Crocodiles don’t exactly look like the type of animals that you’d probably want to pet, and when they open their mouths, you’d understand why.
These reptiles have one heck of a nasty reputation – they’re practically look like bubbly monsters that hide underwater and wait for you to lower your guard before they strike.
And no, they’re not the same as alligators. They may appear similar, but there are subtle differences in their body structure, as well as their behavioral patterns. The most obvious way to tell is to look at their snouts. A crocodile will have a longer, pointier snout. In comparison, an alligator will have a shorter and rounder snout.
Considering that crocodiles have a history of living alongside and practically outliving the dinosaurs by a whopping 65 million years, it’s no wonder that our scaly reptilian friend is an apex predator in its own right.
This thus begs the question – how dangerous are they to humans? Should you head for the hills as soon as you even catch a glimpse of a crocodile? That’s what this article will be answering.
The impressive bite of a crocodile
If there’s one thing that anyone can easily notice about a crocodile, it’s how large their jaws are. Considering how long they are in length in comparison to a human’s, it is only natural that the strength of their bite would be extremely powerful, right?
As it turns out, yes. Crocodiles have the jaw length and the jaw strength to back it up. In fact, the saltwater crocodile has the strongest bite of any animal, chomping down at a whopping 5,000 psi (pounds per square inch)! In comparison, a great white shark can produce 4,000 psi of bite force. Yes, this means that the saltwater crocodile has a much stronger bite force than the much-feared great white shark that enjoys scaring every swimmer on the beach.
To add onto that, because of how strong their mouth muscles are when clamping down, it’s going to be nigh-impossible to even open them again!
But it’s not all perfect for a crocodile, because as it turns out, they can’t chew. Indeed, despite having such a fearsome reputation and a deadly bite, a crocodile’s jaw isn’t wired to move sideways. As a result, they aren’t really able to properly grind food down in a traditional chewing motion like us humans do. What this means is that crocodiles swallow large chunks of their prey whole. Yikes! Now there’s an image you don’t want to see!
Despite all this, the crocodile’s bite has one weakness: The muscles aren’t as powerful when opening its mouth. This means that the best way to prevent a crocodile from clamping down on you is preventing them from even opening their mouth in the first place.
Easier said than done, though! If a crocodile’s mouth gets at a certain angle while open, you’re going to have a really difficult time trying to get its mouth down again, at least without you in it! Not only that, but crocodiles can also utilize different tactics to get anyone that wants to keep its mouth closed off of it, like shaking them off! You’re going to have to wrangle with this animal, that’s for sure!
The signature “death roll”
The “death roll” maneuver is something that crocodiles perform on their prey.
The way they do this is by gripping another animal by their jaws, dragging them into the water, and quickly doing a corkscrew by using its body weight to turn over and over, causing certain body parts of their prey like their bone and muscles to snap, causing extreme pain and making them immobile in the process.
It helps that their jaws are extremely powerful as well, which means that it is highly unlikely that their prey might accidentally slip out of their mouths when they do their “death roll”.
This maneuver is preformed to either drown the prey animal or to tear an animal into more manageable chunks. As mentioned earlier, a crocodile is unable to chew, and even they would have difficulty in trying to down an entire water buffalo in a single bite. Instead, they would use this maneuver to slowly cut away chunks of meat from the buffalo.
How dangerous are they to humans?
All this seems to put crocodiles in the “very dangerous” side of life, especially when encountering them as a human. It doesn’t help that they are considered ambush predators either, where they hide, waiting for fish or land animals to approach before lashing out, at which point it’s probably too late for their prey to react.
Crocodiles are known as opportunistic predators, and any animal to them is fair game, whether they are human or not. Crocodiles are even known to venture onto land to search for prey.
But you won’t have to worry about being attacked by a crocodile anytime soon, because you’re still more likely to die from falling off a ladder than dying from a crocodile attack. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take safety precautions. If you’re going to be adventuring in places that have a known crocodile population, be prepared for anything.