Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Haven't posted here for a while and can't seem to find the password for my usual nickname (crocdoc), but thought I'd post this a video that may interest the crocodile aficionados amongst you. It's of a 5m saltwater crocodile being trained to jump for chickens.

Beautiful lighting.
Amazing video.
But to be honest for a saltwater a pretty lame leaper.
Mine is only 3 meters and a little obese but his back legs still clear the water.
Thanks for the video. D.C.

Back legs clear the water? This guy says that's lame! He's able to get most of his tail out.

Come back when yours is 5m, 500kg, and we'll see how high he can jump then

If only we could teach our American Alligator that trick...

The rangers at Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park are probably happy alligators don't do that!

I, for one, am happy as otherwise I'd be called 'lefty' after taking this crappy shot of a big gator. It was right underneath the boardwalk (you can see the edge of the boardwalk on the upper left and the light coming through the slats reflected on the water) and there was only one way to get a shot.

Ha! Good point. It would certainly liven up things down there! We'll just have to suck it up and get something a little more lively.

Great pic. I am in Miami and see huge one's but sadly many kill them by feeding them bread,etc and than they wind up being destroyed.

People ignore the "Do not feed gator" signs and police here couldn't care less.

That's the way a saltwater should jump!
Unfortunely mine does'nt have the space or the depth to do that.
And that is a wild lean croc.
My captive raised croc is slightly overweight, allthings being equal he is twice as big as that croc.
The video croc just does'nt "want" to jump. He can. He just does'nt need to.
Halfway through the summer mine will quit jumping, he'll be fat and full and confident that the food will come anyway. D.C.

"allthings being equal he is twice as big as that croc."

Yes, and the 5m croc is almost twice the length of yours. That was my point in showing photographs of a smaller one leaping out.

I've seen smaller ones still clearing the water entirely, tail and all. But they're small. The larger they get, the less they can jump relative to their body size, in the wild or in captivity. Yours will not clear the water to his hind legs when he's 5m long.

I understand that small crocs are better leapers.
My point is motivation. A croc that big and that old that has not "needed" to jump is'nt going to "learn", at this stage in his life to be a great leaper.
IF I keep working with mine and IF I live long enough and IF he has the genes to be that big my will be a better leaper at that size.
But like I said he does the best in the spring and early summer.
Once he has pounded the groceries for a couple of months.
Most of his motivation is gone. D.C.

Whole lotta 'ifs' in your post, mate. This whole discussion is about how athletic you 'think' your crocodile will be if it gets to 5m. Come back IF it reaches 5m and IF it can still jump high enough to clear its hind legs from the water and THEN you can tell me how lame this crocodile is.

I'm not saying the crocodile in this video is the most athletic crocodile going. It isn't. However, trying to compare it to a 3m animal is along the same lines as trying to compare your 3m animal to the smaller one in my photos. Small crocodiles can jump higher than big crocodiles - it's not rocket science.

Wow, have you read my post.
I do not think my male salt is the Spud Webb of the crocodilian world. That title would go to my young male Cuban.
If you would have said, "here's Rex eating."
I never would have mentioned him being a lame leaper. And who cares if he is. He is still a fine looking croc.
But you did'nt.
You said they were training Rex to jump for dinner.
And (no IF's here) in my experience a large adult captive croc
with no history of jumping for his food, is'nt going to start now. Time and metabolism are on his side. He does'nt need to jump.
Prove me wrong. In a year post another video of him jumping.
I use a lot of "ifs" because I like to deal in facts not supposition. I could start feeding my croc this year and he could refuse to jump. You never know.
BTW the biggest gator I've ever seen, a solid 13.5 feet and pushing 8oolbs. in a traveling trailer jumped way higher than that.D.C.

Yes, I read your post. Have you read mine?

Maybe it's a metric conversion thing? You started off telling me that your 3m croc can jump higher than our 5m croc, but when I showed you a photo of a 1.5 metre croc that can jump higher than your 3m croc your response was "yeah, but that croc is smaller".

duh

Now you're telling me about a 13.5ft, 800lb gator that can jump higher than a 5m, 500kg croc.

5m = 16 feet.
500kg = 1102 lb (actually, it was 500kg when we got it a year ago, so it's undoubtedly heavier now)

Okay, so a 13.5 foot, 800lb gator can jump higher than a 16 foot, 1102 lb croc.

This little saltie can jump higher than that gator, because its... smaller.

