The saltwater crocodile, also known as the Indopacific and Estuarine crocodile (and colloquially called the "salty" by some Australians) is an animal with an impressive range, spreading from much of Australia to the southern parts of Indonesia. But one question that has continually puzzled scientists about this animal is how it travels within this range. Namely, the question is: how do saltwater crocodiles travel over large stretches of open ocean? This may sound easy, but the animals are actually poor long-distance swimmers, negating their ability to simply hop in the ocean and, you know, go. They're not Michael Phelps. 
But a new study published this week has finally revealed how the scaly travelers overcome this issue: they use ocean currents. Like sailing ships with wind, it was discovered using acoustic tagging that the animals use ocean currents to carefully ride their way to distant locations, whether they're on the same continent or not. This is facilitated by the crocodiles remarkable ability to go very long periods of time without food/water. They can retain internal water and can go weeks between meals, particularly after eating something large. This means that a crocodile could easily slip into the ocean and ride the currents with minimal swimming or energy exertion. Fascinating! This made my day so much cooler.If you'd like to read the story in full, EurekAlert has it here.
No comments:
Post a Comment