7 Largest Crocodiles Ever Recorded - 12 Abnormally Large Animals That Actually Exist

Habitat. American crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus) are a shy and reclusive species. They live in coastal areas throughout the Caribbean, and occur at the northern end of their range in south Florida. They live in brackish or saltwater areas, and can be found in ponds, coves, and creeks in mangrove swamps.

The American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) lives in several places within the Americas, including Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and south Florida. The American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) is also found in south Florida, among other places.

The “true crocodiles” (family Crocodylidae) occur in most of Africa south of the Sahara, Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, the East Indies, northern Australia, Mexico and Central America, the West Indies, and northern South America.

Each year, hundreds of deadly attacks are attributed to the Nile crocodile in Sub-Saharan Africa. Attacks by saltwater crocodiles often occur in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands.

Among living animals, the term megafauna is most commonly used for the largest extant terrestrial mammals, which includes (but is not limited to) elephants, giraffes, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, and large bovines.

To maintain their higher body temperatures, warm-blooded mammals spend about 10 times more energy than cold-blooded reptiles do on their metabolisms. This is energy that a mammal can't devote to increasing its body size.

They found that body size tends to increase as animals develop more specialized diets confined to particular habitats. Moreover, the origination of larger sizes coincided with periods of global cooling, and came at the cost of increased extinction risk.

The largest animal known ever to have lived is confirmed to be the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). The maximum recorded weight was 190 tonnes for a specimen measuring 27.6 metres (91 ft), whereas longer ones, up to 33.6 metres (110 ft), have been recorded but not weighed.