Breaking Homing Cycle of Crocodiles

Posted on February 24th, 2009 by Wildlife Luver, under Crocodile.

Human-crocodile conflict is on raise as the crocodile population is prolifically increasing in Florida. Biologists of Florida are trying their best to prevent this incident. They are translocating the crocodile from their natural habitat to other place where less number of crocs are living.

The translocated crocodiles are returning back to their own habitat within few days because they can trace back their habitat easily and travels at least 10 miles per day. This process of returning back to their own habitat is called HOMING.

In order to prevent homing, the FWC biologists use magnets to keep the crocodiles back to their pavilion. Two magnets will be tied in their sides of their forehead and translocated to the new site because the magnets will disorient the crocodiles and disrupt their navigation, so they can’t find their way back to the capture site. while releasing the magnets will be removed from the crocodiles head. In addition to this colored tags will be tied on their tails to find out the success of the translocation.

This method proves that the crocodiles can’t find their home and stay back in the translocated site. Hats off to the FWC Biologists!!!

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Missing Tongue of the Crocodile

Posted on December 17th, 2008 by Wildlife Luver, under Crocodile.

I have visited a zoo as a undergraduate veterinary student as a volunteer. I searched the tongue of the basking crocodile. I asked the zoo vet about the missing tongue of the crocodile. He laughed and explained about the crocodile tongue.

Generally mouth of the crocodile makes up 15% of its body length. All the crocodiles are having a long thin forked tongue, but fused at the bottom of its mouth. So we can’t either see the tongue while it is basking or opening its mouth to capture its prey.

Length of the Crocodile Tongue

I measured the length of the tongue while performing postmortem of the same as a Zoo vet after my graduation. The length of the crocodile tongue is more or less 300-350 cms (this is a measurement of a crocodile of a 3 meters in length).

Additional Facts

The crocodile possess salt glands on their tongue, which is a modified salivary glands. The main purpose of this gland is to secrete excess salt from its body. Thats why salt water crocodile can spend weeks together in salt water.

As bottom line, I would like to conclude that this massive creature cannot stick out the tongue.

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Wildlife Conservation: Rehabilitation of Crocodiles to River Stream

Posted on December 3rd, 2008 by Wildlife Luver, under Crocodile.

In and around the coastal Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary, Orrisa, India, the wild crocodiles enter into human habitat- into ponds, which leads to conflict between man and reptile. So Orrisa Forest department sought the help of fisherman to catch hold of these rogue Crocs to rehabilitate into their own place.

Fourteen experienced fishermen have been recruited to drive away the intruded reptile into their own habitat- Bhitarkanika river system.

Hitherto, the fishermen team chased up nearly six crocodiles to their own place and six more were trapped and being released into wild, which is a part of wildlife conservation.

With this type of operation, the locals have heaved a sigh of relief. Hope this program will be a pioneer in ending man-reptile conflict in other States also….

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