40 Fun Facts About Saltwater Crocodile

Researchers testing a saltwater crocodile recorded the strongest what ever measured in a living animal?

Bite force in one 4.6-metre saltwater crocodile reached 16,414 newtons, powered by jaw muscles so stiff they feel almost as hard as bone.

What name is given to the spin a saltwater crocodile uses to twist chunks of meat off large prey?

Death roll is the name: peg-like teeth can grip but not slice, so the crocodile spins its whole body to tear prey into pieces it can swallow.

What decides whether a saltwater crocodile egg hatches as a male or a female, as in all crocodilians?

Nest temperature settles it: eggs kept at about 31 to 32°C hatch mostly as males, while cooler nests produce mostly females.

Which river names the crocodile believed to kill more people each year than the saltwater crocodile does?

Nile crocodiles are blamed for far more fatal attacks, perhaps because so many people live and work beside the rivers they inhabit.

Which presenter of TV's The Crocodile Hunter named his daughter Bindi after a favourite saltwater crocodile?

Steve Irwin named Bindi Sue after two favourite animals: a saltwater crocodile called Bindi and his Staffordshire bull terrier, Sui.

Which feared sea predators does the saltwater crocodile sometimes catch and eat in coastal waters?

Sharks are fair game: the bull shark, which patrols rivers and estuaries too, is the kind a saltwater crocodile is most likely to meet.

How does a mother saltwater crocodile carry her newly hatched young from the nest mound down to the water?

In her mouth: the same jaws that drown buffalo carry the babies gently to the water, and she stays with them for several months.

What do saltwater crocodiles ride to cross hundreds of kilometres of open sea while using very little energy?

Ocean currents carry them: one tracked crocodile waited four days in a sheltered bay until the current turned its way, then swam on.

Which big cats sit beside orangutans and kangaroos on the list of prey taken by adult saltwater crocodiles?

Tigers are on the list, though such prey is rare: only large male crocodiles typically attack very big animals.

How does the saltwater crocodile catch most of its prey before drowning it or swallowing it whole?

By ambush: it waits unseen just below the surface near the water's edge, then explodes upward before the victim can react.

When does the saltwater crocodile prefer to hunt, after lazing in the water for much of the day?

At night is when it prefers to hunt, though a saltwater crocodile will still strike by day if an easy meal comes within reach.

Hunters pursued the saltwater crocodile until the 1970s mainly for which valuable part of its body?

Its skin makes the most prized crocodile leather, and unregulated hunting for it had cut northern Australia's population by 95% by 1971.

Saltwater crocodiles partly resist the poison of which pest that kills freshwater crocodiles?

Cane toad poison easily kills freshwater crocodiles, but saltwater crocodiles can eat a few and survive, though too few to control the pest.

Which country's soldiers were reportedly killed by saltwater crocodiles on Ramree Island in 1945?

Japan's losses in the Ramree mangroves were heavy, but historians now think most men drowned or were shot, with crocodiles blamed for only a handful.

Saltwater crocodiles were mistaken for which reptile when three Australian rivers were misnamed?

Alligator Rivers was the name an explorer chose after mistaking the broad-snouted saltwater crocodiles he saw there, and the name stuck.

Which island, where the saltwater crocodile is holy, was formed by a giant crocodile in legend?

Timor honours the animal as its origin, and Papuan peoples tell a similar myth in which the crocodile is a relative, usually a father or grandfather.

What Red List status has the saltwater crocodile held since 1996, despite vanishing from Vietnam?

Least Concern reflects thriving populations in northern Australia, even though the species is now locally extinct in several Asian countries.

What colour are young saltwater crocodiles, which carry black stripes and spots for their first few years?

Pale yellow youngsters darken with age into greenish-drab adults, and some adults turn so dark they look almost black.

What does a saltwater crocodile slow down, along with its oxygen use, to stay underwater for longer?

Its heart rate drops during a dive, and voluntary dives lasting up to two hours have been reported for saltwater crocodiles.

Which body part have saltwater crocodiles been seen using to knock monkeys off a riverbank?

Their tail sweeps rhesus macaques into the water, though scientists are unsure whether the move is deliberate or a lucky accident.

