World's Largest Crocodile - Facts Analysis

Story:

The people in a village on the Niger River in Africa were losing fellow villagers at such a rapid rate, that they had to call in the Army to hunt down the culprit. A 22 foot, 2500 pound Crocodile. That would make the hairs of even Troy Landry’s neck stand up.

Analysis:

This picture showing a group of villagers sitting behind a huge crocodile started circulating on various social networking sites early this early this year. The story that comes with the picture claims that this is the world’s largest crocodile, measuring 22 foot and weighing 2500 pound. The story also claims that the crocodile was hunted down by Army in a village near Niger River in Africa after it killed many villagers. The story, however, is a certain hoax.

The picture was first shared on Reddit, and it started circulating rapidly since then. The original source of the picture explains the complete story about this huge crocodile. The crocodile was found in extreme north of Zimbabwe, on the border of Mozambique and is reported to have attacked and killed a number of fully grown cows. It was shot and killed by an animal control officer. Circumstances did not allow the measurement of this beast, but several guestimates put it to be around 15-16 feet, considering a 25 mm cigarette filter lying slightly in the foreground. The crocodile looks much bigger in the picture because of “forced perspective“. The picture was taken with the villages seated much farther from the crocodile, but it appears as if they are close to the crocodile, giving it a beast look. See below similar pictures using this feature of forced perspective.

According to Wikipedia, the world’s largest crocodile was captured by a group of villagers in Philippines last year. It measured 20.2 feet and weighed 1,075 kilograms.This beast, nicknamed as “Lolong”, was a possible man-eater and is kept alive as an attraction in a local zoo in Philippines. The video below shows the world’s largest crocodile caught in Philippines.

However, Guinness also accepted a claim that a 23 ft giant male saltwater crocodile weighing 2,000 kg lives within Bhitarkanika Park in the state of Orissa, India, but because of the difficulty to capture such a large monster, the accuracy of the measurement is yet to be verified.