The cow says “Moo”, the donkey says “Eeeeeee” and the dog says “Woof”. For many animals, we know immediately what “language” they speak. But how do crocodiles actually communicate? To us, these animals seem rather silent. But crocodiles also want to communicate with each other. Researchers have now been able to find out how they can do this.
More specifically, the experts looked at the “love language” in crocodiles. So they wanted to know how males and females “talk” to each other when they want to attract each other’s attention. One thing is clear: crocodiles don’t bark, don’t meow or crow. They have their very own “language”.
Crocodiles talk
The result: When males want to impress a female, they like to squirt water from their noses. They also produce bubbles and hissing noises. What we would find funny or sometimes even scary, but the female crocodile seems to like it.
If the females respond to the bubbling, they do not do so by hissing themselves. They growl much more at the males. But that shouldn’t scare them away: “It’s supposed to be something like a love song,” say the researchers. The growl is also used to keep enemies away from the nests.
Crocodile dictionary
By the way, some crocodiles rely heavily on their heads: “To communicate, they hit the water with their heads – you can imagine it like playing the drums,” say the researchers.
And how were these experts able to find out all this? Cameras were installed in a zoo for a year to closely observe the crocodiles. But the researchers want to find out a lot more about the language of these animals. You want to write your own “crocodile dictionary”.