Re: TREE-CLIMBING BABY CROCS

["Octávio Mateus" <museulourinha@mail.telepac.pt>]

        In fact, crocodiles climb trees. I saw it myself. 
        In Laos (Southeast Asia), Prof. Philippe Taquet and I, we have seen a
small
juvenile crocodile Crocodylus siamensis in a small tree about 0.5 meters
above the water. 
        Of course, that is not the normal microhabitat!   :-)


> This is that, whether crocs climb trees or not (and, anecdotes 
> aside, it appears they do not), people should not point toward 
> monitor lizards as possible croc analogues. Unlike crocs, including 
> baby ones, many monitors are well equipped to climb trees, what with 
> their set of 20 sharply curved claws, elongate digits including a 
> strongly divergent pedal digit 5, and very flexible tails. As such a 
> bauplan is primitive for monitors, it has been easy for them to 
> evolve arboreality on several occasions. Many varanid species are 
> therefore fully arboreal (_V. rudicollis_, _V. prasinus_, _V. 
> teriae_, _V. bogerti_, _V. telenesetes_ etc etc etc) or close to it, 
> while the juveniles of many terrestrial species (such as _V. 
> komodoensis_) exhibit strong arboreal tendencies. Extant crocs do not 
> exhibit the features utilised by monitors in their arboreal exploits, 
> so the two groups are not comparable. I hope that sorts it out.