They get big, here in Australasia.
Posted on 06/23/2010 9:35:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
THIS monster crocodile has just proven who's the king of the swamp.
The 5m saltie made mince meat of a bull shark at Kakadu National Park.
A bunch of tourists looked on in shock when they saw the croc chomping on the shark at the upper flood plains of the South Alligator River on Saturday morning.
The shark had already been bitten in two by the hungry beast when this photograph was taken.
But tour guide Dean Cameron, 34, believed it would have been at least 3m long and weighed 60kg.
"It would have been amazing to see (the attack) - very wild footage," he said. "The croc would've taken the shark at night and then it would've had to take it to the bank to eat it."
Two separate tour boats with about 45 tourists each on board were shipping along the river as part of the Yellow Water Cruise about 8.15am when they saw the wild feast.
Mr Cameron, who was guiding one of the boats, said the visitors were over the moon to see the spectacle.
"Nearly 100 people saw it all up and they were jumping for joy," he said.
"They said this had made their Kakadu trip."
But it was not the first time a crocodile has been witnessed feasting on a shark.
Maxine Rawson-Rodriguez was on a jumping crocodile cruise at Adelaide River - about 100km south of Darwin - when the tourist boat came across a crocodile eating a shark on March 24.
And the Northern Territory News reported on January 29 how five fishermen fought off a crocodile to defend a prized shark caught off a Territory beach.
Mr Cameron, who has been a tour guide for two years and a park ranger for several more, said he would come across such a spectacle once a year.
And he said he was not surprised about finding sharks that far into a freshwater river system.
"With the wildlife here you just don't know what you'll get to see," he said.
"That's the beauty of it."
Most places man is top of the food chain. In the ocean, he drops a few notches. In Australia, he’s lucky to make the top 100.
What’s a crocodile doing in the Alligator River?
They get big, here in Australasia.
Isn't that the truth. Between the Great Whites, the salt-water crocs, the funnel web spiders, the box jelly fish, the banded sea snake and the blue ring octopi, man barely makes it in the top ten, and that's before he gets past the beach.
Damn.
I’m from Australia.
Nothing scares me worse than the Brown Recluse Spider that crawls all over the southern United States.
There’s also a version of it which is even more vicious - necrotic wounds are caused by its bites, and can frequently cause flesh wounds the size of tennis balls. The spider is tiny and very non-threatening in appearance, and this makes it much more dangerous.
Tulip Reklame Krokodille
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzY3PJpRTmE
He’s doing lunch, apparently....:)
Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.
- Hamlet
You forgot the tai-pan and brown snake.
See, there's your first mistake. The brown recluse - which is a terrifying spider - is found mainly in the midwest part of the country. Missouri is recluse capital of the world. The recluse is found only exceptionally sparingly in the south, and really only in the very northern edges of the south.
I happened to read an article on a plane just a few months ago from a PhD from Emory (I think, maybe Georgia Tech) that did copious research on the recluse in Georgia. As it turns out, many instances of necrotic flesh are mistakenly attributed to the brown recluse, when in fact it's most likely MIRSA (the super infectious bacteria). From her studies of GA, she found the fear of the recluse - at least in the south - as very overblown. I wish I could remember the ladies name. I'd search for the article and post it.
I would have thought that it would be easy for doctors to distinguish between MRSA and a spider bite, simply by observing the mode of wound progress.
Two range maps I found online:
Scientist: Brown Recluse Spider Population in Georgia Not So Bad
I'll look around to see if I can find the other story. I didn't read it online, but in an actual journal. I just can't remember the journal name.
Crickey, that’s a big boy!
Thanks!
Michigan is also home to the brown recluse...
Diversity. It’s everywhere.
Maybe the good PhD should visit Memphis, TN. We are located in the Mid-South and it’s not unusual in my line of work to see a brown recluse a couple times a week. I’m no spider-ologist....I just clean residential homes. Scary, huh?
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