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Saltwater crocodile
The saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'') is also widely known by the common names, estuarine or Indo-Pacific crocodile, more rarely or informally referred to as the saltie, marine or sea-going crocodile. This species is the largest of all living reptiles, as well as the largest terrestrial and riparian predator in the world. The males of this species can reach sizes up to and weigh up to .〔〔 However, an adult male saltwater crocodile is generally between in length and weighs , rarely growing larger.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Our Animals – Reptiles – Crocodilians – Saltwater Crocodile )〕 Females are much smaller and often do not surpass . As its name implies, this species of crocodile can live in salt water, but usually resides in mangrove swamps, estuaries, deltas, lagoons, and lower stretches of rivers. They have the broadest distribution of any modern crocodile, ranging from the eastern coast of India, throughout most of Southeast Asia, and northern Australia.
The saltwater crocodile is a formidable and opportunistic hypercarnivorous, apex, ambush predator. It is capable of taking almost any animal that enters its territory, including fish, crustaceans, reptiles, birds, mammals, including other predators, and humans. Due to their size and distribution, saltwater crocodiles are the most dangerous extant crocodilian to humans.〔〔
== Taxonomy and evolution ==
''Crocodylus porosus'' is believed to have a direct link to similar crocodilians that inhabited the shorelines of the supercontinent Gondwana (which included what is now the Australian continent) as long ago as 98 million years and were survivors of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Fossils of Isisfordia, discovered in outback western Queensland (once a vast inland sea) though smaller in size, show attributes of direct lineage to ''Crocodylus porosus'', suggesting it occupied a similar habitat, with vertebrae indicating it shared the ability to death roll during feeding. Incomplete fossil records make it difficult to accurately trace the emergence of the species. The genome was fully sequenced in 2007. The earliest fossil evidence of the species dates to around 4.0-4.5 million years ago and no subspecies are known. Scientists estimate that ''C. porosus'' is an ancient species that could have diverged from 12 to 6 million years ago.〔〔Molnar, R. E. (1979). "''Crocodylus porosus'' from the Pliocene Allingham formation of North Queensland. Results of the Ray E. Lemley expeditions, part 5". ''Memoirs Of The Queensland Museum'' 19:357–365〕 Genetic research has unsurprisingly indicated that the saltwater crocodile is related relatively closely to other living species of Asian crocodile, although some ambiguity exist over what assemblage it could be considered part of based on variable genetic results. Other relatively broad-snouted species such as Mugger (''C. palustris'') and Siamese crocodiles (''C. siamensis'') seem to be the most likely candidates to bear the closest relation among living species.〔Brochu, C. A. (2000). "Congruence between physiology, phylogenetics and the fossil record on crocodylian historical biogeography", pp. 9-28 in Grigg, G. C., Seebacher, F. & Franklin, C. E. (eds.) ''Crocodilian Biology and Evolution''. Surry Beatty & Sons (Chipping Norton, Aus.), .〕
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