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"Aegisuchus witmeri or 'Shieldcroc' is the earliest ancestor of our modern crocodiles to be found in Africa," said Casey Holliday, co-researcher and assistant professor of anatomy in the MU School of Medicine. "Along with other discoveries, we are finding that crocodile ancestors are far more diverse than scientists previously realized." Shieldcroc is the newest discovery of crocodile species dating to the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 95 million years ago. This period is part of the Mesozoic Era, which has been referred to as the "Age of the Dinosaurs;" however, numerous recent discoveries have led to some scientists calling the era...

An Aussie daredevil has somehow survived after a cord snap during her bungee jump over the Zambezi River – sending her plunging into the crocodile-infested waters. Erin Langworthy plummeted 111m from the Victoria Falls bridge, on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, on New Year’s Eve. The 22-year-old luckily survived the impact despite blacking out and was forced to swim through rapids populated with crocs – with her feet still tied. “It felt like I had been slapped all over,” the student told Australia's Channel 9 News. “I landed with my legs tied and then had to swim to the...

Obama snaps up crocodile insurance Down Under... (and Michelle gets £30,000 if he's eaten) By Emily Allen U.S. President Barack Obama snapped up an unusual gift on a visit to Australia this week - £30,000 worth of crocodile insurance. The official gift, worth about A$10 or just over £6, was given to mark his stopover in Australia's tropical north, home to some of the world's biggest and deadliest crocodiles. If he had been attacked and eaten during the visit his wife Michelle would have received a £30,000 pay-out. Mr Obama told about 2,000 U.S. Marines and Australian troops at the...

President Barack Obama is expected to receive a warm welcome in Australia Wednesday, but just in case the reception is wilder than expected a firm has offered him insurance against crocodiles. Obama will be the fifth president to visit close ally Australia, and his flying two-day visit will take in the staid capital Canberra as well as the Northern Territory town of Darwin, in the heart of "Crocodile Dundee" country. Local firm TIO has snapped up the opportunity to insure the high-profile visitor, issuing a him with a Crocodile Attack Insurance policy which will pay out Aus$50,000 (US$50,870) if the...

Orange is the new green in crocodile style this season. Snappy, an 8-foot-2-inch crocodile, is sporting haute-couture orange skin and he's looking fabulous and feeling fine! But it's not really a fashion statement. It's a result of attacking the water filter of his enclosure at Roaming Reptiles animal park in Australia. "Snappy's pretty territorial and he attacked the filter one day, and a few weeks after that, I noticed he was orange," said owner Tracey Sandstrom in an interview with the Herald Sun. "It doesn't seem to have affected him at all. He's still got a healthy appetite, is normally...

A giant 21-foot crocodile weighing in at about a ton was caught by a group of villagers in the Philippines, possibly making this the largest crocodile captured alive ever. The giant crocodile has been plaguing the town for years, as it reportedly attacked and killed a water buffalo last month according to witnesses and possibly a fisherman and child who have been missing since July. Villagers and veteran hunters of Bunawan, 515 miles southeast of the capital Manila, caught the crocodile after a hunt which lasted about three weeks. It took nearly 100 people to pull the 2,370 pound crocodile...

Villagers Pull One-Ton Crocodile Out of Creek in Philippines Published September 05, 2011 AP MANILA, Philippines -- Villagers and veteran hunters have captured a one-ton saltwater crocodile which they plan to make the star of a planned ecotourism park in a southern Philippine town, an official said Monday. Mayor Edwin Cox Elorde said dozens of villagers and experts ensnared the 21-foot male crocodile along a creek in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province after a three-week hunt. It could be one of the largest crocodiles to be captured alive in recent years, he said, quoting local crocodile experts. Elorde...

The 21-foot, 600-kg seawater crocodile caught in Agusan del Sur may very well be the largest one captured but certainly not the first nor will it perhaps be the last one to be captured in the wild. Project director Ronald Nuer of the Bunawan Municipal Council said it took them 21 nights to snare the behemoth which, to the alarm of those who caught it, twice got out the restraining ropes before it was finally tied down after which it became overly “aggressive" three times. Nuer added that according to the Palawan Wildlife Conservation Center which helped capture the crocodile,...