This conversation was never meant to be about who could out jump who. I don't care. For the 10th time I did'nt say that croc COULD"NT JUMP I said HE DID'NT WANT TO JUMP. It's obvious.
Half hearted attempts at best. My whole discussion is about motivation. The reason I brought up the gator is because they were mentioned earlier. Obviously gators are not the jumpers that salts are. Salts are not the jumpers that Cubans are.
This is all very basic. Where it gets interesting is the motivation. I had a 4 foot Spec clear a 5.5 foot fence.
Did'nt jump it, she climbed it. She by God wanted out of there. She was motivated.
If you insist on unzipping and measuring I've seen pics of Gomek going up higher than that, ON LAND. Gomek would be about a third again bigger than that croc.D.C.

Okay, I have an idea. Post a photo of a more motivated 5m crocodile jumping higher than that, out of the water.

I don't have access to a 15 foot croc.
My 9 ft male I have raised from a hatchling however. In fact all my true crocs I've raised from hatchlings. Not that it matters just the way it worked out.
I'm curious crocdoc.
Are you a DVM?
Or do you have a Phd in herpetology?
What is your relationship with this croc? At one point you said the Sydney keepers were training but later you said, when we got this croc.
Do you work at this facility?
Do you personally own any crocs?
Crocdoc is an intruiging name I'm sure others would like to know.
Looking in the archives I did'nt really see but a few posts by crocdoc and they were mostly in the monitor section. D.C.

I haven’t asked you to access a 5m/16 foot crocodile, just provide a photo of one jumping out of the water in a more motivated way. Given your confidence that Rex is a lame jumper for a 5m croc I thought for sure you'd have plenty of visual proof of crocs his size clearing their hind legs out of the water. It wasn’t a big ask, especially considering the availability of images in this, the age of the internet.

"Looking in the archives I did'nt really see but a few posts by crocdoc and they were mostly in the monitor section. D.C."

Now I feel like I'm being stalked. Not sure if I should feel flattered or a bit creeped out.

In answer to your question, not that it has any relevance to this discussion, the nickname 'crocdoc' was given to me by my siblings while I was doing my PhD in herpetology because my thesis was on saltwater crocodiles. The name stuck. I currently breed monitors as a hobby and when I first started posting on the monitor forum as crocdoc people kept emailing me questions about tree crocodiles (aka croc monitors), Varanus salvadorii, so I changed my nickname to DK (or decay, if you prefer). Turns out I lost the nickname crocdoc permanently, on this forum, so I am now crocdoc2. On all of the monitor forums of which I am a member, I am crocdoc.

Any other personal questions you feel the need to ask? Now's your chance. I have two questions for you, now:
1. Do you always research people that disagree with you?
2. How many 5m crocodiles have you seen in the flesh?

Although I used my connections to help source this crocodile I have no 'relationship' with it and my comments are based purely on what I know of large crocodiles. Rex may not be the most athletic crocodile but he jumps as high as one would expect a crocodile of his size to jump. No more, no less. Had you access to 5m crocodiles you'd probably be more aware of this. I haven't kept any crocodilians for years (I did in the past) and have no desire to because of space limitations, but have seen a few salties in the 5m size range (mostly in captivity, some in the wild) as well as hundreds of wild crocodilians of many species in sizes ranging from large down to hatchlings. I've never seen any 5m croc clear its hind legs out of the water or even come close, in the flesh or in photos. I have an open mind, though. Show me a photo of a 5m crocodile jumping as high as you claim they are capable (and I'll be able to tell by its proportions whether or not it is in the 5m range) and I will admit that Rex is a lazy-arsed crocodile. Until you can do that, this is getting beyond ridiculous. I posted a video of a crocodile that I thought the croc aficionados among you would enjoy and now it's turned into this silly slagging match. I made no claims about this crocodile’s jumping ability but recognized your assessment of him being a ‘lame’ jumper to have been based on experience with smaller crocodiles and chose to disagree. Show me visual proof (ie video or photo of a similar sized croc clearing the water up to its hind legs) or agree to disagree and get over it.

Just to lighten things up, here's another wild croc (a fair bit smaller than Rex, at around 4m).

"Clear his hind legs"? There you go again Doc putting words in my mouth. I never said he should jump that high. All I said was he was a lame leaper.
Just like I never compared an 800 lb 13 foot plus gator to Rex. My point there was that gators CAN jump. All crocs can jump.
Also being the biggest gator I've ever seen (and I seach them out) possibly a gator that size is more rare than a 15 foot salt.

I've known for over 20 years that a young small crocs leaping ability will diminish with size and age. I never debated that.
I like discussions, however I won't waste my time arguing with people that I don't think know what they're talking about. Hence the "research".
I'm sorry if you thought my questions were personal but if you use a name like crocdoc there will be questions. Use DK if you don't like questions.
Clearly you know more about salts than I'll ever know just like, living in TX, I'll have more interactions with rattlesnakes than you ever will. It's geography. Being a croc guy for me that sucks but that's the way it is.
I'm not searching the internet for leaping croc pics, I (we) have wasted to much time on this already.
The reason I assumed a relationship with Rex was because in your weight conversions post you said last year when WE got him.
To me that implied some sort of ownership. Next post experience with 15 footers.

