This footage captures the startling moment an ant lion manages to ambush and trap an ant from under the sand, dragging it down underneath into its waiting jaws.

The creature manages to make small pits and dips in the sand to trap its prey. The ant starts to crawl out, before the filmmaker gives it a small nudge with a blade of grass.

The ant falls back into the pit. But it remains lucky. The camera pans to a different pit, with a new ant in. This time nature takes its course: the ant lion manages to seize it, dragging it to its death under the sand. The process repeats with a different ant.

"I knew about this creature from my childhood," said the filmer, 28-year-old Viktor Volodin. "I just walked along the shore of the reservoir [and] saw the characteristic funnels."

Ant lions, or doodlebugs, are a kind of insect with intensely predatory larvae. The adults look a little like dragonflies.

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