Photographer Paulette Thomas documents an alligator munching crabs.
ITS SHELL SHATTERED by powerful jaws, a blue crab falls prey to an alligator off South Carolina’s Huntington Beach State Park. There to photograph birds, Paulette Thomas saw something odd in the distance, moved in for a closer view, and realized gators were feasting on crabs. “I had never seen this before,” says Thomas, a daily visitor to the park. Hoping to document the action, she sat on a rail for 12 hours until the gators moved closer to shore. “Patience and perseverance” paid off, says Thomas. Her photograph won an honorable mention in our 2018 photo contest.
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