians have no problems weathering a #Sharknado: All hail this 18ft saltwater crocodile!! http://t.co/OUgxV4MAXb pic.twitter.com/PpzYy6pCFT
— BuzzFeed Australia (@BuzzFeedOz) August 6, 2014
Top header image: Peter Nijenhuis/Flickr