Hippos vs Croc

A lone crocodile didn't have much chance against a group of hippos, here.

New Crocodiles

The African dwarf crocodile has been split into three species, after genetic investigation. These are now Osteolaemus tetraspis, from Central Africa's Ogooué Basin, Osteolaemus osborni, from the Congo Basin, and an as-yet unnamed species from West Africa. Details here.

Cyprus Croc Stories

Urban myth or illegal introductions? Stories of crocodiles at Kourris Dam in Cyprus are springing up again. Officials haven't found any, but investigations continue. (News source.)

OOP Croc

A recently published paper in Pacific Science notes a young out-of-place crocodile, probably a saltwater croc, in the waters of Nauru, about 1,000 km away from the nearest population in the Solomon Islands.

Shark Eaten by Croc

9-foot croc eats a small shark, here.

The Man Who Lives With Crocodiles

A story from South Africa:

"The most amazing story was told to me by Boy Hancock, the ranger who took over Ndumu Game Reserve after we left. It was reported to him by the game guards, and Sigohlo was one of them — a trusty and reliable man.
"The guards were on patrol in the Reserve on the Pongolo where the new channel cuts through into Baga-Baga pan and past Nangri, an island, which the amaTonga swore was haunted. Dusk was falling as they made their way through the riverine forest when Sigohlo pointed to the river and they saw a man floating downstream with only his head above water. The guards shouted at him to get out quickly, for the river was alive with crocodiles. When the man was directly opposite the guards he grabbed an overhanging branch and half pulled himself out of the water. At that moment a crocodile head popped up behind him, and the guards watched in horror, expecting to see him pulled under. But the croc merely bumped its head against the man’s back. He turned round, gave the crocodile a gentle push with his hand, then climbed out. He looked at the guards once, grunted, and vanished into the reeds.
"An almost incredible story, but what made it ring true to me was the guards’ description of the crocodile bumping its head against the man’s back. This is how the crocodile behaves in the water. I had seen it on other occasions at Umfolozi when zebra had been taken in the Black Umfolozi River. There was also no earthly reason why three guards should make up a story like this. Boy Hancock questioned each one individually, but there were no discrepancies in their story.
"Boy also spoke to amaTonga living on the edge of the Salene forest, and they said this man was well known to them; he had merely gone wild and was living with the crocodiles."

Colorado Pond Creature Hunted

Wildlife officers have set up mountain lion traps on the banks of Jayhawker Ponds to see if they can trap whatever the creature is (crocodilian, perhaps) that has been reported in the water. (News source.)

Grand Caymans Croc Investigated by TX State

The out-of-place crocodile found in the Caymans is being tested through cooperation with the wildlife department at Texas State University. From the University Star:

"Researchers from Texas State are involved in an international attempt to identify the origin of an American Crocodile that swam to Grand Cayman from an unknown location.
"The endangered American Crocodile, Crocodylus acutus, was forced from Grand Cayman around 1500 A.D. because of over-hunting shortly after Europeans came to the island.
"Andrew Hope, Cayman Island department of environment marine enforcement officer, contacted Mike Forstner, associate professor in the department of biology, after a young male crocodile measuring more than 2 meters in length was found swimming into Old Man Bay Dec. 30.
"Wildlife officials in Grand Cayman want to return the crocodile to its home and needed help from the Texas State wildlife biology department to determine where the crocodile was from." ...
"Forstner said that he thinks the crocodile was forced from Cuba, where crocodile populations are healthy.
"'If it was in a population of crocs that had a lot of individuals in it, the big bull crocs are like, "Hey, I don’t like these little boys hanging around my ladies", and they would have pushed him out and he would have had to have gone somewhere (else),' Forstner said." ...
"Forstner said swimming or rafting from island to island is likely the way the crocodile originally got to the island." ...
"David Rodriguez, Texas State alumnus and Texas Tech doctoral student, has been working since 2005 on genetic markers that can identify the area where any American Crocodile may be from. He has worked with the Texas State wildlife biology program to compile genetic information from blood samples collected from individual crocs representing almost the entire range of crocodiles, and is currently writing his dissertation over the subject at Texas Tech." ...
"Acquiring the blood sample from Grand Cayman presents legal difficulties because it is against federal law to ship crocodile blood into the U.S. without a permit." ...
"To avoid the federal shipping rules involved in the international transportation of animal materials, the information used in testing for these genetic markers will be sent to Grand Cayman for analysis.
"'We will supply the markers, they will generate the data, then we will put it into our data set and do the analysis,' Forstner said.
"Researchers in Grand Cayman will use the markers supplied from Rodriguez’s research to determine what population of American Crocodile the captured one is from."

[Full news posted to StrangeArk archive.]