the.com/croc
a 200-million-year-old murder log that outlasted the dinosaurs by simply refusing to evolve.
means A casual shortening of 'crocodile,' the large semiaquatic reptile with armored skin and a famously toothy grin (and, depending on context, also a clipped nickname for the foam Crocs clog).
from Straight from 'crocodile,' which English borrowed via Old French and Latin from Greek 'krokodilos' — a name the Greek historian Herodotus tells us Ionian settlers gave the Nile beast, the same word they used for a lizard that basked on stones, possibly knitting together 'kroke' (pebbles, gravel) and 'drilos' (worm), as if to call it 'the worm of the stones.' The chummy short form 'croc' is a modern English clipping, the kind of friendly abbreviation we hand to creatures we have no business befriending.
- bite force
- strongest measured of any living animal
- galloping
- some species can briefly gallop on land
- survival
- endured every mass extinction since the Triassic
- stomach acid
- can dissolve bones, hooves, and shells
- death roll
- spins to tear prey into manageable chunks
saltwater crocodile — largest living reptile, up to 20 feet long, found in australia and southeast asia
nile crocodile — responsible for estimated 200 human deaths annually in africa
american crocodile — critically endangered species with fewer than 2,000 individuals in florida's everglades