Crocodiles (& their relatives, alligators) are generally viewed as top predators. They're 'ambush' hunters1, lunging up out of the water to snatch at their prey at the last moment.
But sometimes, they come off second-best. Check out this video on the National Geographic site, of a jaguar stalking, catching, & killing a caiman.
And how about these images of a rather large boa chowing down on a metre-long crocodile? Or an otter, eating a juvenile alligator? Yep, it's not all fun & games being a crocodile.
1 Having said that, when I was writing this post I came across the intriguing suggestion that some crocodilians use sticks to lure birds within lunging distance ie that they use tools. They've been observed doing this only during the birds' breeding season, when their feathery cousins2 are looking around for sticks to use in nest-building.
2 Taxonomically speaking, crocs and birds are both archosaurs. Early crocodilians – the pseudosuchians – were a predatory force to be reckoned with & it's possible that the pseudosuchians' demise, in the mass extinction that marked the end of the Triassic, was a factor that opened things up for the expansion of the dinosaur lineages.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© says:
Brusatte told Discovery News that the recent study by Butler and Toljagić is important “because we really need to understand what happens at mass extinction events in order to better understand how our own world may change in the face of warming temperatures.”
HAR HAR! Global warming is a myth, Al Gore is fat, and Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house, hippies!
P.S. Don’t read this link unless you want to be depressed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/08/palin-closes-cpac-2014-praising-cruz-criticizing-obama-and-gop-establishment/
~
Alison Campbell says:
I shall definitely avoid reading your link; reading the anti-fluoride FB pages is quite depressing enough, thank you!
Jim Thomerson says:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140210184547.htm
So crocs and alligators climb trees. Will wonder ever cease?
Alison Campbell says:
Yes, now – in addition to drop bears – we have to worry about falling crocs when wandering in forests 🙂