Rogan Kerr says he was waiting with baited breath as two deadly animals came face to face in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. A hippo came sniffing around a croc, which was hauled out of the water and lying still in the sun, its gaping mouth wide open and ready to snap at any moment. But which animal would come out on top if the two started fighting?
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Kerr is a photographer and videographer based in South Africa. He filmed the encounter from afar, his device zoomed in as the hippo walks up to the croc’s bottom half, sniffing its tail curiously.
We won’t spoil the ending. Watch as a hippo sniffs a croc in Botswana:
Croc vs. Hippo?
In this instance, what happened was a whole lot of nothing. Kerr says it’s for the best that the two animals didn’t attempt to go head to head, and they usually don’t.
“There’s generally an understanding between the crocs and hippos of the Okavango: leave each other alone,” he wrote in his Instagram post sharing the footage. “It wouldn’t be a smart move for this croc, despite its impressive size, to pick a fight with a pod of hippos. Still, there’s tension in moments like these where interaction seems inevitable. This croc kept his cool while under investigation, avoiding what could easily have been a fatal conflict.”
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