A FATHER of three has told how he fought for his life with a 3m crocodile that dragged him under at a north Queensland waterhole. Weipa miner Eddie Sigai said he desperately kicked, punched and gouged the crocodile after it latched on to his left hand as he swam with his daughters Jennifer, 17, and Monica, 12, at Beening Creek last Saturday. "I thought to myself, this is it, I am dead," the 37-year-old told The Sunday Mail. "But it's surprising what you can do when all you can think about is the safety of your children. "It grabbed...

KIEV, Ukraine — The crocodile in "Peter Pan" happily went "tick-tock" after swallowing an alarm clock but a crocodile in Ukraine has been a little less fortunate. Gena, a 14-year-old crocodile at an aquarium in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk, has been refusing food and acting listless after eating a cell phone dropped by a woman as she tried to photograph him. Aquarium workers initially didn't believe Rimma Golovko, a new mother in her 20s, when she complained that the crocodile had swallowed her phone.

For weeks, three kayakers exploring a series of rivers through the heart of Africa came together in a close formation designed to ward off hippo and crocodile attacks whenever they paddled the quiet green glides between thundering stretches of whitewater. The boaters — two Americans and a South African — traveled some 1,000 miles of river this way, through some of the densest concentrations of man-killing wildlife in the world. They were on a quiet stretch of the Lukuga River in Congo, paddling just 4 or 5 feet apart, when a crocodile slipped up from behind and ripped trip leader...

Kayaker presumed dead after Congo crocodile attack By Jenny Gross - JOHANNESBURG | An acclaimed South African outdoorsman who was leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo was dragged from his craft by a crocodile as two Americans watched, horrified. The guide is presumed dead. The two Americans paddled to safety after the Tuesday morning attack on the Lukuga River in Congo. The International Rescue Committee helped evacuate the Americans to a nearby town after Tuesday's attack, said Ciaran Donnelly, the organization's regional director in the Central African country. The body of 35-year-old Hendrik...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — An acclaimed outdoorsman who wrote movingly about testing himself against nature is presumed dead after a crocodile snatched him from his kayak while he led an American expedition from the source of the White Nile into the heart of Congo. Two Americans being guided by 35-year-old South African Hendrik Coetzee on the grueling trip could only watch in horror. They paddled unharmed to safety after the Tuesday morning attack on the Lukuga River in Congo. The International Rescue Committee, which runs development projects in the Central African nation, helped evacuate the Americans to a nearby town, Ciaran...

Although elephants are very unusual prey for Nile crocodiles, the 20-foot-long (6-meter-long) reptiles will occasionally ambush and take down large animals—including dozens of people annually, experts say.

A crocodile stashed in a duffel bag got loose on an airplane, frightened passengers and led to a crash that killed 20 people on board, according to an inquiry into the accident. The lone survivor of the crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo told the story to investigators, the U.K.’s Telegraph reported on Thursday. A British pilot was among the dead. The plane was on a routine domestic flight from the capital of Kinshasa to a regional airport in Bandundu when the bizarre tale unfolded on Aug. 25. An unnamed passenger had hidden the crocodile in a large duffel...

A TERRITORY man miraculously survived a croc attack after his mate punched the massive saltie. The NT News received several reports, saying the man was at the water's edge when the saltie - believed to be up to 4m long - launched at him and grabbed his leg. The newspaper was told the man had been shooting in the Adelaide River region and went down to the water to wash off his dogs when he was attacked. The paper has been told the croc appeared from its hidden vantage point underwater and tried to drag the man into the river....

An American couple says the crocodile preserve they ran in Belize was burned down by a mob of locals who were apparently inspired by a psychic. Vincent and Cherie Rose, formerly of Aspen, Colo., said about 100 angry Mayans stormed their compound in Punta Gora over the weekend after a local psychic told them the Roses had kidnapped two local children and fed them to the crocs. "I'm going to get a lawyer and sue the Mayan village that's responsible for destroying our lives and our not-for-profit crocodile sanctuary," Rose told the Aspen Times. The newspaper said Thursday that the...

Leonardo Thompson now has a swollen face and stitches to his left eye and thumbs, but he is thankful to be alive after he was attacked by a crocodile in Hell-shire, St Catherine, on Sunday morning. Thompson told THE STAR that "honestly, I thought I was going to die", after the crocodile, measuring about seven feet attacked him suddenly from behind, took aim at his head and pulled him with force under the water. As he recounted the incident, Thompson said initially, he thought he was attacked by a shark, but later realised that it was a crocodile. He said...

