 ^This is a big crocodile. |
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| WARNING: Salt water crocodiles are perfectly happy in fresh water. If you find yourself being eaten in a Northern Australian fresh water stream, enjoy the paradox. You are nourishing a salt water crocodile. Fresh water crocs. do not eat people. Then take comfort that if you were in Africa, the Nile crocodile eats people, is a fresh water inhabitant, and is found in lots of places besides the Nile. That might take your mind off your fate. |
Australia has two
varieties of crocodile: Johnston's fresh water crocodile: Crocodylus johnstoni Salt water, Indo-Pacific crocodile: Crocodylus porosus. |
| Like the Nile crocodile of Africa, the
salt water crocodile mainly eats fish, but is happy to consume big mammals if it is
hungry. If you walk next to a tropical Australian river, do not peer into the distance to find crocodiles. The hungry one is right beside you, swimming silently under water, waiting for a false move. While reading this, a big crocodile has been materialising
at the top of the page. |
The Indo-Pacific crocodile
is the largest and most fearsome of all crocodilians, and inhabits the Indo-Australian
tectonic plate. The largest known was 10 meters long (33 feet: Borneo). The largest living is 7 meters (23 feet, Bhitikarnika Sanctuary, India). The largest massacre was of 1,000 Japanese soldiers who vanished into a swamp between Burma and Romree Island to escape the British during WW2. By morning, only 20 were left.
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