Crocodile Snatches A Flying Bat Out Of Mid-Air In Surreal Encounter

crocodile lurking above water

iStockphoto / Tanto Yensen


A few months ago I accidentally picked up a dead bat on my back porch after mistaking it for a burnt leaf. It was a dumb mistake, I know. And it’s been haunting me ever since.

But now that I know there are crocodiles out there in the world eating flying bats I can at least rest a little easier knowing these crocs are working to keep bats outside of my house. It almost makes me want to drive down to the Florida Everglades and toss some chicken legs to the American Crocodiles, not to be confused with the alligators.

This clip is from a mini-series titled Seven Worlds One Planet on the BBC. It lives within the Planet Earth world and is narrated by the iconic Sir David Attenborough. And it is bananas. This is in Australia by the way but that shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Crocodiles Snatch Flying Bats Out Of Mid-Air

I guess I’ve always lived under the idea that crocodiles couldn’t see very well unless their eyes were above the water. That could still be the case and these crocs could be reacting to the flying bats disturbing the surface of the water.

I do know the crocodiles would be very sensitive to any vibrations on the surface so it’s possible that is what is happening. But the fact that these flying bats are getting sniped by crocodiles is just nuts to me.

Brazilian Beach ‘Invaded By Crocodiles’ Isn’t What It Seems To Be

A viral video has been making the rounds that claims an ‘invasion of crocodiles’ in Brazil has locals ‘panicked’ after thousands of crocs swarmed a beach. Don’t believe these claims, should you see them.

Here is the video that’s been spread far and wide online using typical fear tactics.

Those Caimans are exactly where they’re supposed to be.

The video appears to have been credited to this Instagram account where the bio is written in the Indonesian language. They posted footage of the caimans on September 1st and from there it made its way to Twitter and Reddit, each time being framed as ‘locals are FREAKING OUT’ when in reality, the Pantanal is the largest wetland on planet earth.

Roughly 200,000 people live in the Pantanal but it’s so dang big the population density is 1.8 inhabitants/square kilometer compared to the overall Brazilian population density of 17 inhabitants/square kilometer.

We’re talking about 42 MILLION acres here, with an estimated 10,000,000 caimans swimming around. There is approximately ZERO local population that is worried about an ‘invasion’ of caimans because they’re already there. It’s not as if you hear people from Florida and Louisiana crying about an invasion of alligators. And that’s because the gators are exactly where they’re expected to be, just as these caimans are where they’re supposed to be.

However, we have no proof that this isn’t the end game down there. A return to classical ways of life:

What a way to live that would be!

FACT Check: There’s no ‘Brazil crocodile invasion’ going on.

One Zoologist with a large social media following chimed in to shed light on the matter:

Others pointed out that all the caimans / crocodiles are doing is warming up. As soon as their bodies have sufficiently warmed up they’ll slither back into the water in the Pantanal and move about their business.

Locals are not panicking and these so-called crocs are just trying to catch a little sun.