| Location: Puerto Princessa, Palawan, Philippines |
| This classic profile wasn’t easy. The juveniles are now well over a meter long and weight about 5 kilo. They are getting formidable, and I had to lower my camera down to eye level in a tank with two jumping jaws. Dr. Glenn raised an eyebrow but the camera returned undamaged.
Note the “nuchals” at the base of the next – don’t confuse with the skull armor behind the eyes. The nuchals are further back, where the neck bends to raise the crocs head.
The double-ridged tail of another croc appears below the head. Similar to the C. porosus (Salt water Croc) tail, it's designed so the croc doesn’t leave even a ripple when it swims. This tail led some taxonomist to believe that C. mindorensis might have been a sub=species of C. porosus because their ranges overlap. There are so many differences such as size and habitat that C. mindorensis is now accepted as its own species.
|
|
|
