WHO said freshies couldn’t be brutal?

This hungry croc was snapped feasting on a metre-long monitor (type of goanna) in the Mary River near Pine Creek by local Carol Gleeson, who was doing a spot of fishing when the one-sided battle unfolded before her eyes.

Ms Gleeson, from the Mary River Station, said the croc swallowed the Mertens’ water monitor whole.

“Then he saw me and he just went underwater,’’ she said. “He only had an inch of the tail left hanging out of his mouth.” Ms Gleeson – who has lived near the river for 15 years — said she had never seen anything like it.

“I’ve seen a saltwater fella eating a leg of a deer,’’ she said.

“He’s in our billabong just below the homestead.”

Michael Barritt from NT Parks and Wildlife said it was “quite unusual” for a freshie to eat such a large animal.

“They’ll mostly just snap up insects,’’ he said. “Their second source of food is fish, then crustaceans and spiders.” Mr Barritt said the croc must have been more than 3m in size.

“They do occasionally take small goannas but that doesn’t look small to me,’’ he said.

“When they get that big they start to behave like salties, where they sit and ambush their big prey.”