Crocodile

"Zoos mislead their visitors by the way the species are housed. Birds are in the Bird House, of course, and crocodiles are always segregated to the Reptile House with the other naked-skinned, scale-covered brutes. So the average visitor leaves the zoo firmly persuaded that crocodilians are reptiles while birds are an entirely different group defined by "unreptilian" characteristics - feathers and flight. But a turkey's body and a croc's body laid out on a lab bench would present startling evidence of how wrong the zoos are once the two stomachs were cut into. The anatomy of their gizzards is strong evidence that crocodilians and birds are closely related and should be housed together in zoological classification, if not in zoo buildings."

"Anche se una piroga resta a lungo nel fiume non diventerà mai un coccodrillo."

"Wilt thou draw out the crocodile with a hook and with a cord wilt thou press down his tongue? 2 Wilt thou put a rope in his nose? and wilt thou hollow out his jaw with a thorn? Will he multiply supplications to thee? will he speak soft things to thee?"

"In America lo sai che i coccodrilli vengon fuori dalla doccia?"

"Poi [Dio] creò il coccodrillo, e subito dopo la maglietta. Così mise il coccodrillo sulla maglietta, e fu un grande successo."

"Il coccodrillo! Anche lui si è inventato tutto! Sicuro! Il coccodrillo... Chi mai crederebbe a un coccodrillo? Uno che sta tutto il giorno nudo sulla spiaggia.. con la bocca aperta.."

"The crocodile eats the man and then mourns him."

"Yuk! I don't like crocodiles. I tried them once... they were stringy."

"By the Cretaceous crocodilians of essentially modern form were the theropods main competitors. Yet crocodilians appear to be less abundant in most Mesozoic deposits than they are later in the mammal-dominated Cenozoic. Not only that, but they tended to be small-bodied: few specimens were as big as American alligators or Nile crocodiles. It is possible that theropods were eating the crocs. Even today, big cats once in a while kill a fairly large crocodilian. A tyrannosaur could have swallowed one whole, and gone into the water after them. Constant attacks could have suppressed croc populations, and favored the smaller, harder to catch species."

"The priests' crocodiles⁠ not only recognize the voice of those who summon them and allow themselves to be handled, but open their mouths to let their teeth be cleaned by hand and wiped with towels. Recently our excellent Philinus came back from a trip to Egypt and told us that he had seen in Antaeopolis an old woman sleeping on a low bed beside a crocodile, which was stretched out beside her in a perfectly decorous way. They have long been telling the tale that when King Ptolemy⁠ summoned the sacred crocodile and it would not heed him or obey in spite of his entreaties and requests, it seemed to the priests an omen of his death, which came about not long after; Cwhence it appears that the race of water creatures is not wholly unendowed with your precious gift of divination.⁠"