Homing Crocodiles

by Jim
(Darwin)

Jumping Crocodiles have Homing Instinct too.

Move over pigeons, homing crocodiles are the experts!

It seems these animals are more incredible than I ever thought. After just returning from a cruise down the Adelaide River to see crocodiles in the wild jumping almost fully out of the water to catch a good steak, this news shouldn't have been such a surprise I suppose.

The our guides on the Adelaide River Queen filled us in with a lot of information about these animals. They are very territorial and as each one approached the boat, the guides could even tell us their names and tell us their individual characters while they were just a small, brownish looking object in the distant water. "This is Stumpy", they said," she has a nest over there in the corner of that creek and is missing the end of her tail - most likely lost in a fight to defend her patch of the river bank"

Now it turns out crocodiles can find their way home over hundreds of kilometres. A study by the University of Queensland, Australia Zoo and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service used tagged animals to track their movements after they had been relocated away from popular swimming spots.
One animal made a journey of more than 400km (250 miles) in only three weeks after it had been moved by helicopter from the west coast of Queensland's rugged Cape York Peninsula to the east coast.

Professor Craig Franklin from the University of Queensland said crocodiles probably used many factors such as their position to the Sun, magnetic fields, sight, and smell to navigate. He paid tribute to the late naturalist Steve Irwin who was a major driving force behind the study.

So next time I head off from Darwin to watch these ancient reptiles in their own environment I'm sure I'll see the same animals in the same places they were last time. It'll be like meeting old friends who are even more amazing than I ever thought possible.