CORAL GABLES, Fla.- A Florida woman whose dog was killed by a crocodile is urging the city of Coral Gables to put up warning signs for other pet owners along the canals. Adriana Salcedo, whose Jack Russell terrier was killed by a crocodile earlier this week, said she is going door-to-door collecting signatures on a petition. The petition asks city officials to install signs along the canals warning pet owners of the crocodiles' presence, WSVN-TV, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., reported Friday. Salcedo said she will deliver the petition to Coral Gables City Hall once she collects at least 100 signatures.

<p>PERTH, Australia — A man ejected from a pub in Australia broke into a zoo and climbed onto the back of a crocodile named Fatso, which bit him on the leg but then let him go. Police said they're surprised the croc didn't inflict worse damage. The 36-year-old man, who police said had just been thrown out of a pub for being drunk, told officials he scaled the barbed wire fence surrounding the Broome Crocodile Park in remote northwest Australia on Monday night because he wanted to give the 16-foot Fatso a pat.</p>

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)...

There's a real crocodile behind that mask, according to new computed tomography (CT) scans of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy (pictured). The 8-foot-long (2.4-meter-long) artifact—wrapped in once colorful linen and outfitted with a stylized mask—is one of two crocodile mummy bundles scanned this month at the Stanford School of Medicine in California. Scans of the bundle above show a "mishmash of bony parts" from at least two Nile crocodiles, including two skulls, a shoulder bone, and possibly a femur, according to conservator Allison Lewis, a fellow at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, California, where the mummies are...

MORRISTOWN, N.J. (AP) -- A U.S. State Department spokesman has confirmed that a 25-year-old New Jersey woman was killed by a crocodile while snorkeling in India's Andaman Islands last month. Lauren Failla of Morristown was vacationing at a resort with her boyfriend when she went missing April 28.

THE reckless idiots pictured have taken croc trap surfing to a dangerous new level - swimming into the cage. The image of the three drongos risking their lives and limbs surfaced yesterday after they were posted on Facebook. It is believed the picture was taken at Manton Dam - about 75km south of Darwin. The photo shows one man atop the floating metal cage - designed to capture 4m long salties. His two mates are pulling faces from inside the baited trap. It follows a series of photos - published in the Northern Territory News - which show wannabe thrillseekers...

One of Iran's most prominent dissident clerics, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has died aged 87. Hossein Ali Montazeri was a moving spirit in the 1979 revolution which created Iran's Islamic state, and was at one stage set to become its leader. His fierce criticism of the slaughter by Khomeini in his prisons - ended in his being "banned" and theoretically "demoted". Announcing his death, the Mullah regime refused to even give him an Ayatollah title let alone his true Grand Ayatollah one, mentioning him only by his name. One of Shia Islam's most respected figures, he was also a...

IGOR has everything a self-respecting crocodile needs to be a good lover - he's big, he's strong and he's dashingly handsome. But the 4.62m saltie doesn't seem to know the difference between love-making and dinner. He killed his last two girlfriends.. And that was enough for the Darwin Crocodile Farm - Igor had to go. "I don't know why he attacked the girls...But it does happen..."

WHEN Johnie the croc wants walkies, her owner makes it snappy. Johnie - a female - rules the roost at the Lowing home. Her favourite time of the day is meal time, the Herald Sun reports. "She's just like a cat or dog in that she knows when the fridge door opens there is a good chance of a snack, so she shuffles in for a feed," Vicki Lowing said. Chicken wings are her favourite, along with whiting and red meat. Ms Lowing said her son Andrew, 15, and Johnie, 13, experienced sibling rivalry. "Sometimes Andrew goes to have a...

NORTHERN Territory police were forced to arrest a grumpy crocodile and throw it in jail after it was discovered loitering in a town. Gunbalanya police were called out recently after the 2m female saltie turned up at Arrkuluk Camp, in town, the Northern Territory News reports. Police said they found it loitering near a fence, trying to look innocent. Brevet Sergeant Adam Russell said intrigued residents had gathered around to watch the arrest - but any dreams he had of nabbing the gnasher in style were promptly voted down. "I wanted to jump on it Steve Irwin style," he said....

