Alligator with loose tooth opens wide to let biologist pull it, Florida video shows

Even alligators occasionally need a tooth pulled, but obliging them is every bit as risky as you might imagine.

Video of a Florida biologist rising to the challenge was shared Aug. 23 on social media, and it’s clear the alligator could have taken off some fingers.

In the video, Florida wildlife biologist Chris Gillette — known as Gator Chris — is seen coaxing an alligator named Big Mac to hold its jaws open ... just long enough for a loose front tooth to be extracted.

“Don’t eat it. Don’t eat it,” Gillette is heard saying as the gator snaps its jaws shut too soon.

It took three tries before a smack from Gillette’s fingers sent the inch-long tooth flying through the air. It then bounced onto the concrete bank at Gillette’s feet.

The alligator did not look grateful.

“Crocodilians shed and regrow their teeth, cycling through several thousand in a lifetime,” Gillette wrote in the post.

“They’re often swallowed and digested, but on occasion you can find them.”

The video has been viewed thousands of times on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, with viewers calling it everything from “brutal” to anxiety inducing.

“Glad he didn’t eat your fingers too,” @weny519 posted.

“Well, now I know a guy that knocked a gator’s tooth out,” @fmilles1583 wrote on YouTube.

“It’s horrific and disturbing to imagine. These are still predators. They have animalistic instinct embedded in their genetics,” jasmineperejo wrote on Instagram.

This story was originally published August 26, 2024 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Alligator with loose tooth opens wide to let biologist pull it, Florida video shows."