Slender-Snouted Gharial

Slender-Snouted Gharial resides primarily in Asia and due to its size doesn’t have any real predators.

read more "Slender-Snouted Gharial"

Spectacled Caiman

Spectacled Caiman its common name derives from a bony ridge which is present between the front of the eyes appearing to join the eyes like a pair of spectacles.

read more "Spectacled Caiman"

Amazing Animals - Moments, Compilation 2013 March

Lions, tigers, bears, wolves, crocodiles as well as other animals, fighting for survival, beautiful and powerful variety of amazing moments.

Video

Youtube | wittydud

read more "Amazing Animals - Moments, Compilation 2013 March"

Philippine croc regales North Cotabato villagers

KABACAN, North Cotabato -- Villagers in a remote barangay of Kabacan, North Cotabato have been treated to the sight of a seven-foot Philippine crocodile that has twice appeared at an irrigation dam.

Barangay Dagupan councilman Renato Espino said residents were stunned when the reptile was first seen at the dam in Sitio Kinudal in adjacent Barangay Kilada, Matalam around 10 a.m. Tuesday.

The crocodile, he said, dove into the irrigation canal when it noticed there were people around.

But it reappeared around 6 p.m. Thursday.

Espino said people were both happy watching the crocodile but also “very careful, afraid it will attack humans.”

He said they believe the reptile came from the Kabacan River, which overflowed early this week and flooded seven low-lying villages following heavy downpours.

Espino said village officials had already coordinated with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources since they do not know what to do should the reptile reappear once more.

In April, a Philippine crocodile was captured in Mlang, also in North Cotabato, and was later returned to its natural habitat in the Liguasan marshland.

Source: Here

read more "Philippine croc regales North Cotabato villagers"

ScienceShot: Butterflies Sip Crocodile Tears

Never smile at a crocodile—or sit on its face and drink its tears. Yet that’s exactly what ecologist Carlos de la Rosa spotted a butterfly and a bee doing this past December as he boated down Costa Rica’s Puerto Viejo River.

In one encounter (pictured above and caught on video), the spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) placidly sunbathes on a fallen tree trunk as a Julia butterfly (Dryas iulia) and a solitary bee (Centris sp.) flutter around its face and taste its tears. The brave bugs’ tear-sipping behavior likely provides salts and proteins scarce in the tropics, de la Rosa writes this month in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Scouring online photographs snapped by amateur photographers and other researchers, de la Rosa was surprised to find ample evidence of insects supping tears from crocodiles and other reptiles such as tortoises. He now thinks the practice may be more common than scientists once thought—just rare to witness.

Source: Here

read more "ScienceShot: Butterflies Sip Crocodile Tears"

Python vs Croc

After 5 hours of grappling, a 3-meter long python has managed to take down the crocodile's defenses.

Caught on a video in Queensland, Australia, the snake has unbelievably gobbled the crocodile in just 15 minutes.

That left the entire watchers in amazement, as told by Tiffany Corlis who told the story as a witness of this rare scene.

Check out the video for further action here.

read more "Python vs Croc"

Beware in the Bayou: Alligators and Crocodiles Can Climb

You might think of crocodiles lurking in the water or perhaps sunning themselves on a riverbank, but it turns out these toothy reptiles’ domain extends to the upper branches of trees.

A new study in Herpetology Notes documents the surprisingly common tree-climbing behavior in crocodiles and their close cousins, alligators. Even without any special anatomic adaptations for gripping branches, crocodiles often make their way up trees, sometimes going as high as the crown and out onto large limbs.

Source: Here

read more "Beware in the Bayou: Alligators and Crocodiles Can Climb"

New Crocodile Species Discovered in West Africa

Studying crocodiles in some of the world’s most remote and inaccessible places isn’t easy, but it’s all in a day’s work for researcher Matthew Shirley. It is also, as he says, a “crazy amount of fun”—even on the days when catching and studying crocodiles leaves him covered in his own blood. “I love cruising through these often very remote waterways at night with a hundred billion stars overhead and seeing these ecosystems through a new light—or really just my spotlight!”

Shirley, who recently completed his doctorate at the University of Florida’s Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, has spent the past few years studying crocodiles in several African countries. His research has resulted in a major new discovery: a new species of crocodile that has been hiding in plain sight for thousands of years.

Source: Here

read more "New Crocodile Species Discovered in West Africa"

American Alligators, Mugger Crocodiles Use Lures to Hunt Their Prey

US researchers led by Dr Vladimir Dinets from the University of Tennessee have found that two croc species – mugger crocodiles (Crocodylus palustris) and American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) – use twigs and sticks to lure birds, particularly during nest-building time.

Their study, published in the journal Ethology, Ecology and Evolution, is the first report of tool use by any reptiles, and also the first known case of predators timing the use of lures to a seasonal behavior of the prey.

Source: Here

read more "American Alligators, Mugger Crocodiles Use Lures to Hunt Their Prey"

Crocodiles, Alligators Eat Fruits, Say Biologists

Nile crocodiles, American alligators and other crocodilians enjoy fruits along with their normal meat-heavy diets of mammals, birds, and fish, according to a team of biologists led by Prof Frank Mazzotti from the University of Florida.

Their study, reported in the Journal of Zoology, looked at 18 crocodilian species ranging from the American alligator to the Nile crocodile.

Source: Here

read more "Crocodiles, Alligators Eat Fruits, Say Biologists"