Crocodile

Dan Wylie's Crocodile tracks the 23 recognized crocodilian species across every continent bar Antarctica, and through myths, artworks and literatures around the world.

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From the croc that terrorized Captain Hook in Peter Pan to the leviathans depicted in films like Lake Placid and Dinocroc, innumerable songs, stories and legends have characterized crocodilians as pitiless predators with insatiable appetites. Yet although we commonly associate crocodiles, alligators and gharials with ferocity and deceit, they have also often been respected and revered in human history. Crocodile tracks 23 crocodilian species from India and Egypt to North America, Africa, Australia and beyond, and compares what science has discovered about the lives of these reptiles with their depictions in myth, art and literature around the world. Crocodiles were all but wiped out in the middle of the twentieth century by hunters and skin traders and are now making a comeback; as apex predators, they are today an increasingly important indicator of the health of an ecosystem. Indeed, they may outlive humans, just as they did the dinosaurs. Presenting a concise, cogent case for why we should respect these fearsome animals, this beautifully illustrated volume is a tribute to one of the world's ultimate survivors.