The food chain has been well and truly disrupted this week after a Seychelles giant tortoise, previously thought to be a herbivore, was caught on camera hunting, killing and eating a baby seabird.

According to experts, it’s the first documentation of deliberate hunting in any wild tortoise species:

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT – Eyewitness video shows a giant tortoise, thought to be an herbivore, stalking and eating a baby bird in what may be the first footage of such an incident pic.twitter.com/06Iinr8q5l

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 25, 2021

Dr Justin Gerlach, director of studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge and affiliated researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology, says:

This is completely unexpected behaviour and has never been seen before in wild tortoises.

The giant tortoise pursued the tern chick along a log, finally killing the chick and eating it.

It was a very slow encounter, with the tortoise moving at its normal, slow walking pace – the whole interaction took seven minutes and was quite horrifying.

Welp, look like we are witnessing the evolution of wild tortoises becoming carnivores. Although watching that clip, is it possible the tortoise killed that baby bird because it was annoying him? I mean all we really saw was the tortoise biting the bird’s head off, so maybe the bird was chirping really loudly and tortoise had enough? I don’t know. All I know is that nature is scary and fascinating in equal measure. Watch out for those wild tortoises.

To meet the tortoise that had so much sex, he had to be fitted with wheels, click HERE.