50 Fun Facts About Crocodile

Which is the largest living species of crocodile, and the largest living reptile?

Males can pass 6 metres and 1,000 kg; it ranges from India's east coast through Southeast Asia to northern Australia.

Compared with an alligator's, a crocodile's snout is generally what shape?

The other giveaway is the teeth: a crocodile's lower teeth stay visible when the mouth is closed, whereas an alligator's tuck into pits in the upper jaw.

Which lower crocodile tooth fits a notch in the upper jaw and shows when the mouth is shut?

For hard-to-tell specimens, that protruding tooth is the most reliable way to decide whether you are looking at a crocodile or an alligator.

The bony plates that armour a crocodile's back are called what?

They are richly supplied with blood, help the animal soak up heat and even bank calcium for eggshells.

The Greek word that gave us 'crocodile' translates roughly as what?

It shows up in an Aesop's fable from the sixth century BC, and Pliny the Elder Latinised it as crocodilus.

Who named Crocodylidae as a family in 1807?

The family sits within the superfamily Crocodyloidea, which also holds several extinct crocodile relatives.

How many living crocodile species were recognised as of 2025?

That count may still grow: genetic work suggests the dwarf crocodile genus Osteolaemus hides a third, unnamed species.

Molecular studies show crocodiles are more closely related to which group than to alligators?

That overturned earlier family trees built on skull shape alone.

Why can't a crocodile stick out its tongue?

The tongue does carry salt glands, though, which is one thing that separates crocodiles from alligators.

Newly hatched crocodiles are roughly how long?

From that start, the biggest species' males can grow past 6 metres over a lifetime that may exceed 70 years.

The smallest living crocodile species, the dwarf crocodile, grows to roughly what adult length?

Adults weigh only 18 to 32 kg; some in the caves of Abanda, Gabon, have turned orange from alkaline bat guano eroding their skin.

Yai, the largest crocodile ever held in captivity, was a hybrid of the saltie and which rarer species?

He lived at the Samutprakarn Crocodile Farm in Thailand from 1972 to 2025 and reached 6 metres and 1,200 kg.

Lolong, the longest crocodile ever captured alive at 6.17 m, was caught in which country in 2011?

It took around 100 people three weeks to land him in Agusan del Sur; he died of pneumonia and cardiac arrest in 2013.

Roughly how many times can a crocodile replace each of its teeth over its lifetime?

A small replacement tooth waits beside each of the 80 grown ones, with a stem cell in standby behind it.

Unlike other reptiles, a crocodile's heart has how many chambers?

That, plus a cerebral cortex, puts crocodilians among the most biologically complex reptiles; they are closer to birds than to lizards.

Crocodilians belong to which group, along with birds and other dinosaurs?

The name means 'ruling reptiles'; it makes a crocodile a closer cousin of a pigeon than of a lizard.

Crocodiles have no sweat glands, so how do they shed heat?

They often sleep with their jaws agape and can pant like a dog.

What shape are a crocodile's pupils?

Like a cat's, they shut out bright light by day; a reflective tapetum lucidum behind the retina boosts night vision.

The black speckles on a crocodile's jaws are sensory pits that can detect what?

They are the crocodilian version of a fish's lateral line; true crocodiles also carry them on nearly every scale of the body, alligators only on the jaws.

Crocodiles have the most acidic stomach of any what?

It dissolves bones, hooves and horns; many crocodiles also swallow stones as ballast or grit.

Stones swallowed by crocodiles, possibly as ballast or to crush food, are called what?

Birds do something similar with grit; the stones may also help the animal trim its buoyancy.

Herodotus claimed a bird entered crocodiles' mouths to pick out leeches. Which bird?

No one has ever documented it happening in any crocodile species, so it is most likely a fable.

Roughly what bite force did the 4.59-metre saltie that set the laboratory record for any animal produce?

It beat a 3.9-metre American alligator's 2,125 lbf; a field measurement on a big Nile specimen exceeded 5,000 lbf.

Which crocodile weakness lets handlers subdue one with tape or a large rubber band?

Nearly all the jaw muscle is arranged for clamping shut, so a band cut from a car inner tube will hold the mouth closed.

The extinct giant Deinosuchus is estimated to have bitten with roughly what force?

That is nearly twice the latest estimate for Tyrannosaurus, at 12,814 lbf.

