In an interview yesterday I carefully described a river as "inhabited by crocodiles". It was 'corrected' to "crocodile infested river". Reporters, please stop doing that. Thanks!
It's fishing behaviour. They lie in that "cross posture" with their mouth slightly open, and grab any fish that hit their arms or trigger the pressure sensors along their jaws and arms.
The ultimate
#croctober
photo? (and yes,
@Crocs
make great footwear when working with crocs!).
For scale (pun intended) the scalier foot is from a saltwater crocodile that's 17.1 feet (5.2 meters) long. I'm an Aussie size 10.
Here's an impressive 5m (16 ft) saltwater crocodile on the Adelaide River just outside Darwin. He doesn't know it, but his kind are key contributors to the local economy which in turn helps protect him. Our role* is to remind people that he has teeth.
#wildoz
*simplified version
S is for Stomatosuchus, a surfboard-headed croc from the Cretaceous of Egypt. We aren’t sure, but suspect that crocs with this skull shape had a pouch under their lower jaw, kind of like a pelican.
#Croctober
#AtoZcrocs
#fossils
📸 Sereno and Larsson 2009
Bob Katter MP recently suggested "every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in north Queensland".
Actual data: 6 fatal and 8 non-fatal in last 10 years. Average one fatal per 20 months. No evidence yet for increase over that period.
#CrocBITE
@RealBobKatter
Your family has created a successful media and tourism empire through captive and commercial use of crocodiles, it’s hypocritical and wrong to try and use that power to deny Aboriginal people a fair income from their own land and resources. 3/4
Crocodiles have the most sophisticated heart in the animal kingdom, and actively change the destination of blood that flows through it depending on requirements.
#WowScienceFact
Back to work after a quick trip to Antarctica. No crocodiles found, unsurprisingly, but these leopard seals certainly get the job done. Skip the second photo if you don't like their method of penguin head removal!
I’ve also dedicated my life to saving crocodiles, three decades so far, but I use science to help people make informed, unbiased decisions. You’re trying to leverage people’s emotions to oppose action that gives people reason to support crocs instead of cull them. 4/4
Crocodiles have about 25 degrees of binocular vision when looking directly ahead, so they are pretty good at judging the distance between their jaws and lunch.
If a crocodile looks at you this way, make sure you're properly socially distanced.
#Croctober
@CrocodileSmaug
@BindiIrwin
This legislation (QLD egg harvest) was created to benefit remote Aboriginal communities; no eggs can be harvested without a thorough impact assessment, which includes evidence that eggs are harvested from areas with high natural flood-related mortality. 1/4
The media is still in love with the term "crocodile infested" for anywhere with at least one crocodile. Infestation means numbers so large that they damage their environment or create disease, yet we now know that more crocodiles equals healthier rivers. Besides, it's their home.
Male saltwater crocodiles blow air through the palatal valve at the back of the throat during courtship, making visible bubbles, sounds and pressure waves to entice a potential mate. Combined with infrasonic vibrations, it does the trick!
#croctober
#shouldhavetakenavideoinstead
Filming Smaug for an upcoming movie, his role will be to save the protagonists from a grisly fate for which he gets plenty of grateful hugs.
Only joking, he gets to eat stuff.
Crocodiles can climb much higher waterfalls than that! They also climb trees. And fences. DM me for a copy of the paper we did on this a few years back.
If you’re removing eggs that were not going to survive anyway, you’re not having a “catastrophic impact” on the wild population. This is a proven technique with decades of evidence showing your concerns are unfounded. 2/4
This photo of Smaug is proving quite popular at the moment. Here he demonstrates the correct procedure for flinging a wallaby. The wallaby was found roadkill.
#crocodile
Spot the croc in the first photo? Yep, it's a juvenile freshie! Don't often see them further downstream on the Adelaide River, especially considering who was sitting on the opposite bank. No, that's not a freshie!
@DeadGators
They do get bigger! The largest one we measured in the wild was 1.4 m total length, but we saw (but were unable to measure) one that was a little larger. Here's the 1.4 m croc:
#2019SVP
#crocodylians
A purely selfish act depriving a community of its long-established, iconic crocodile and increasing the risk of crocodile attacks in the future (replacing a known, habituated croc with a number of unknown, competitive ones).
MEDIA RELEASE - Why Australia's Crocodile Management Works. This is in relation to the recent fatal crocodile attack in QLD, and the commentary and response surrounding it.
#CrocBITE
#auspol
#qldpol
Age datapoints on crocs are rare, hope this is accurate. I suspect data on wild croc longevity is way off the mark though, long-term popln studies and inferences from growth rates hint at 60-80 years for even medium-sized species. Maybe more.
Another irresponsible drone user harassing wildlife, and another media story painting him as a hero. No the crocodile did not attack the drone, it reacted appropriately after a drone was flown at its face. Pity it was not a more expensive lesson.
This is a pretty misleading article. Crocodiles in northern Australia have recovered, not exploded. The article buries the lede, which is about how little we know about the role of crocodiles. I expected better from
@abcnews
.
Movie poster for Black Water: Abyss, the upcoming sequel to the 2007 realistic croc thriller Black Water. As before I worked with the crew using real crocs to get the shots, so no dodgy CGI monsters. Move over
#crawlmovie
time for some real crocodiles!
#BlackWaterAbyss
@BrianEngh_Art
Salties and freshies often bask together where they overlap. Tolerance is more common than people think because photos of freshies being eaten get shared a lot. Competition is reduced where resources are plentiful. This photo from the Daly River for example.
This was achieved by tying the crocodiles down by their bodies, so only the head and tail could move. Still a crazy stunt, but he took some precautions. You'd never get away with doing that these days.
