Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Most Amazing Reptile You Will Ever Meet

By Ross Patterson


There are many creatures that can be found here in the Earth, and the ones living on land are classified either as mammal, amphibian and reptile. Humans as well as whales, dolphins, canines and felines are considered as constituting the mammalian family. The amphibians, on the other hand, can live both in land and water. Reptiles, as mentioned earlier, can also live both in land and water but they have thicker scales and have lungs rather than gills.

Reptiles have been living on our planet for several epochs now.The dinosaur, which is already extinct, is the most important example, scientifically, of a reptile. Dinosaurs are, of course, considered to be the biggest reptiles to live on the planet. However, a catastrophic event wiped them off the face of the planet. Archeologists are in an agreement that it was a meteor that struck our planet, and raised up so many dirt from the impact into the atmosphere to block the Sun. The theory further suggests that the effects of the meteor's impact carried on for thousands of years, killing vegetation and wildlife including the dinosaurs. Some creatures, however, survived because they lived under the sea and had quite an ecology of their own that allowed them to survive. Well, the dinosaurs may be gone now, but you can still see remnants of their genes in the blood of surviving reptiles, particularly the crocodiles.

There are many types of crocodiles existing today, and the biggest specie is the saltwater crocodile. The saltwater crocodile has been said to grow up to more than 20 feet, although sexual maturity is reached at around 11 feet in length. The record is 21 feet or 6.4 meters, which is accepted and verified by the Guinness Book of Records.Females, on the other hand, are smaller than males, as is the case in other sexually dimorphic animals, and can reach only a maximum of 14 feet as records show.The actual size of a saltwater crocodile may or would depend on the sufficiency of sustenance in its territory. Younger crocodiles typically less food as than the older and more powerful crocodiles who can occupy large territories.Saltwater crocodiles bred in captivity have the tendency to grow bigger as well, as long as they are fed sufficiently by the park administrators.

The saltwater crocodile is distributed widely in Asia and Oceania. The crocodile can be found in Northern Australia, but competition for food can lead them out to Southeast Asia and as far as India.Since they could swim out to the ocean, saltwater crocodiles in Australia can travel to distant countries such as India and other Southeast Asian nations in search for food. In Australia, they can be found in rivers, swamps and estuaries. You could meet these animals by signing up for adventure tours at Travel Wild. Partaking of these tours will find you in a guided exploration of Kakadu, where you will find estuarine crocodiles together with other wildlife. These tours will enable you to look at and watch saltwater crocodiles and learn about their behaviour safely.

One of the great ways in which a holiday could be spent is to taking your family out to meet wild animals in their natural dwellings.Such trips are very educational for children, as well as exciting. Adventure tours can also expose us to the underappreciated beauty of nature, and let you acquire a respect for it. Please enquire for more information here.




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