The Nile Crocodile
One of the largest reptiles of the family of real crocodiles. The Nile crocodile reaches a length of up to 3.5-5 meters. It is distributed throughout Africa, except for its northern part, in Madagascar, the Comoros and the Seychelles. In ancient times it lived on the territory of Egypt and Palestine, but nowadays it does not occur below the second threshold on the Nile. In Southwest Asia (in the Tserka River, Israel), the Nile crocodile was recently exterminated. It inhabits a wide variety of reservoirs: lakes, rivers, freshwater marshes, reservoirs with brackish water. The food of the Nile crocodile is very diverse and changes with age. Adolescents feed on small aquatic invertebrates and insects, as they grow, large vertebrates are added to the diet. Individuals about 2.5 m long feed on fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and even larger ones - fish, reptiles, birds and mammals. Adult Nile crocodiles can attack large mammals such as buffaloes and even rhinos, although fish and small vertebrates make up a large part of their diet. They become sexually mature by the age of ten, when they reach a length of 3 m for males, 2-2.5 m for females. The female lays from 20 to 85 eggs (50 on average). Both parents guard the clutch for 3 months. The hatched cubs make chirping sounds, and at this signal the mother breaks the nest. Parents sometimes take the eggs in their mouth and squeeze them between the tongue and palate to help the offspring free themselves. Then the female takes the crocodiles to the water or carries them in her mouth. The cubs that have just hatched from eggs have a length of about 28 cm, by the end of the first year of life they reach 60 cm, by two years - 90 cm, at 5 years - 1.7 m, at 10 years - 2.3 m and at 20 years - 3.75 m. Life expectancy is more than 50 years.