Crocodile Trivia
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49 free Crocodile trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Crocodiles have barely changed in 200 million years, and this quiz explains why they never needed to. It covers how to tell a true crocodile from an alligator, the saltwater crocodile's record-breaking bite, why a crocodile cannot stick out its tongue, how the temperature of the nest decides whether hatchlings are male or female, and how a mother carries her babies to the water in her mouth. There are questions on the famous individuals too: Lolong, the 6.17-metre giant measured in the Philippines; Gustave, the Burundian man-eater; Mr Freshie, rescued by the Irwins and thought to have lived past 120; and Yai, the hybrid that grew to 1,200 kg on a Thai farm. The set finishes with crocodiles in human culture, from the Egyptian god Sobek and the fable of crocodile tears to the Lacoste logo and Steve Irwin. Easy questions ask which crocodile is biggest and where they live; hard ones want bite-force figures, incubation temperatures and Greek etymology. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the crocodile family and the species and individuals involved, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Try our Alligators quiz next to see how well you know the other side of the family.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which is the largest living species of crocodile, and the largest living reptile?
The saltwater
The saltwater crocodile. Males can pass 6 metres and a tonne, and because the species makes long sea journeys it has spread from eastern India across Southeast Asia to northern Australia.
Q 02Compared with an alligator's, a crocodile's snout is generally what shape?
V-shaped and narrower
V-shaped and narrower. Alligators and caimans have the broad, U-shaped snout instead, which makes the head the quickest way to tell the two families apart from a riverbank.
Q 03When a crocodile shuts its mouth, what stays on show that an alligator's closed jaws would hide?
Its lower teeth
Its lower teeth. A crocodile's jaws are about the same width, so the lower teeth sit outside the upper jaw, led by a large fourth tooth in a notch; an alligator's slot into sockets out of sight.
Q 04The armour plates along a crocodile's back are called what?
Osteoderms
Osteoderms. These bony plates are laced with blood vessels that help a basking crocodile soak up heat, and they may bank calcium for eggshells.
Q 05Before Greeks applied it to Egypt's river giants, the word krokodilos named which small animal?
A lizard
A lizard. Herodotus wrote that Ionian Greeks named the Egyptian giants after the lizards that lived in their stone walls back home; beyond that, the word's origin is unknown.
Q 06What is the spinning move a crocodile uses to twist chunks of meat off large prey called?
The death roll
The death roll. Crocodile teeth grip but cannot slice, so the animal clamps on and spins its whole body until a mouthful tears free, sometimes while another holds the carcass still.
Q 07Alligators and crocodiles live side by side in the wild in which US state?
Florida
Florida. Its southern tip is the only place where both live wild: American crocodiles keep to brackish and salty coves at the edge of the alligators' fresh water.
Q 08Molecular studies show crocodiles are more closely related to which group than to alligators?
Gharials
Gharials. DNA places the slender-snouted fish-eaters as the crocodiles' nearest kin, overturning older family trees drawn from anatomy alone.
Q 09Why can't a crocodile stick out its tongue?
It is held down by a membrane
It is held down by a membrane. Behind the fixed tongue, a flap of skin seals the throat, which is how a crocodile can open its jaws underwater without drowning.
Q 10A hatching crocodile breaks its shell with what?
Its egg tooth
Its egg tooth. The hard point on the tip of the snout is toughened skin rather than a real tooth, and it is absorbed back into the body within weeks of hatching.
Q 11Dwarf crocodiles living in Gabon's bat caves have turned which colour, apparently from the guano they wallow in?
Orange
Orange. Researchers think the alkaline bat droppings that the cave crocodiles sit in slowly eat away at their skin, staining Africa's smallest crocodile a vivid orange.
Q 12Why are a crocodile's eyes, ears and nostrils set on top of its head?
To lurk almost fully submerged
To lurk almost fully submerged. When the crocodile dives right under, its nostrils shut tight.
Q 13Lolong, the longest crocodile ever captured alive at 6.17 m, was caught in which country in 2011?
Philippines
The Philippines. Villagers in Bunawan hunted him for three weeks after he was suspected of killing a fisherman, and it took about 100 people to haul him ashore; he died in captivity in 2013.
Q 21Herodotus's tale of a bird picking leeches from crocodiles' mouths is traditionally pinned on which species?
