photo:Vaclav Silha

London Times:

Czech photographer Vaclav Silha shooting on the banks of the Grumeti River in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania happened to be in the right place at the right time to record a crocodile’s untimely end.

(An) incautious croc (Crocodylus niloticus) got too close to a female (Hippopotamus amphibius) who had calves and the whole group gathered into a defensive circle.

“The crocodile suddenly raced across the backs of the hippos. It might have panicked and thought it was an escape route. It was the worst choice the reptile could ever have made. And it was definitely its last.

“The island of hippos erupted with teeth and all I could see was the crocodile being repeatedly crushed in their huge mouths. His body slipped below the water and I didn’t see him again.”

Photos taken by Hal Brindley in Kruger National Park, South Africa

The Telegraph recently ran some terrific pictures of a leopard taking down a croc.

Via Darren Naish, Steve Bodio, and Karen L. Myers

African video of lions attempting to take young Cape Buffalo.

8:23 video

I think Glenn Reynolds would say that those Cape Buffalo behaved like “a pack, not a herd.”