Crocodiles: the last dragon

 The crocodile appeared on Earth eighty million years ago. They lived alongside and hunted the big dinosaurs. They are the last survivors of the Archosaurs, which means “dominant reptiles,” a group that also included the dinosaurs and pterosaurs (flying dinosaurs), among others. What allowed them to outlast all their contemporaries and survive to our day?

The answer lies in the extraordinary combination of adaptations found in the crocodile’s body. Despite their primitive appearance, they are animals that are highly specialized for their way of life. In fact, although they are reptiles, their anatomy and behavior link them more closely to birds than to lizards. They are the largest river predators, and yet, of the 12 species living today, only two can be considered man-eaters: the saltwater crocodile and the Nile crocodile. In this documentary we will discover how crocodiles live and, by observing many of their species (saltwater crocodiles, Nile crocodiles, Cuban crocodiles, gavials, alligators, pygmy crocodiles, Orinoco crocodiles…), we will learn what the key is to their amazing evolutionary success.