In this video, a crocodile is seen making its way towards a fish on the ground at the 00:08 mark when the crocodile to its left decides to clamp its jaws around the first croc’s forearm and rip it off. Seconds later, at 00:12, the crocodile to his right also decides to bite the first croc’s tail.
It seems that the crocodiles bit their fellow buddy for no reason other than that he represented something fleshy in front of their jaws, and they bite whatever fleshy things appear in front of them. And also strangely, the bitten crocodile doesn’t retaliate or even thrash about in agony; he just lies there placidly with a demeanor of, “Wut…why’d you bite my forearm off, bro.”
To top it off, there’s no bleeding from the severed limb.
The biting crocodile eats and swallows the forearm that he bit off, the cannibal…
So…what went down here? Do crocs just bite each other because they represent fleshy morsels to each other?
Probably what happened is that crocodiles have an automatic response (snapping their jaws shut) when something hits their tongue. I’ve seen videos where the croc snaps down when someone puts their head in their mouth and it chomps down if even a drop of sweat hits their tongue.
The croc that bites the tail was saying get out of my way! I’ve seen dogs and cats chomp down when another ones tail brushes their mouth.
There’s supposedly a bird that feeds in around a croc’s mouth, but it’s never been proven to be real.
Looks to me like the first croc just mistook the other one’s foot for prey as he was quickly passing by, and chomped on it reflexively. The twisting behavior is what they normally do to disable an animal they attack, like a wildebeest. In this case the foot just came off. The other one didn’t react much probably because it was also taken by surprise. The one that bit its tail was just defending itself from an apparent attack.
Adult crocs won’t normally attack one another because there is too much risk of getting hurt. They may squabble over food or territory, and kill and eat smaller crocs, but attacking another adult to eat it is going to be rare.
The whole thing looked like just a mistake to me, and not normal behavior.
ETA: Also, it looked like the one that got his foot bit off was momentarily considering attacking the one that bit him. But that croc was a bit bigger than him so he thought better of it and scuttled off.
I’ve had dogs, cats and birds that know me grab my finger or hand in their mouth if I make a quick move towards them. They give this “oops” look as they usually slowly release their grip.
Some people (like my brother) will throw a half-awake punch if you startle them from their sleep. Fortunately, my brother was able to stop mid-way. :eek:
And of course there’s Mike Tyson. Put an ear in his mouth and CHOMP!
Those fences can hold quite a lot of weight, as shown by crowd-control disasters. It probably wouldn’t hold a crowd of determined cows, but those crocks aren’t high enough off the ground to get good leverage. And they don’t climb or jump unless they can use their tail in the water. So the main criteria is that the fence is far enough from the water that the animal can’t launch into or over it.
In actuality most crocodilians are capable of scaling chain link fences with reasonable facility. Here in Florida media accounts of large (8 feet plus) alligators found in fenced yards are commonplace.
They would naturally feed only in the water. In the water, they lie still, and wait for their prey to come into range, and snap at the leg. eg a wilderbeast or deer legs. So they just bite blind, and take the risk of croc biting croc… but usually its nose to nose. Their eyes are set back so as to be safely distant from where their pray’s hoofs are… so they can’t readily do any better.
They haven’t got their land feeding game perfected yet… They acted like they were hiding in water and lunging at animals that wandered into their trap.
The crocodile that was in the way was too quick for its own good, and got in the way. He won’t be so quick next time…
So why land feeding ? to ensure each croc gets its correct amount. If the keeper puts the food in the water, one croc gets fat and giant, and the others starve. So the keeper will feed each croc the healthy amount.
