September 6, 2010 With the exception of a Great White, or
possibly an Oceanic White-tip (on a bad day), nothing terrifies
me more than the prospect of meeting a 20ft (6m) Saltwater
‘Estuarine’ Crocodile out in the open Ocean. And apparently
that’s not as unlikely as I would have hoped for! Despite being
poor swimmers, researchers have discovered that the saltwater
crocodile (also known as estuarine) commonly travels long
distances over open oceans by riding ocean currents. The
discovery, published in Journal of Animal Ecology, solves an
unknown mystery of why saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus)
are found across vast distance in the Pacific, yet have not
diverged into different species. Researchers tracked 27 adult
saltwater crocodiles for one year using tags and sonar
transmitters. The tagging showed that crocodile individuals,
both male and female, regularly traveled more than 50 kilometers
from their local rivers into the open sea. One crocodile
traveled 590 kilometers in 25 days; another traveled 411