Viral video: Large number of crocodiles ‘invade’ Brazil beach

A frightening video showing hundreds of crocodiles ‘invading’ a beach in Brazil has taken the internet by storm.

The 34-second clip shared by Ken Rutkowski, a radio talk show host, on Twitter shows hundreds of crocodiles resting and crawling on the sand on the beach. Some of them were seen in the water also as the camera pans.

“In Brazil, an invasion of crocodiles that have flooded one of the beaches with several hundred, even thousands, and the local population is panicking,” tweeted Rutkowski.

In Brazil, an invasion of crocodiles that have flooded one of the beaches with several hundred, even thousands, and the local population is panicking pic.twitter.com/3xnkqHdoyl

— Ken Rutkowski (@kenradio) September 15, 2022

Posted on September 15, the clip has amassed over 8 million views with around 1,57,800 likes and more than 24,000 retweets. The video prompted an array of reactions from netizens and some users came up with explanations.

The clip was initially shared by Pantanal Pesca, an outdoor and sporting goods company in Pantanal in Brazil, on Instagram on August 25. “I think there’s a little water in this alligator” lol I’ve never seen so many together like this,” read the caption in Portuguese.

According to the World Wide Fund, Pantanal is the largest tropical wetland and is spread across Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. The region has the largest concentration of crocodiles in the world, an estimated 10 million caimans. Every year, 1 million tourists visit the place to sight the animals.

Meanwhile, a report stated that the details and claims around the video are misleading. It says that the creatures featured in the video are most likely a type of alligator, not a crocodile. The “beach” is in fact a river bank. It further says that alligators are not invading, they are in their own natural habitat.