page_title: Saltwater crocodile
section_title: Taxonomy and evolution
hierarchical_section_title: Saltwater crocodile / Taxonomy and evolution
caption_attribution_description: English: Sweetheart the crocodile at Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, Australia
context_page_description: The saltwater crocodile is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats and brackish wetlands from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaic region to northern Australia and Micronesia. It has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 1996. It was hunted for its skin throughout its range up to the 1970s, and is threatened by illegal killing and habitat loss. It is regarded as dangerous for people who share the same environment.
  The saltwater crocodile is the largest living reptile and crocodilian known to science. Males grow to a length of up to 6 m, rarely exceeding 6.3 m or a weight of 1,000–1,300 kg. Females are much smaller and rarely surpass 3 m.
  It is also known as the estuarine crocodile, Indo-Pacific crocodile, marine crocodile, sea crocodile or informally as saltie.
  The saltwater crocodile is a large and opportunistic hypercarnivorous apex predator. It ambushes most of its prey and then drowns or swallows it whole.
context_section_description: Crocodilus porosus was the scientific name proposed by Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider who described a zoological specimen in 1801. In the 19th and 20th centuries, several saltwater crocodile specimens were described with the following names:
  Crocodilus biporcatus proposed by Georges Cuvier in 1807 were 23 saltwater crocodile specimens from India, Java and Timor.
  Crocodilus biporcatus raninus proposed by Salomon Müller and Hermann Schlegel in 1844 was a crocodile from Borneo.
  Crocodylus porosus australis proposed by Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala in 1953 was a specimen from Australia.
  Crocodylus pethericki proposed by Richard Wells and C. Ross Wellington in 1985 was a large-bodied, relatively large-headed and short-tailed crocodile specimen collected in 1979 in the Finnis River, Northern Territory. This purported species was later considered to be a misinterpretation of the physiological changes that very large male crocodiles undergo. However, Wells and Wellington's assertion that the Australian saltwater crocodiles may be distinctive enough from northern Asian saltwater crocodiles to warrant subspecies status, as could raninus from other Asian saltwater crocodiles, has been considered to possibly bear validity.
  Currently, the saltwater crocodile is considered a monotypic species. However, based largely on morphological variability, it is thought possible that the taxon C. porosus comprises a species complex. Borneo crocodile C. raninus specimens can reliably be distinguished both from saltwater and Siamese crocodiles (C. siamensis) on the basis of the number ventral scales and on the presence of four postoccipital scutes, which are often absent in true saltwater crocodiles.
caption: Sweetheart, a saltwater crocodile from Finnis River in northern Australia proposed as Crocodilus pethericki in 1985
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