A hundred and sixty million years ago before the first human beings started walking upright in the shores of lake Turkana, Kenya-formerly known as Jade sea- the Nile crocodile was already the proud and forbidding monarch of the lake’s mud banks and sand pit.
It is a diminutive cousin of the giant dinosaurs and long extinct creatures of the misty little known epochs of pre history and this creature has barely changed and it remains the most ancient of all living creatures.
Oddly this creature has only one one type of teeth, all its teeth are like caninies, thus it is un able to chew its prey. When it eats large prey, this reptile clumps down on its victim and threshes around in the water often rotating several times until the limb is wrenched from the trunk. To swallow it raises its head and lets the food fall to its back of the throat then swallows them wholly. Bodies have been recovered from these creatures even after 20 hours and they remain unmarked.
Crocodiles have very strong tails which they use to attack their prey. These creatures are unique in that they have a very strong mouth closing muscle but on the other hand they have weak mouth opening muscles, this makes it almost impossible for a prey to escape from the sinister jawful of teeth of these creatures.
Like many other cold blooded animals these saurians depend on the external temperature to maintain their own and regulate their body heat according to the time of the day. Early in the morning they bask in the sun to warm up until around midday when the sun becomes hotter they go back in the waters and stay there until sundown. Mostly they spend the night in the water.
These creatures lay clutches of up to 70 eggs which are buried up to 80 centimeters beneath the soil on the river banks and when the eggs are about to hutch the mother digs them out. The eggs and the young crocs are preyed on by moniter lizards, mongooses or even raptors.
In Kenya they can be found in various rivers: river Mara which is found in the famous masai mara national reserve, Tana river, river sabaki, Athi river. Also they can be seen sun basking in lake Nakuru,Bogoria, Baringo,Naivasha and many other places.
One crocodile’s heart was removed from the corpse and it continued to pump for up to 20 minutes. Truly these creatures do not relinquish life easily
.
ETT- Kenya Safaris Desk
Etton Travel and Tours
It is a diminutive cousin of the giant dinosaurs and long extinct creatures of the misty little known epochs of pre history and this creature has barely changed and it remains the most ancient of all living creatures.
Oddly this creature has only one one type of teeth, all its teeth are like caninies, thus it is un able to chew its prey. When it eats large prey, this reptile clumps down on its victim and threshes around in the water often rotating several times until the limb is wrenched from the trunk. To swallow it raises its head and lets the food fall to its back of the throat then swallows them wholly. Bodies have been recovered from these creatures even after 20 hours and they remain unmarked.
Crocodiles have very strong tails which they use to attack their prey. These creatures are unique in that they have a very strong mouth closing muscle but on the other hand they have weak mouth opening muscles, this makes it almost impossible for a prey to escape from the sinister jawful of teeth of these creatures.
Like many other cold blooded animals these saurians depend on the external temperature to maintain their own and regulate their body heat according to the time of the day. Early in the morning they bask in the sun to warm up until around midday when the sun becomes hotter they go back in the waters and stay there until sundown. Mostly they spend the night in the water.
These creatures lay clutches of up to 70 eggs which are buried up to 80 centimeters beneath the soil on the river banks and when the eggs are about to hutch the mother digs them out. The eggs and the young crocs are preyed on by moniter lizards, mongooses or even raptors.
In Kenya they can be found in various rivers: river Mara which is found in the famous masai mara national reserve, Tana river, river sabaki, Athi river. Also they can be seen sun basking in lake Nakuru,Bogoria, Baringo,Naivasha and many other places.
One crocodile’s heart was removed from the corpse and it continued to pump for up to 20 minutes. Truly these creatures do not relinquish life easily
.
ETT- Kenya Safaris Desk
Etton Travel and Tours
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