Abstract
DURING a recent visit to Cocos Islands Mr. Ross showed me the skull of a crocodile of small size which had appeared about a year previously on the islands. It was first seen by a native Cocosian, who reported that he had seen something between a lizard and a log of wood in the sea. It then reappeared upon another island and destroyed a number of ducks, and was eventually shot by Mr. Ross. The distance from Java, the nearest land, is fully 700 miles. It is remarkable that this animal should have swum so far, and managed eventually to strike this small patch of land in the middle of the ocean. I do not know another record of a big reptile travelling so far. Mr. Ross tells me that bamboo-rafts sometimes drift to Cocos, and perhaps it managed to help itself along on one of these.
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RIDLEY, H. Occurrence of a Crocodile on Cocos Islands. Nature 42, 457 (1890). https://doi.org/10.1038/042457c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/042457c0
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