Feeding whole watermelons to large animals and uploading the resulting videos to YouTube is a thing that people do, and it is one of the best uses of the internet. It’s pretty exciting to watch these beasts lay waste to a 10-pound piece of fruit like it’s a grape or something. So here are some videos of large animals eating watermelons, ranked in descending order based on the efficacy and entertainment value of their technique.
1. Hippo
There’s a lot of good hippo-watermelon content out there, like this guy just crushing one, or this guy giddily chasing one down underwater. The common theme across these videos is how clear it is that love for watermelon is a species-wide thing. Hippos love watermelon so much that they can’t even slow down while eating them: It looks like they’re going to choke, but they never do.
2. Crocodile
The thing many people (like me until about an hour ago) don’t know about crocodiles is that they are way more vicious than alligators. They’re bigger, more aggressive, and their jaws can snap down at 3,700 pounds per square inch. And this croc is incredible! Look at that slow-mo! Dude waited for the whole thing to get in there and slammed shut, trapping a lot of the good red stuff and discarding the bad rind.
3. Pig
Pigs have a lot of structural limitations when it comes to chowing down watermelons, as they’re built for rolling around in mud and eating slop. But that doesn’t stop this pig from gaining the necessary purchase to carry this one around to his favored watermelon-eating spot, and if the video went a minute longer, I’m sure we’d see the entire thing eaten.
4. Alligator Snapping Turtle
I always kind of laughed about snapping turtles. I mean, yeah, they snap and take down some small creatures, but they’re turtles! They’re basically designed to go into a shell and hide, and you can defeat them by just flipping them over! But alligator snapping turtles are mostly carnivorous, and they’re even known to take down other turtles. A Louisiana study even found that that 80 percent of the stuff found in adult alligator snapping turtles’ stomachs is other turtles. So they’re not to be trifled with.
Perhaps because of their ferocity, however, these guys aren’t great watermelon-eaters. They have no chill, and they don’t even seem to enjoy it.
5. Alligator
I love the grit this alligator shows in going after the watermelon, and his technique—from that little hop forward to the wide-open jaws allowing all sizes of watermelon in—is flawless. His timing is poor, however. Gotta watch the watermelon into the mouth—can’t be chomping at it early!
6. Donkey
This is a bad video—it starts halfway through, the donkey is mostly chill—but the donkey gets credit for stealing a watermelon. The important point is that he got it, not how he eats it.
7. Human
I watched way too many videos of humans lamely cutting up a watermelon and ignoring the rind, like this guy who goes by the YouTube handle MC Fructose and promotes “mono meals”:
MC Fructose eats an entire watermelon in one sitting and discusses why eating mono meals or eating only one type of food until satiated is beneficial for optimal digestion and absorption of nutrients. Our bodies have a really difficult time breaking down and assimilating nutrients when we combine foods. I eat mono meals ever day. Mmmmm I love eating watermelon
I’m no doctor or nutritionist, but c’mon, you’re not fooling anybody.
The bro in the video above is an incredibly noxious brand of internet star and takes 10 (fast-forwarded) minutes to finish the damn thing, but at least he does it rind and all. Imagining eating the entire rind of a watermelon makes my stomach hurt.
8. Big Cats
My parents have an awesome Maine Coon named Pele, and I love him—I named him, actually, in consultation with my brother—but he, and all other cats, kind of suck at this. They get a cool gift of a watermelon, and they’re barely even interested in it! Most of them just sorta carry it around in their mouth for awhile before moving onto something else. Except the jaguar, so I guess he’s the best of the worst.
Got any good large animal + whole watermelon videos? Drop them in the comments.