Christopher Gillette shared a video of an alligator nearly lying on top of him underwater as he rubs it belly and gently redirects its toothy snout away from his face. At first glance, it’s hard to figure out exactly what’s going on. Although his caption starts off with “Gator trying to bite me in the face!”, Gillette shortly clears up that the gator is not aggressing on him at all . . . but it could if it wanted to.
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Gillette owns Bellowing Acres, an organization in Florida that provides a forever home to rescued “nuisance alligators” that were destined for euthanasia by the state. The gator in the popular social-media video, Casper, lives with Gillette at his sanctuary.
“Gator trying to bite me in the face!” wrote Gillette in his Instagram post sharing the video. “Nah it’s just Casper feeling around while I blow bubble rings at him. I mean, he would bite me in the face if I didn’t move out of the way, when he does this he has his eyes closed and is feeling around underwater.”
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Gillette explains that when “feeling around underwater,” the alligator is using special sensory organs to sense his environment. “These sensors have been shown to be 10X as sensitive as human fingertips!” he adds.
See a gator trying to bite Gillette in the face (but not really):
Header stock image by Posnov/Getty Images