Which shellfish found growing on saltwater crocodiles' scales are a sign of long spells at sea?

Barnacles need time to settle and grow, and saltwater crocodiles sometimes spend weeks at sea in search of land.

What do relocated 'problem' saltwater crocodiles often do, making such moves pointless?

Swim back home: in one Northern Territory study, relocated crocodiles found their way to their capture sites in as little as 10 days.

What destroys more saltwater crocodile eggs than any predator, ruining nests beside tidal rivers?

Flooding of the nest drowns the developing embryos, and the wet season in which the crocodiles breed is exactly when rivers rise.

Which Australian lizards take few saltwater crocodile eggs because the mother guards her nest?

Goannas freely raid the unguarded nests of freshwater crocodiles, but a saltwater crocodile mother stays beside her mound, so they are not a major threat to her eggs.

What does a female saltwater crocodile pile into a mound to build her nest on the shore of a tidal river?

Mud and vegetation form the mound, and the layer of leaves she scratches around it produces a surprising amount of warmth for the eggs.

A taste for buffalo and which other introduced animals helped Australia's saltwater crocodiles recover?

Feral pigs gave the crocodiles a rich new food on land as they rebounded from hunting; old bones show they once lived on a more estuarine diet.

Which predatory fish is singled out among the many animals that eat baby saltwater crocodiles?

Barramundi turn the tables while the crocodiles are tiny, and only about 1% of those that hatch are thought to survive to adulthood.

On which continent did the saltwater crocodile's genus most likely arise before spreading to Asia?

Africa is the likely cradle: the genus was once thought to have evolved in Australia and Asia, but genetic studies point the other way.

Which saltwater crocodile from the Philippines did Guinness certify in 2012 as the largest in captivity?

Lolong measured 6.17 metres and took about 100 people to haul onto land; he was named after a veteran hunter who died days before the capture.

In which Asian city do wild saltwater crocodiles still live, in the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve?

Singapore's crocodiles live in a wetland reserve and nearby marshes, although the species has all but vanished from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Which islands once had the westernmost saltwater crocodiles, wiped out roughly 200 years ago?

Seychelles crocodiles lived roughly 3,000 km from the nearest other population, proof of how far the species can spread by sea.

Which Indian state is home to Bhitarkanika, a sanctuary known for giant saltwater crocodiles?

Odisha's Bhitarkanika is said to hold a male about 7 metres long, a size Guinness accepted in 2006 although nobody has measured it directly.

Sweetheart, a giant Australian saltwater crocodile, was a 1970s legend for attacking what?

Outboard motors, dinghies and fishing boats were Sweetheart's targets, yet he is not known ever to have attacked a person.

Which Australian philosopher survived a 1985 saltwater crocodile attack and wrote the essay Being Prey?

Val Plumwood escaped after being dragged under three times, and said the attack taught her that humans are part of the food chain too.

Where in Queensland did Cassius, a giant saltwater crocodile who died in 2024, spend decades at a zoo?

Green Island was home to Cassius from 1987, after he was caught as a problem animal in the Northern Territory. One researcher guessed his age at about 120.

Which Australian waterbird joins the emu among the birds saltwater crocodiles catch most often?

Magpie goose is the bird they meet most often, and even swift fliers and bats are snatched if they pass close to the water's surface.

What prompts a mother saltwater crocodile to dig open her nest mound at the end of incubation?

Yelping hatchlings call from inside the nest and the mother digs them out, then guards her young for several months.

Where do saltwater crocodiles spend the tropical wet season, before heading to estuaries in the dry?

In fresh water, despite the name: they spend the wet season in swamps and rivers, where dominant males hold the best creeks and push younger animals toward the sea.

In which country was Bujang Senang, a notorious man-eating saltwater crocodile, killed in 1992?

Malaysia's Bujang Senang was shot in Sarawak, on Borneo, after a string of fatal attacks blamed on it along the Batang Lupar river.

Which 2007 Australian film by Greg McLean was loosely based on Sweetheart, a real saltwater crocodile?

Rogue made its monster two metres longer than the real Sweetheart, and the film's crocodile won its designer an AFI Award.