Remember that photo of a weasel riding on a woodpeckers back that went viral earlier this year? A similarly strange wildlife shot has emerged, and this one is making the rounds on the Web as well. It�s a bizarre photo of a raccoon riding on the back of an alligator in a river.
The Florida Times-Union reports that the picture was captured this weekend by a man named Richard Jones who was exploring the Oklawaha River in central Florida with his family. Jones� son made a sound that spooked the raccoon, causing it to hop onto the alligator.
�My son went through some palm fronds to catch a different angle and frightened a raccoon. It must have been asleep because it stumbled toward the water and hoped on top of the gator we were watching,� Jones says. �I snapped a lucky picture right when the gator slipped into the water and before the raccoon jumped off and scurried away.�
Jones says the shot is �definitely the photo of a lifetime.� The raccoon may not have been hitching a ride across the water, but it�s still an unusual wildlife shot that�s headed toward Internet fame.
Image credits: Photograph by Richard Jones
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.