A U.S. tourist got more then he bargained for when he was attacked by a crocodile while attempting to answer the call of nature in the Mexican resort of Cancun this week. According to Mexican police 20-year-old Andrew Dales, from Dallas in Texas, confessed that he had been on a mission to relieve himself at the edge of the local Nicupté lagoon , in the popular tourist resort of Cancun, when the crocodile suddenly snapped at him. He suffered ‘multiple bite wounds’ to his leg and neck and was also left with a head injury after the reptile knocked him...

Known as the 'Crocodile Man', Costa Rican animal lover 'Chito' swims, plays and even feeds 'Pocho' the giant crocodile in what is one of the world's most unlikely friendships. Wading chest-deep through the green water in a 100 sq/m lake in Siquirres, this bizarre and dangerous spectacle draws tourists from around the world. Calling quietly for his five metre long 'companion' before thrashing around, lifting his tail and head above the water. 'This is a very dangerous routine but Pocho is my friend and we have a good relationship,' says 52-year-old Chito. 'He will look me in the eye and...

* Miss Universe Australia visits croc park * Gets too close to "Eric" * Monster saltie chooses her over chicken MISS Universe Australia Rachael Finch met some crocodiles during her Northern Territory visit yesterday and had to run for her life when a 5m croc named Eric lunged at her. The stunner told the Northern Territory News it was an incredible - yet scary - experience. She said it was one of the more unusual events she had been involved in since being announced winner of the pageant in April. "As soon as I saw him move I got nervous,"...

A baby crocodile caused panic on a Cairo-bound EgyptAir flight when it wriggled out of a passenger's hand luggage and wandered around the aeroplane. Passengers screamed as the wayward foot-long reptile made its way under seats and down the aisle. Crew members on the flight, which originated in Abu Dhabi, managed to corner and capture the crocodile and handed it over to authorities when the plane landed in Cairo. An airport security official said the animal, which none of the passengers claimed, would be given to Cairo's Giza zoo. Transporting exotic animals in and out of the Egypt is illegal....

A TERRITORY croc sought the safety of a bar after it was caught lurking on a verandah in Darwin's rural area. Witness Peter Donovan said the bar visitor was a "unique Territory experience". The 1m freshwater crocodile shot through the legs of Mr Donovan's son Jarred, 16, when the teen surprised the reptile at his Howard Springs home last Wednesday. It then found sanctuary behind the bar in the house's entertainment area.

The four-hour operation took place at Miami’s Metrozoo.The giant male predator, dubbed Robo Croc after the operation left it with a significant amount of metal dotted around its face, was close to death after having its head crushed by a car in the Florida Keys last year.‘Robo Croc’ the crocodile has reconstructive surgery after car accident Unable to move its jaw, the distressed animal had not eaten for three months.

Veterinarians in Miami have successfully fitted a badly injured crocodile with metal plates and 41 Frankensteinian screws on its skull. The croc had been hit by a car in the Florida Keys.

Woman Without Fear By Daniel Mannix I FIRST heard of Grace Wiley when Dr. William Mann, former direc­tor of the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., banded me a picture of a tiny woman with a gigantic king cobra draped over her shoulders like a garden hose. The snake had partly spread his hood and was looking in­tently into the camera while his mis­tress stroked his head to quiet him. Dr. Mann told me: “Grace lives in a little house full of poisonous snakes, imported from all over the world. She lets them wander around like eats. There’s been more...

HARARE (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean soccer player drowned in a crocodile infested river during a ritual to cleanse his team of bad spirits before a match, a state newspaper said on Tuesday.

Australian authorities fear an 18-foot crocodile they describe as “shy” may have taken a camper from a riverside site in North Queensland, the Australian Associated Press reported Tuesday. Arthur Booker, 62, who was on a two-day vacation with his wife, went to check a craypot at the Endeavour River Escape campsite around 8:30 a.m. He never returned. Booker’s wife told AAP that when she went to check the site she found a snapped rope, large crocodile slide marks and her husband’s new video camera.

Attempts to turn Solomon Islands into a gun-free society has had an unintended deadly side effect. It's lead in part, to an increase in the number of fatal crocodile attacks. Guns were banned on Solomon Islands following racial tensions and the arrival in 2003 of the Australian lead Regional Assistance Mission, RAMSI. Solomon Islands Acting Police Commissioner, Peter Marshall, has told Radio Australia at least six people have been killed by crocodiles in the past 18 months. "We have various reports from around the provinces in Solomon Islands... of crocodiles entering into locations where fishermen are present or where children...