Egyptian plover
The Egyptian plover. It is still nicknamed the crocodile bird, yet no one has documented it cleaning any crocodile's teeth, so the partnership is most likely a fable.
Q 22In Kipling's Just So Stories, a crocodile seizes which curious young animal by the nose and stretches it?
An elephant
An elephant. The Elephant's Child asks what the crocodile has for dinner, is caught by his stubby nose, and the tug-of-war that follows pulls it out into the first trunk.
Q 23Which crocodile weakness lets handlers subdue one with tape or a large rubber band?
Very weak jaw-opening muscles
Q 14What happens when an adult crocodile loses one of its teeth?
A new tooth grows in
A new tooth grows in. A replacement waits beside each working tooth, so lost ones are quickly made good, and one crocodile may get through thousands of teeth in its lifetime.
Q 15Outside the crocodilian order, which living animals are crocodiles' closest relatives?
Birds
Birds. Crocodilians and birds are the last living archosaurs, the 'ruling reptiles' that also included the dinosaurs, so a crocodile is nearer kin to a pigeon than to a snake.
Q 16Crocodiles have no sweat glands, so how do they shed heat?
Through their open mouths
Through their open mouths. The habit is called mouth gaping and it works much as panting does for a dog, which is why basking crocodiles so often lie with their jaws wide open.
Q 17What shape are a crocodile's pupils?
Vertical slits
Vertical slits. Like a cat's, they narrow to shield the eye in daylight and open wide after dark, when crocodiles do most of their hunting.
Q 18The black speckles on a crocodile's jaws are sensory pits that can detect what?
A single drop hitting the water
A single drop hitting the water. The pits pick up the faintest ripples at the surface, letting a crocodile strike at prey or sense an intruder even in total darkness.
Q 19In J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, what had the crocodile that stalks Captain Hook swallowed?
A ticking clock
A ticking clock. Having eaten Hook's severed hand, the crocodile trails him for the rest, and the tick from its belly is the only warning the captain gets before it arrives.
Q 20Stones swallowed by crocodiles, possibly as ballast or to crush food, are called what?
Gastroliths
Gastroliths, or 'stomach stones'. Seals and sea lions swallow them as well, and plant-eating birds rely on swallowed grit to grind their food.
Very weak jaw-opening muscles. Nearly all of the jaw muscle is built for clamping shut, so a band cut from a car inner tube is enough to hold a crocodile's mouth closed.
Q 24By 2012 estimates, the extinct giant crocodilian Deinosuchus bit nearly twice as hard as which dinosaur?
Tyrannosaurus rex
Tyrannosaurus rex. Scaling up from bites measured on living crocodilians, researchers put an 11-metre Deinosuchus at about 23,100 pounds of force, against a top estimate near 12,800 for the dinosaur.
Q 25Australian freshwater crocodiles hold the crocodile land speed record thanks to which unlikely gait?
Galloping
Galloping. A bounding freshwater crocodile has been clocked at just over 17 km/h for a few dozen metres; most species flee with a slithering 'belly run' instead.
Q 26Three tagged crocodiles flown by helicopter up to 411 km along Australia's coast did what?
Returned to their original homes
Returned to their original homes. Satellite tags showed all three swimming back, the farthest-moved rounding Cape York in 20 days, so simply moving a problem crocodile may not keep it away.
Q 27Steve Irwin, TV's Crocodile Hunter, grew up at which Queensland wildlife park opened by his parents?
Australia Zoo
Australia Zoo. Bob and Lyn Irwin opened it in 1970 as a small reptile park at Beerwah, and their son Steve later took it over and gave it the name it has today.
Q 28Before bellowing, a male crocodile sends out a rumble too low to hear that makes the water around him do what?
Appear to 'dance'
Appear to 'dance'. The deep vibrations set the water's surface shivering, and they carry a long way to attract females and warn off rival males.
Q 29What prompts a mother crocodile to dig open her buried nest?
Chirps from the eggs
Chirps from the eggs. The babies start calling inside the shell when they are ready to hatch, and the sound is the mother's cue to scrape the nest open and help them out.
Q 30What determines the sex of crocodile hatchlings?
Nest temperature
Nest temperature. Crocodile embryos have no sex chromosomes: nests at around 32 °C hatch mostly males, while cooler ones produce mostly females.