A video has gone viral of a giraffe seen plucking a toddler out of her mother’s arms while her family was driving through a Texas safari park.

Two-year-old Paisley Toten was feeding the animal, at Fossil Rim Wildlife Centre, when it caught hold of her pink shirt and lifted her into the air.

Video footage shows her mother, Sierra Robert, frantically pulling her child back into the vehicle.

The giraffe quickly releases her and she topples back in.

A second video, shot by Mrs Robert, asking her daughter: “Do you want to feed the giraffe?”

“Aw, look,” she says, as the giraffe nuzzles in close, and she holds out her daughter’s arm.

She then cries with alarm as her daughter is snatched out of the flat bed of the vehicle, which happens so quickly it is only visible as a blur of pink.

“By the time I looked back over, she was gone,” Mrs Robert told Good Morning America. 

“It was just really shock, you know, adrenaline sets in.”

Her father, Jason Robert, said his heart “just stopped”. 

“The giraffe was just trying to get some food and it got a little bit more than it bargained for,” he added.

The giraffe did not appear perturbed either by accidentally picking up a two-year-old or having her snatched away.

The brief video shows it then raises its head to loom over the vehicle – giraffes can grow over 19ft tall – as its tongue hangs out.

Fossil Rim Wildlife Centre said later: “Although an incident like this has never occurred here previously, we are taking immediate action to make sure it won’t happen again. Effective immediately, Fossil Rim will no longer be allowing guests to ride through the park in truck beds.”