On Sunday morning, Florida man Richard Jones took this photograph of a raccoon standing on an alligator’s back in Ocala National Forest, WFTV 9 reports.

Jones said his son, while walking along the Ocklawaha River, startled the raccoon, which jumped onto the gator in the water nearby.

“I snapped a lucky picture right when the gator slipped into the water and before the raccoon jumped off and scurried away. Without the context you’d think the raccoon was hitching a ride across the river. Pretty amazing,” Jones wrote in an email to WFTV. “Definitely the photo of a lifetime.”


Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.