I've only seen in person 3 crocs 15 foot or bigger. The first 2 were salts(hybrids?). These were at a tourist place and my limited observations, as a tourist, they acted much the same as Rex.
The third was completely different. Captive situation but not for tourist. A huge (1 acre) pen with a large pond heavily canopied. This huge American shared the pen with 6 females ranging in size from 8-10 feet. He's 14-15 feet obese I'm sure a 1000 lbs.
The owner had'nt planned on feeding that day. All he had was 2 large rabbits. When the big male saw us at the fence 30 feet away he took off at a dead run. The females scattered wildly.
One was to slow. She was 9 feet about 300 lbs. In midstride he grabbed this female and slung her out of the way like a ragdoll.
I'm looking at the fence knowing it can't stop this croc.
Wisely the owner tosses the rabbit over well before the croc reaches the fence. He jumps, catches, and chokes down the rabbit while still continuing toward the fence.
The owner throws the other rabbit and then says, let's go if we stay he'll think there is more food.
This croc is motivated. Keeping 6 females "in line" will make you that way. I'll get video. He is used to being fed on land...
but maybe we can get him in the water.
I've seen pics in Costa Rica of a bridge where tourist and locals feed crocs. They're jumping and they're big. I don't know if they are 15 feet.
I liked your video.
I taught photography lab in college for 4 years and I appreciate nice lighting.
I thought it was great, I thought Rex was great.
If it would have said," Feeding Rex", or "Teasing Rex", or "Excerising Rex" I would never have questioned his verticle leap.
I apologize to other readers who may have thought this thread to be tedious/petty.
BTW I don't think anyone on this forum will ever get tired of seeing pics of big salts. D.C.

I understand where you're coming from regarding 'motivation' in reference to the behaviour you described for the big American croc. I've seen that level of 'aggro' in big crocs before and I can definitely say that Rex is not one of those. However, I also think that there's only so high a huge saltie can jump, regardless of the level of aggro, just through physical limitations and that's where I was coming from. Rex is a slug on land, but he does alright in the water - not overly athletic but not overly lame. It probably doesn't help that the entire video is slowed down to close to quarter speed and that I edited it with many misses in a row to dramatize when he finally does get the chicken, for both of these add to the feeling that he's lazier than he is. I referred to the keepers 'training' him to jump because up until a few months ago he was being fed on land, at the water's edge, and since then they've been teaching him to jump for his food from the water, with the keepers dangling the food from a specially built 'pulpit' above. And with that I will now drop the topic. Thank you for your comments on the video. I'm a camera buff, too.

A little over a year ago I was in the Northern Territory and caught up with a crocodile biologist friend/acquaintance who does a lot of consultancy work for films and documentaries. Any movies you've seen in recent years involving big salties probably had his hand in it. He showed us one of his favourite crocs for film work - a big saltie in one of the croc farms - and it was clear why he loved to use it. It had the same level of 'aggro' you described for the American croc, flying out of the water and running to the fence on the mere promise of a chicken. I shot a video of it grabbing at chickens thrown to it but haven't had time to sort out any of the video from that trip, which included both wild and captive croc footage. Here's a still of it, though, which I think captures its explosive nature. It was around 4.5m long.

It's the sort of croc most people would be uncomfortable to feed from the water's edge, like this (this shot was taken at Crocosaurus Cove, where they have quite a few big crocodiles on display).

While on the subject of big crocs, though, check out this wild one.

It's a shame he was tucked up under the mangroves in the mud, trying to escape the heat, because I couldn't get a clear shot. We got close enough to get an idea of his size, though. I estimated him to be at least 5m and this was confirmed by the friend I mentioned earlier, who is not one to exaggerate size and has seen the very same crocodile on another occasion, in the water near his boat. He put its size at 5.5m (for reference, Sobek was 5.4). He had one of those big crocodile heads, so broad it was approaching alligator proportions.

Those are some FINE pics! D.C.

Wow some sight to behold.

Now that is a sweet pic!! Makes me want a crocodile too!

Love this video, my 2 year old and I watched it twice. The music plus the croc made him laugh and then clap when the croc actually succeeded.

Well done.
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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

Thanks! Funnily enough, I just got an email from a friend (another crocodile aficionado) who showed it to his grandchildren, with similar reactions (they cheered rather than clapped).

Impressive!
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My reptile care sheets
Bearded dragon food

Can you make a retake with Wayne Pacelle playing the role of the chicken?