Real video of gorilla clubbing crocodile to free baby gorilla in its mouth?

In September 2025, a video that appeared to show an adult gorilla hitting a crocodile in the face with a club to free a baby gorilla from the crocodile's jaws was seen by millions across social media. A single X post (archived) with the caption, "I've been cackling for 94secs," was viewed more than 5 million times after little more than a day and a half since it was uploaded.

An edit of the video shared to TikTok (archived) was viewed over 7 million times. The video was also popular on Instagram (archived) and Reddit (archived).

I've been cackling for 94secs pic.twitter.com/P0SolynfX9

— ✨Lovely✨ (@ItsLovelyLaveau) September 3, 2025

But this was not a real video of a gorilla protecting a baby gorilla from a crocodile. The video was generated with artificial intelligence (AI).

The oldest version of the video Snopes could find was this YouTube Short (archived) posted by the account OneMoSet on Aug. 28, 2025. The description of the video used the hashtag #ai, and a disclaimer from YouTube warned "sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated."

The description of OneMoSet's YouTube channel was "ai like you never seen it!" The channel primarily posted AI-generated videos related to bodybuilding; however, many of its Shorts (archived) were AI-generated videos featuring gorillas. In fact, the crocodile video, titled "Gorilla saves!," was the first of five videos with the "Gorilla saves" title. Four of those five videos featured a gorilla using a club or a bat to hit a predator attacking a person or another animal.

Signs of AI-generation exist in the video itself. When the gorilla hit the crocodile in the video, the baby gorilla was not impacted by the club hitting the crocodile, even though the adult gorilla hit the crocodile where it was holding the baby in its mouth. Additionally, the baby gorilla passed through the mouth of the crocodile when the latter was hit. Pausing the video soon after impact shows that the crocodile's face collapsed in on itself or partially disappeared soon after it was hit. Finally, the baby gorilla did not have a shadow in the video, even though a shadow was clearly visible beneath the other animals.

Nile crocodiles, the largest in Africa, are opportunistic hunters that typically wait in the water to ambush prey swimming through it or approaching the edge of it, according to the World Land Trust. It is therefore theoretically possible that a crocodile could ambush a baby gorilla in an attempt to eat it and be driven off by an adult gorilla as shown in the AI-generated video. However, an interaction between the two as seen in the AI-generated video is unlikely. Nile crocodiles typically quickly grab their prey and drag them into the water in an attempt to drown them, meaning an adult gorilla would likely have little time to intervene and hit a moving target. Additionally, there is little overlap in the ranges of the two animals.

It's much easier to find fictional footage of crocodiles and gorillas fighting in this way than it is to find real video. Crocodiles and gorillas are popular opponents in online arguments about which animals would win in fights, and there are numerous AI-generated and otherwise fake videos of crocodiles and gorillas fighting for whatever reason on Google (archived).