Officials at the Isle of Palms ordered everyone out of the water because of a dangerous animal. But it wasn't a shark this time. Instead, wildlife officials ended up trapping a two-metre-long American crocodile in the surf ... the crocodile likely escaped or was released by someone who illegally brought it from its normal habitat in southern Florida. But Bennett says it is possible the crocodile could have swum up the coast.

The father of late television star Steve Irwin said he quit the family's Australian conservation park because he had become a "disrupting influence," although the widow of the khaki-clad "Crocodile Hunter" denies a rift in the clan. Australian media have speculated for months that Terri Irwin, the U.S.-born wife of the television host and mother of his two children, had fallen out with Bob Irwin following his son's death in a 2006 stingray attack. In brief excerpts released Thursday of Bob Irwin's first interview since he left the park earlier this year, he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. he "was...

The crocodile locked its jaws around its victim's legs A woman has been rescued from the jaws of a saltwater crocodile in Australia after her husband jumped onto its back and forced it to flee. The attack took place in the Litchfield National Park near Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. The crocodile lunged at its victim as she stood on the banks of a river, locking its jaws around her legs before trying to drag her into the water. Police have said the heroism of her husband almost certainly saved her. He leapt onto the large reptile's back, gouging...

I have just seen Hillary Clinton and her former Yale law professor both in tears at a campaign rally here in my home state of Connecticut. Her tearful professor said how proud he was that his former student was likely to become our next President. Hillary responded in tears. My own reaction was of regret that, when I terminated her employment on the Nixon impeachment staff, I had not reported her unethical practices to the appropriate bar associations. Hillary as I knew her in 1974 At the time of Watergate I had overall supervisory authority over the House Judiciary Committee's...

A crocodile at a zoo in the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung holds the forearm of a zoo veterinarian in between its teeth...

An Australian who went for a drunken dip in the sea got more than he bargained for when he dived into the jaws of a large crocodile. Matt Martin was camping alone near a beach in northern Queensland when he decided to go for a dusk swim, despite having drunk what he later admitted was "half a slab", or 12 cans of beer. When the 35-year-old construction worker dived into a wave, he butted heads with a submerged saltwater crocodile. "I thought I was dead. It was sort of like when you hit rocks but the rocks had give and...

Source: University of Florida Date: October 4, 2007 No Faking It, Crocodile Tears Are Real Science Daily — When someone feigns sadness they “cry crocodile tears,” a phrase that comes from an old myth that the animals cry while eating. An alligator weeps while eating at the Florida's St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in spring 2006. University of Florida zoologist Kent Vliet shot the photo while observing alligators and caimans at the park in an attempt to determine the truth of the myth that crocodiles cry while eating. Five of the seven animals, close relatives of the crocodile, teared...

Evicted crocodiles can find their way home By Nick Squires in Cairns Last Updated: 3:38pm BST 26/09/2007 Moving rogue crocodiles to remote areas free of people is all but useless because the reptiles have a highly developed homing instinct, Australian researchers have discovered. Scientists were astonished to find that relocated saltwater crocodiles swam up to 250 miles to return to the area where they had originally been trapped. Crocodiles can get a little upset if they're evicted. The findings, detailed yesterday in an online scientific journal, PLoS ONE, suggest that wildlife authorities’ strategy of relocating rogue crocodiles needs a radical...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A crocodile survived a fall from the 12th floor of a block of flats in Russia after making an escape bid through a window, emergency services said on Wednesday. Diving out of the window has become a habit for the crocodile, called Khenar, with concerned neighbours saying it was the third time he had used that method to flee, Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported. The crocodile lost one tooth in the latest fall but was otherwise unscathed, said a spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry in the Nizhny Novgorod region of central Russia. "It seems the owner was not...

Human remains found inside killer croc BINTULU (NST) - A crocodile believed to have attacked Sannga Megong, a worker at an oil palm plantation in Sungai Sebeba last month, was caught and killed by villagers here on Sunday. Human bones, hair and parts of a skull were found in the belly of the seven-metre long beast, which was caught in Sungai Similajau, about 100 metres from the location of the May 11 attack. A Sarawak Forestry Corporation spokesman, however, said it could not be confirm whether the crocodile was the one which attacked Sannga, 31. "We will send the bones...