Two crocodiles have been snapped by a photographer in a fight to the death in tropical North Queensland.
The two salties were seen at the Catfish Waterhole in Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park on Cape York Peninsula.
It appears to have been a very one-sided fight.
The smaller croc is flipped about in the fight before it is seen disappearing down the throat of the much bigger crocodile.
The photographer, Sandra Bell, sent the images to Queensland National Parks.
The national park service has reminded people to be "Croc Wise".
The croc v croc primordial battle took place just metres from a sign warning visitors about the presence of the carnivorous reptiles.
Big Gecko senior partner and crocodile specialist Adam Britton said cannibalism can be quite common during the wet season, which runs from the start of September through until March.
"Saltwater crocs can definitely be cannibalistic, particularly this time of year at the start of the wet season," Dr Britton said.
"You are getting an increase in temperature, getting more rainfall and that is triggering the crocodile breeding behaviour."
Dr Britton said dominant males often attack other males, to defend and re-establish their territories during mating season.
"If a big dominant male comes across a smaller male then basically he is going to want to get rid of that competitor and driving them out," Dr Britton said.
"That is the first thing they will try and do but if that doesn't work they are quite happy to go and kill them.
"It is usually males eating males. I wouldn't rule out the possibility for a male to attack and kill a female, that can happen but in this particular situation, males are looking for females, they want females to breed."
Dr Britton said while cannibalism isn't unique to saltwater crocodiles, they do tend to be the most territorial.
"The males are very large and so they have the capabilities to kill other crocodiles quite easily."
Lifting their prey out of the water is also quite a common occurrence, Dr Britton said.
"When they want to kill something or rip it apart, they will grab part of it, usually towards one of the extremities, and they will lift their entire front part of their body out of the water and they flick their head like a whip," Dr Britton said.
"By doing that it is exerting an enormous amount of tearing force and it literally causes an animal to tear in two.
"They do this when they are trying to dismember prey, or trying to rip something off the prey to break it into smaller pieces so they can swallow it, but it is also very effective at killing competitors."
Ian Worcester, known to locals as 'Sauce', captured another crocodile attack just two weeks prior during one of his Daintree River Wild Watch boat tours in north Queensland.
He was sitting in his boat with a couple watching two male Great-billed herons fighting each other intermittently when they flew down into the water just beside the boat.
"They both flew down in front of us and fell into the water and we saw a crocodile come up and grab one," Mr Worcester said.
"When they hit the water, they just landed in the wrong spot at the wrong time,
"It all happened so quickly, we didn't even know the crocodile was down there."
The other heron managed to escape the crocodile but was still in the water.
"We pulled back, the other one was still standing in the water until we went over and shooed him up into the higher trees, he was just stunned," Mr Worcester said.
Mr Worcester has been running tour groups through the Daintree rainforest for decades and said he has seen quite a lot of amazing moments.
"I have seen a lot of things in my life, I am no spring chicken, but I was just shaking, it was just awesome to have it happen right in front of us," Mr Worcester said.
"I have seen a croc breaking a pig up, the sound was amazing, it was breaking the back legs off in front of everyone,
"On the 24th of July, I had 5 people on the boat and we saw a calf get taken by a croc,
"I had mixed emotions there and of course I can't go to the rescue, because I don't want to put my passengers in danger.
"Every time you go out there it is always different, you never know what is going to happen. You still see different things every day."
