The Crocodile
By: Jordan R.
Click on the picture above  to hear the crocodile sound
Click on the picture above to hear the song "Crocodile Rock"
                 The American crocodile is one of 13 different species of crocodiles in the
        world. Crocodiles are brownish green, have a long, narrow skull, and
        pointed snout, and a streamlined body. The tail is used like a paddle and is
        super powerful. A crocodile can swim  20 miles an hour. Even when its mouth
        is closed, all its teeth are able to see sticking out of their mouth all
        crooked from eating all kinds of things. Their teeth last two years
        and are all replaceable. Crocodiles can grow to be 30 feet long and can
        weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Crocodiles eat mostly eat meat, but have been known to
        catch and eat anything that wanders near enough. They swallow their prey whole,
        usually after drowning it, and they never chew, they gulp it down. They have a
        tongue, but it doesn't help in their digestion crocodiles cant bite their tongues
        because it is attached to the bottom of their mouth. Crocodiles eat rocks which stay
        inside the stomach and help to grind up their food. Some scientists say that this
        helps keep the crocodiles from feeling hungry, or serves as extra weight while
        swimming or diving, to stay stable in the water. The American crocodile has an
        which attracts fish making them much easier to catch.
               Crocodiles are cold-blooded and live in warm climates. They excavate
          burrows along the water's edge. They live in salt water or in brackish water
          along the coastline or coastal river mouth. They emerge from the water, or
          their burrows, to raise their body temperature by lying in the sun.
          During the dry season, they may become sluggish, refuse to eat, and bury
          themselves in the mud. Crocodiles can live a very long time, as long as 100
          years, as long as their environment stays stable.
          Crocodiles build nests in the winter months by digging a hole using their
          back legs and lay between 30 and 50 eggs. The eggs take nine or ten weeks
          to hatch and the mother stays near by to the nest. She will rest her head on
          the nest, listening for the calls of the hatchlings. She will then dig them out
          using her front feet. Sometimes she has to crack the eggshell. The babies
          will feed on the yolk sac from their eggs for the first 2-14 days since they were born.
          The babies make sounds like a barking dog and their teeth are like tiny
          needles. Higher temperature (89-91) in the nest will produce more males,
          while lower temperature (below 88) produces females. Any temperature
          below 82 will kill the babies. They can't survive in very salty water either.
                After they come out of their nest if a baby crocodile is dead the mom will eat it
        cause she would not even hunt for food, she would not take any chances of any other
        animal wondering around in her nest for the baby crocodile's. If their not dead the
        mom will carry the baby's in her mouth to the water and they can swim right away.
        The young feed on fish and small land animals like lizards, crickets and grasshoppers.
        Crocodile manure provides important nutrients for the smaller animals in the
        food chain, but the crocodile is at the top of the food chain itself. There is a
        colony of crocodiles living in by the Turkey Point power plant, and there is a
        wildlife refuge in Key Largo. At the edge of the Everglades, crocodiles live
        in the brackish waters of the Florida Bay. As theses areas become polluted,
        or drained by man, the crocodiles became endangered.

 Fun Crocodile Facts:

Your closing jaws exert anywhere from forty to eighty pounds of pressure. The closing jaws of a 120-pound crocodile exert about 1,540 pounds of pressure!.

Sea crocodiles really do cry. It's one of the ways they eliminate salt from the system.

Oddly enough, a newly hatched crocodile is three times the size of the egg from which it just emerged.

Crocodiles can't chew. Be forewarned, though, they CAN (and do) bite!

Look at your thumb. That's about the size of a crocodile's brain.

Ancient Egyptians embalmed crocodiles and buried them in family plots. Archeologists near Egypt's Tebtynis have found thousands of such graves.

The only natural enemy of a young crocodile (not counting man) is an old crocodile.

To find out more about the gator check out these websites:

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/herpetology/brittoncrocs/csl.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/crocs/
 
http://win.tiho-hannover.de/croc/

http://www.envirolink.org/oneworld/tales/crocs/cinder.html
 
 
Click on the crocodile to see picture gallery