National Park Service The crocodile found in the Everglades National Park in March did not come from a nearby breeder, DNA tests showed. Wildlife experts are stumped by a gluttonous West African crocodile captured a long way away from home in the moist swamps of Florida.
A DNA test proved the five-foot-long reptile captured alive by authorities on the edge of the Everglades National Park in March did not escape a nearby breeder, reported the Orlando Sentinel.
The croc flourished in the muggy marshes and had a belly full of fish, Frank Mazzotti, a crocodile expert and professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Florida, told the Sentinel.
“It found a place where it could be fat and happy, and that’s not good,” Mazzotti said.
Even though the critter was on the small side, it was growing fast and authorities initially believed it was the dangerous Nile crocodile, a predator known for attacking and gobbling up hundreds of people a year in Africa.
It’s likely a West African crocodile — Crocodylus suchus — a beast frequently mummified and stashed in Egyptian tombs as an offering to the god with a crocodile head, Sobek.
The crocodile is likely not an evasive threat to the Everglades habitat, but Mazzotti believes there might be another one lurking in the swamps.
Follow me on Twitter: @nkhensley
http://ift.tt/1taDnoc
via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1
No comments:
Post a Comment