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Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)

node · earth · Mara River and Lake Victoria basin

A large ambush predator resident in the Mara River whose pools concentrate crocodiles at the habitual crossing points. Crocodiles are the visible cause of death at crossings, but the quantified mortality work shows that most carcasses entering the river come from drowning and trampling in the crush rather than from predation, and that crocodile and vulture consumption removes only part of the resulting biomass. Globally the species is assessed Least Concern, though that assessment dates to 1996 and is old enough that it should be treated as stale rather than current.

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Evidence · 2
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 1
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 33 blocks · 2 evidence · 31 related

  1. Story
  2. A large ambush predator resident in the Mara River whose pools concentrate crocodiles at the habitual crossing points. Crocodiles are the visible cause of death at crossings, but the quantified mortality work shows that most carcasses entering the river come from drowning and trampling in the crush rather than from predation, and that crocodile and vulture consumption removes only part of the resulting biomass. Globally the species is assessed Least Concern, though that assessment dates to 1996 and is old enough that it should be treated as stale rather than current.
  3. Knowledge
  4. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
  5. Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)
  6. Connections
  7. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
  8. The Mara River crossings
  9. Serengeti–Mara Rainfall Gradient
  10. Thomson's Gazelle (Eudorcas thomsonii)
  11. Western Corridor and Grumeti Reserves
  12. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
  13. Serengeti National Park
  14. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
  15. Mara River
  16. Plains Zebra (Equus quagga)
  17. Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)
  18. Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
  19. Serengeti Biodiversity Programme
  20. Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem
  21. The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million
  22. Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population
  23. The Mara–Loita migration collapses by about 81%
  24. Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core
  25. The rut
  26. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
  27. The herds cross the Grumeti River in the western corridor
  28. The Mara River crossings
  29. TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest
  30. AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested
  31. Evidence
  32. An average of about 6,250 wildebeest carcasses and 1,100 tonnes of biomass enter the Mara River annually, with mass drownings in at least 13 of 15 monitored years, forming a major nutrient subsidy to the river food web
  33. Global conservation status for the species involved, and the caveat that global Least Concern status does not describe the risk to the migratory behaviour itself
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Observed changes · 0

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