One of the final images taken before Mario Aldecoa’s DSLR camera was eaten by a crocodile.

Photographers are generally VERY protective of their equipment. But sometimes you just gotta know when to let it go.

When a huge alligator snatched his $1300 DSLR camera, Florida wildlife photographer Mario Aldecoa figured it was all but lost. But Aldecoa received the surprise of his life when the beast emerged from the swamp eight months later … with the camera still attached.

As Aldecoa recalled to CBS Miami, he was taking pictures at Florida’s Everglades Alligator Farm in January when one of the reptiles leaped and grabbed his camera right from its perch on the tripod.

“A flash went off and an alligator just grabbed the camera,” he said. “It was just a split second and it lunged forward.”

The camera (along with his tripod and flash-unit) was devoured in seconds.

“In the image you see in the distance lots of alligators,” he added. “Little orbs of red from their eyes and the front portion you see three or four really big gators. And I’m pretty sure one of those is the one that grabbed the camera.”

Understandably, Aldecoa believed his gear was gone. But then, just last week, a keeper at the reserve noticed a particularly large alligator amble from the swamp with a camera tied around its leg. Turns out Aldecoa’s camera wasn’t digested — it was just hauled around by an alligator at the bottom of a swamp for most of the year. Aldecoa even got back the memory card, from which the above image was pulled.

So what can this teach the rest of us? Aldecoa preaches a new-found caution of overconfidence.

“The main thing I learned is to not be overconfident with the animals that I’m dealing with,” he told GrindTV. “You can still get close to a certain extent, if you understand their behavior, but you can’t let your guard down basically, and that’s kind of what I think I did.”