Saltwater crocodile

The saltwater crocodile is the largest living reptile in the world. Big males reach about 6 metres and weigh 1,000 to 1,500 kilograms, while females are much smaller and rarely longer than 3 metres. It has a broad snout, and the scales on its back have a distinctive pattern.

It lives in salty and brackish waters and in freshwater rivers, from the east coast of India across Southeast Asia to northern Australia and Micronesia. It is a top predator that ambushes almost any animal that enters its territory, from fish and crabs to birds and mammals, then drowns or swallows its prey whole. It is dangerous to humans. The IUCN has listed it as Least Concern since 1996.

Swimming across the sea

Despite its name, the crocodile does not live only in salt water, but it can swim long distances through the sea, which is why it has reached faraway islands. It was hunted for its skin right up to the 1970s, and illegal killing and habitat loss still threaten it in some places. Today it is only one species, with no subspecies officially recognised.

A very old family

Fossils of a saltwater crocodile from northern Queensland date back to the Pliocene. Its closest living relatives are the Siamese crocodile and the mugger crocodile. Scientists once described several saltwater crocodile forms as separate species, but now treat them all as the same one. One genetic study suggests that the whole genus Crocodylus may have started in Africa and then spread towards Southeast Asia and the Americas. The saltwater crocodile is also called the estuarine crocodile, the marine crocodile or, informally, the saltie.

On the globe

The globe shows the saltwater crocodile in the coastal waters of Southeast Asia and northern Australia. Look for the huge broad-snouted crocodile.