The land speed record for a crocodile, set by a galloping Australian freshwater croc, is roughly what?

Several species can gallop; most rely on the 'belly run', a snake-like slither reaching 10 to 11 km/h.

Three rogue 'salties' moved 400 km by helicopter in northern Australia did what within three weeks?

Tracking devices showed the homing instinct at work; relocation is not a reliable fix for problem crocodiles.

How old was Mr Freshie, the freshwater crocodile the Irwins rescued around 1970, estimated to be?

He had been shot twice by hunters and lost an eye; he died at Australia Zoo in 2010.

Before bellowing, male crocodiles emit a 10 Hz infrasonic signal that makes the water do what?

The vibrations travel long distances through air and water to advertise the male's presence.

Depending on the species, a crocodile clutch contains how many eggs?

The eggs are hard-shelled but translucent when laid, usually at night, into a hole in sand or a mound of vegetation.

What determines the sex of crocodile hatchlings?

At 30 °C or below most hatch female; 32 to 33 °C gives mostly males.

Eggs incubated at 32 to 33 °C produce mostly which sex?

Above 33 °C some species keep producing males while others switch back to so-called high-temperature females.

How does a mother crocodile usually get her hatchlings to the water?

She then guards and even feeds them for over a year; a group of hatchlings is called a pod or crèche.

What is a group of crocodile hatchlings called?

The chirping of unhatched young is what prompts the mother to dig the nest open in the first place.

Which two species are considered the most dangerous to humans, killing hundreds a year?

The mugger and American crocodile are also dangerous, but on a smaller scale.

Gustave, the man-eating Nile crocodile of the Ruzizi river, terrorised which country?

Rumoured to have killed as many as 300 people, he was named by herpetologist Patrice Faye and starred in the 2004 PBS film Capturing the Killer Croc.

The Nile crocodile is present in how many African countries?

Lake Turkana in Kenya holds one of its largest undisturbed populations; it is Africa's largest predator.

Crocodiles may have killed over how many Japanese soldiers at Ramree Island in 1945?

The episode has been widely retold and disputed; the species is also the star of Crocodile Dundee and The Crocodile Hunter.

The Cuban crocodile, the most terrestrial living crocodile, now survives in the wild only in which place?

Fossils show it once ranged to the Bahamas, Hispaniola and the Cayman Islands; captive animals can even be taught tricks.

Ancient Egypt's crocodile-headed god was called what?

His cult city was Crocodilopolis, and mummified crocodiles served as cult images of the god.

The Egyptian region most associated with the crocodile god's cult, the 'Land of the Lake', was where?

Pharaoh Amenemhat III poured building projects into it, and towns there each kept their own local version of the god.

The phrase 'crocodile tears' comes from an ancient tale that crocodiles weep in order to do what?

First told by Photios of Constantinople and spread in English by Mandeville's Travels, it reached Shakespeare; real crocodiles make tears but do not cry.

In British English, a line of schoolchildren walking in pairs is called what?

The image is a long body with lots of little legs, shuffling along behind a teacher.

Which French fashion brand's logo is a crocodile?

American shoemaker Crocs also uses the imagery; the French label's came from a tennis player's nickname.

René Lacoste was nicknamed 'the Crocodile' in 1923 after a bet with his captain over what prize?

He lost the bet, kept the nickname, and by 1927 was wearing an embroidered crocodile on his blazer before every match.

The name Surabaya is locally believed to combine the words for a crocodile and which other animal?

In the myth the two fought over the river estuary; the pair now circle each other on the city's symbol.

In Aztec and other Nahua mythology, what was Cipactli?

In Hinduism, meanwhile, the god Varuna rides a part-crocodile makara.

How many Nile crocodile skins does TRAFFIC say were exported from Africa between 2006 and 2015?

Farming, mostly of the two biggest species, has actually helped wild Australian numbers by giving landowners a reason to protect habitat.

What do crocodiles have that alligators possess only in non-functioning form?

Working salt glands and more webbing on the hind toes let crocodiles cope far better with seawater; they are also much more aggressive.

Hall's New Guinea crocodile, Crocodylus halli, is found on which side of the island's highlands?

The subfamily Crocodylinae holds 13 to 14 living species, including the American, Orinoco and freshwater crocodiles.