Reptiles, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 13, 2017

Break It Up! Territorial Hippos 'Save' Wildebeest from Crocodile Attack

On a trip to Kruger National Park in South Africa, Tokkie and Mervyn Van Wyk noticed the unfortunate wildebeest by the Transport Dam water hole when a crocodile clamped its jaws down on one of the wildebeest's back legs, according to a description of the Kruger Sightings video. As seen...

Nov 27, 2017

Politician's Man-Eating Crocodile Warning Is a Load of Crock

Australian politician Bob Katter wants to launch a war … against crocodiles. Katter, known for his controversial opinions on multiple topics including same-sex marriage, claimed on Nov. 15 that there are too many crocodiles in Australia. They have no natural enemies, and in the Australian region of North Queensland alone,...

Jan 10, 2018

Alligators 'Snorkel' to Survive Ice-Covered Swamp

A video showing alligator snouts poking out though an ice-covered swamp in North Carolina during last week's cold snap may look like the preview of an avant-garde art installation, but it actually depicts an adaptive trick that helps these reptiles survive in winter weather, a wildlife ecologist said. Unlike mammals,...

Jun 7, 2018

Watch a Tied-Up Alligator Knock a Man Out With Its Hard, Reptilian Skull

American alligators are beautiful, amazing, horrible monsters. As such, there are many parts of their body that they can obviously hurt you with. Up front, they've got wide, grinning toothy mouths that can clamp down on your limbs with deadly force. In the back, they've got powerful tails for thwacking....

Jul 3, 2018

What to Do If You Come Face-to-Face with an Alligator

A teenage girl rafting in a creek got the fright of her life when an alligator nearly as long as two grand-size pianos chased her up a tree in Florida's Ocala National Forest on Friday (June 29). When the 9-foot-long (2.7 meters) alligator approached 15-year-old Jordan Broderick in the midafternoon,...

Jul 11, 2018

How Did the Massive 'Salty' Crocodile Captured in Australia Get So Freaking Big?

Australian parks and wildlife rangers captured a monster of a crocodile Monday (July 9), according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The beast was 15 feet 5 inches long (4.7 meters) and weighed a whopping 1,300 lbs. (600 kilograms). If a reptile long enough to block two lanes of traffic sounds...

Aug 23, 2018

See an Alligator Devour Another Alligator in These Gruesome Photos

In a marsh near coastal Texas, a young alligator recently met a grisly end — as a meal for another, much bigger alligator. A photographer happened to be nearby and captured the alligator cannibalism, as the hungry beast gulped down its prey. The small alligator was more than a mouthful...

Jan 25, 2019

How Alligators Survive in a Frozen Pond: They 'Snorkel'

As temperatures dipped along the U.S. East Coast, alligators at a sanctuary park in North Carolina figured out a cute way to survive in their icy homes: They poked their noses out of the water as it began to freeze over, their scaly snorkels becoming their only conduit for oxygen....

Mar 27, 2019

Take It from the 'Crocodile Lady': Conservation Needs More Women (Op-Ed)

Natalia Rossi is the manager of the Cuba Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). This article is part of Women's History Month, and celebrates women in science. Rossi contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. I, a crocodile scientist, am a woman in conservation. As...

Apr 12, 2019

Football-Size 'Bugs' Feast on an Alligator in This Creepy Deep-Sea Video

In a creepy video fit for a scene in a horror movie, nightmarish bugs that almost look like lobsters emerge on the seafloor to attack the corpse of an alligator, using their mandibles to break through the scaly skin and feed on the juicy insides. The carcass is lying a...

Jun 21, 2019

This 12-Foot, 463-Lb. Alligator Went Head to Head with a Semitruck

A 12-foot-long (3.7 meters) alligator weighing a lumbering 463 lbs. (210 kilograms) was lying on its back in the middle of a highway exit when trapper Broderick Vaughan showed up in the early morning of June 3. Vaughan, there in his capacity as a contractor for the Florida Fish and...

Jul 22, 2019

Crocodiles Are Breeding Near a Nuclear Power Plant (No, They're Not Radioactive)

Hundreds of crocodiles make their home in a network of canals in southern Florida. These channels also happen to carry water that cools a nearby nuclear power plant. But don't worry — these crocodiles aren't mutants, monstrous or radioactive. In fact, the reptiles are thriving in these waters. American crocodiles...

Jan 14, 2020

New Bone-Eating Life Form Discovered in Bizarre Alligator-Corpse Study

Once upon a research grant, scientists strapped three dead alligators into weighted harnesses and deposited the corpses 6,600 feet (2 kilometers) down in the Gulf of Mexico. The first gator was overrun with giant pink crustaceans within a day and slowly eaten from the inside out. The second gator was...

Jun 12, 2020

Ancient crocodile walked on two legs

A hefty, 10-foot-long (3 meters) crocodile relative had an odd way of getting around 120 million years ago in what is now South Korea. The huge beast walked on its two hind legs like a T. rex, researchers said after analyzing footprints left behind by the reptile. There are no...

Sep 4, 2020

Endangered croc gives piggyback ride to 100 babies after mating with '7 or 8 females'

Picking the kids up from school takes on a different meaning for crocodylian parents. In this photo, taken by India-based photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee, a male freshwater gharial shows us why. Bobbing in the waters of northern India's National Chambal Sanctuary, the croc waits as more than 100 of his month-old...