I'm surprised but glad that nobody (?) has ever tried to coin a more "objective" term for the "death roll". But if we did, how about "axial rotation of bitey bois applying toothy torque to oral contents". No wait, that's terrible. Any suggestions?
Not as restricted as previously thought: All
#crocodiles
tested exhibited the “death roll“ behavior, even slender-snouted species, like gharials.
Drumheller et al 2019 Ethology, Ecology & Evolution: Surveying death roll behavior across Crocodylia
Crocodile jerks are the worst crocodiles! (amusing translation error spotted by
@bsideleau
while looking for attack reports... at least we assume it's an error).
#CrocBITE
#humanwildlifeconflict
It's the start of
#croctober
so time to release episode 23 of the CrocLog Podcast! Includes a whole new crocodile species!
We also discuss
@CrocHolliday
paper on archosaur thermoregulation,
@wildcrocnt
paper on limits of movement, and more.
Nice to see this big guy doing so well and looking great! Originally from the NT, bringing him through customs was a blast! "Any animal or plant products to declare?" "Well, about that..." (disclaimer: not the actual conversation)
A little rain didn’t stop Salty’s BBQ! The saltwater croc had a large meal (pork) today. It not only filled him up but allowed him to exercise muscles he doesn’t always use. Reptiles are excellent energy conservers. So Salty only needs a meal of this size a few times a year.
1/5
#BTCon18
Hi! I’m Adam Britton, a zoologist based in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. I work on crocodile population ecology, management and wildlife conflict issues. Let me tell you “How crocodile attacks can be used to save people’s lives and conserve crocodiles.”
5/5
#BTCon18
If we keep attacks in check, and furthermore reveal the economic, cultural and ecological value of crocodiles to people, communities are more likely to tolerate their presence. Sometimes that’s the best conservation we can hope for. - Thx! Qs?
Interesting study, and the data suggest abundant feral prey may increase the carrying capacity of crocodiles in affected environments. In other words, uncontrolled feral pests increase crocodile populations and risk to humans.
If you're interested in crocs and want to learn more (a LOT more), it's not too late to ask Santa for a copy of Grigg and Kirshner's "Biology and Evolution of Crocodylians". Expensive, but worth it.
Amazon:
CSIRO:
🐊Thread time! If you ever get chance to visit the Angkor temples in Siem Reap in Cambodia, be sure to look out for the numerous crocodiles represented in the detailed bas relief carvings on temple walls. 1/9
Excited to be one of the presenters at
#BTCon18
hosted by
@biotweeps
on 21-22 June 2018! Believe it or not, I'm talking about
#crocodiles
and their bitey tendencies. Smaug will assist with some visual aids. Should be fun!
#scicomm
Despite my best efforts to find time to do another
#croclog
podcast in November, it was not to be! Now out of range for most of this month, so... early January?
To make up for it, here's a recent photo of a Komodo Dragon emerging from the fiery sunlight! I know,
#notacrocodile
History teaches us that as climate changes, marine-tolerant crocs are most likely to adapt and - as a side-effect - become even more likely to regard us as lunch. Ok, that last part is a bit of an assumption, but it's probably true.
Based on 5,500 incidents, the smallest crocodilian recorded killing an adult is 2.1 meters (7 ft). This guy was fortunate not to have received more serious injuries, but it's unlikely to have threatened his life in shallow water.
#CrocBITE
#crocattack
Confirming evidence that the New Guinea Crocodile (Crocodylus novaeguineae) is in fact split into a northern and a southern species (C. halli). (original paper: )
I'm talking about "Using crocodile attacks to save people's lives: the CrocBITE project" on Tue Nov 27 at 11.30am, part of the symposium on wildlife coexistence and conflict. Also looking forward to sharing ideas about wildlife conflict mitigation.
#ESAus18
Cool science. Crocodiles are also excellent at self-righting, although they rely on the tail as a lever. If you keep the tail straight with minimal force you can stop them rolling over!
#factsthatwillprobablyneverbeuseful
Ever wonder how turtles are able to flip themselves over after being upside-down? Now you don't have to - read our newest article out today in
@J_Exp_Biol
!
2/5
#BTCon18
How do you conserve species that have “deserved” reputations for killing people? If conservation is a success, you’re increasing risk for local people! How is that sustainable? Conflict only increases as human populations grow and wild habitats shrink.
Smaug was on the front cover of the NT News yesterday. He's offering to sign autographs but I advise caution, he's not actually
@russellcrowe
#crocodile
#smaug
Nile crocodile having his teeth cleaned by the "crocodile bird" (Herodotus' trochilus), from al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Ḥayawān (Book of the Animals).
From a 17th c. copy in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan (MS D140inf.).
In fairness, Lacoste has contributed to critically endangered crocodilian conservative programs through the earlier "Save Your Logo" campaign.
It would have been great for one of their logos to have been a gharial though.
@ArminReindl
Fun fact, in crocs this is very often the result of high incubation temperatures that cause cell division errors during embryonic growth. Seeing one survive into adulthood in the wild is less usual.
I think it's perfectly fine for a species to have more than one common name in context. Random example: saltwater crocodile, estuarine crocodile, Indo-Pacific crocodile (ok not that one!), saltie, ginga...
Just as long as there's one scientific name.
#Dynasties
went with the bold decision to used 'painted wolf' instead of 'hunting dog'. There are arguments on both sides for these names. I get that painted wolf sounds more exotic and less ambiguous but hunting dog is way more familiar.
4/5
#BTCon18
To learn from people’s often fatal mistakes, we built an open-source database (CrocBITE) of 4,300 incidents (
@bsideleau
). This tells us how and where to target mitigation strategies. Goal is to make conservation sustainable again by improving education and management