Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is a few pictures as promised (Danny, bigtank).
My camera is really crappy and i ran out of battery, but here goes.
First the big male palpebrosus

Jonas

The a 5 foot female sinensis

5 foot Caiman yacare female

12 feet male Crocodylus cataphractus

Two philippine crocs on top and one New guinea on the bottom

Our breeding pair of cubans. We had 23 babies in 2007. I believe thats a world record.

5,5 feet male Osteolaemus

two female gharials

Last but not least a female Tomistoma

These are all excellent pictures, thanks for sharing them. Do you have any of Paleosuchus trigonatus? I noticed turtles living with the crocodilians in a few pictures as well. Do the turtles breed while living with the crocodilians and do you keep any turtles with the Osteolaemus?

Matt

Matt.
Yes we have Phrynops hilarii breeding in the palpebrosus enclosure.
We have no turtles with the Osteolaemus. They would probably get crushed and eaten.
I can take some pictures of trigonatus. We have quite a few in all sizes.

Jonas

Was down in SC to check on some Osteo's we have on loan. Here are some pictures from Alligator Adventure, they are keeping turtles in with Osteo's and I didnt notice any signs of a problem but they were rather large turtles.

One can easily keep larger turtles with all species of crocs depending on size of croc versus turtle....
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Thanks GLZ, Tom for the info. It seems quite common to keep turtles with caimans and alligators but I have not (until now) seen it done with true crocodiles as much. There is a neat picture on the internet at the Maryland zoo of M. cataphractus basking alongside some helmeted turtles (Pelusios).

Matt

Sure it can be done, but we have lost quite a few turtles to different species of crocodilians.
American alligators, cuban crocs, yacare caiman, Tomistoma, nile crocs, black caimans. They all have turtle lifes on their conscience
But of course if the turtles had been bigger, they might not get eaten.

Jonas

Interesting also.. I still don't think I'd trust keeping turtles in with my Osteolaemus, maybe if I had a much larger enclosure. I keep turtles (sliders and cooters) in with my pair of trigonatus with no problems, but some of the turtles do have teeth marks on their shells. I also keep 1.3 Pelomedusa subrufa in with 2 3 foot alligators and a smaller spectacled caiman. I found your picture of the gavials and fly river turtle pretty neat.

Matt

ABSOLUTELY GREAT PICS AND BEAUTIFUL CROCS...THANKS
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

WOOOOWWWW...amazing collection... I´m speachless...

THANKS FOR ALL THE TIME TO UPLOAD THE PICS...
BEST WISHES

RICK

These girls are perfect! That is a huge cataphractus! D.C.

I had one female in the middle 1990's produce 32 babies and had several clutches hatching 24 or more...
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Jonas
Did you get her as an adult or did you raise her up from a hatchling. She has an awesome head very wild looking. D.C.

Danny
We got her and 3 other females 6 years ago as sub adults.
Just to make things clear i´m not the owner of these animals. I´m the only zookeeper and i´ve been working in krokodillezoo since 2001. It´s a pretty small place, an old farm actually. But we have the 2nd largest crocodilian species collection in the world.
Only stAugustine has all 23 species as you probably know.

Jonas

Rene Hedegaard
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Great Lakes Zoological

Rene is my boss