Jonathan had stopped at a one of our many lakes for coffee break with our guests (this happened yesterday), and all of a sudden, on the small island in the middle of the lake, one of our resident crocodiles apppeared. What a beautiful sighting! Crocs usually don’t move much (in fact they don’t move 99.99% of the time, to conserve energy), so it was beautiful to see this one move out of the water onto dry land.
Crocs are one of the world’s most ancient creatures, they are true “living fossiles”, from the age of dinosaurs.
The are cold-blooded animals (literally), so they spend hours in the sun heating up their blood stream to give them speed and energy to go for the occasional hunt. The way they hunt is spectacular, and very cunning. They approach an unsuspecting prey, usually drinking at a waterhole or lake, and then suddenly leap out of the water at exhilirating speed, and snap the prey and drag it into water where they drown it and then eat it in one go (how lovely is that?). This attack happens at the incredible speed of 20m/s (!!) and they can jump forward by 4m in one go, so the prey has little to no chance if the attack is well timed and executed.
So our advice is clear: don’t stroll near a lake or waterhole, or stand too close to it! Danger looms.
That said, crocs are not the deadliest animals to humans, and neither are the lions. It is the hippos that are fiercely protective of their territory, so they kill more humans in Africa than any other animal (it is about 300-400 per year). Advice: don’t go for a swim in an African lake either!
Some say, however, that this statistic is only true because hippo victims’ bodies are usually found (hippos don’t eat meat), while crocs just eat the bodies and so hence they are never recovered, and neither are the disappearences of people properly reported or investigated very often in Africa. Anyway, enough now of this sombre stuff, enjoy the picture! 🙂
