Angry alligators battle in jaw-clenching, chomping standoff

Two alligators in Florida had a gnarly standoff this month that was caught on camera by a “shocked” woman making her first trip into a wetlands area.

Crystal Urban Rose posted the photo of two gators locked onto each other with wide mouths, drawing blood with sharp teeth and laser locking their cold eyes in the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands in Brevard County. The alligators didn’t just snap at each other, grab a bite and leave. They gnawed on the other for at least an hour, Rose posted to her Facebook page and reported by other local outlets.

“I saw a lot of alligators that day but was stunned to see these two just off the walking trail biting each other,” Rose said on News 8 out of Tampa.

Rose posted an 8-second video on her Facebook page and also said this in another post with still photos.

“Viera Wetlands this morning! Saw 15 different alligators. Was shocked to walk up on this!! I walked by 3 times in the hour I was there and they just stayed in the same place biting each other,” Rose wrote. “Both alligators were alive and just in this hold position tightening their grip on each other over and over.”

Rose estimated that the two large alligators were about 11-feet and 13-feet long.

No one was really sure what the two male gators were fighting over, but followers on social media had their speculations on the fight and their restful behaviors, of course.

“Male dominance fighting for territory,” one man wrote.

“They’re resting in between violence they have different energy than ours and is quickly exhausted but don’t want the other guy get the advantage so they’ll lock it down,” another user wrote.

Rose responded.

“Yes they napped between bite downs lol. It was really an experience to watch,” Rose stated.

Rose told McClatchy News that the gators clamped down for likely more than an hour.

“I was shocked … startled. I heard the top alligator growl once right before biting down on the abdomen of the other gator. Scared the (poop) out of me,” Rose said. “They took note of me and just tightened their grip. They were motionless, in a holding pattern. Even looked like one was napping. They just held onto each other. They were still like that when I left.”

There are an estimated 1.3 million alligators across Florida’s 67 counties. Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands is approximately 200 acres and about an hour southeast of Orlando.