Saltwater crocodile versus great white shark. Crocodiles vs sharks Crocodile ate a shark

Perhaps some of you have repeatedly wondered: who is stronger, a saltwater crocodile or a great white shark?

If on the distant islands of Malaysia, off the northern coast of Australia or in any other places where these animals intersected with each other historically, the answer to this question was determined precisely, then in our time this question is considered more than ambiguous by many people.

The crocodile has always personified power, strength and fearlessness among ancient peoples. These reptiles were feared, respected, worshiped and given gifts. Thus, the peoples of Africa have long had a saying: “If you raise your hand to a crocodile, then remember that there will be a fight that you cannot stand.” In the Philippines, local tribes seriously believed that “crocodiles are under a spell and therefore no one can kill them,” and in ancient China the power of crocodiles was compared to a typhoon or other major natural disasters. However, due to myths leaking from everywhere, due to feature films and “documentary” films and other baseless lies and PR that began in the 1950s, in our time many people prefer sharks.

Before we try to analyze the real abilities and combat potential of a crocodile and a shark, I will analyze some of the mistakes people make when analyzing this issue and will mention many of the physical characteristics of animals that are often incorrectly interpreted in this kind of analysis. Of course, it will be based on real facts known about these animals and recorded in reliable sources, and not subjective speculation:

1) A big difference in size?

In other words, a white shark is actually no larger than a saltwater crocodile. Exactly the other way around. In RuNet there is a lot of information about 8...9...12 meter sharks or crocodiles. But all this, of course, is nothing more than an exaggeration or old, unverifiable data.

The record size of the white shark, which does not raise any questions in terms of reliability, is 6.1 m, the estimated mass is about 1900 kg (or rather even about 2200 kg, if you use the formula derived based on regression from Timothy C. Tricas and John E. McCosker - This shark was caught in the waters of Prince Edward Island in 1988. Also in the Guinness Book of Records there is data on the capture of a shark of the same length, but with a monstrous body girth of 5.64 m. It is curious that this fish was killed by a blow from a ship's shovel with 3 meter dinghy.
On average, adult white sharks reach approximately 4.3-4.9 meters in length and weigh around 680-1100 kg. Females are noticeably larger than males. Sharks reach sexual maturity at almost their maximum individual length, and growth rates that persist throughout their lives no longer allow them to reach noticeably larger sizes.

According to the book "Crocodiles of Australia" by Grahame Webb and S. Charlie Manolis, the usual size of a fully grown male saltwater crocodile is 4.6-5.2 m, and a fully grown female is 3.1-3.4 m. The weight of male crocodiles of this length can be estimated at approximately 450-680 kg. Crocodiles do not grow throughout their lives, but after reaching sexual maturity, their active growth does not stop and continues for some time.
The largest saltwater crocodile considered reliable by Adam Britton was measured (or rather, not he himself was measured, but his dried skin and skull) in Papua New Guinea in 1983. When put together, the crocodile's skin and skull were 6.2 meters long, although since this method of measurement underestimates the length of a living crocodile, the animal was 6.3 meters long in life, according to Adam Britton (http://crocodilian.com/cnhc /cbd-faq-q2.htm), or even 6.7 meters, as suggested by Webb and Manolis in the book "Australian Crocodiles". The mass of this crocodile, accordingly, could be approximately from 1.3 to 1.6 tons.
However, the record skull of a saltwater crocodile, originating from Cambodia and kept in the Paris Museum, indicates that the length of this animal during life was even greater than that of the previous specimen, and was about 6.84 m, and its weight was more than 1.6 tons. The 7 meters of length originally indicated for this specimen (with an estimated mass of about 1.8 tons) is also possible with this skull length, but has not been confirmed.

So, there is no monstrous discrepancy in size in favor of either side here. Here one should take into account the fact that a shark, being a completely aquatic animal, has a body density approximately equal to the density of water, and thus may well be heavier than a crocodile even with the same volume and linear dimensions.
Statements like “a crocodile of the same size will have more weight due to the bone skeleton” and other nonsense cited by such narrow-minded people as the author of the article from akully.ru, of course, should simply be ignored. The skeleton makes up a relatively small percentage of the total body mass in vertebrates: in humans, for example, it occupies only 16-18% of the total body mass, despite the fact that the dried and defatted skeleton, i.e. deprived of water and organic substances (also included in the composition of cartilage in sharks), it already weighs half as much.

2) Real bite force of both animals.

You can often find information about the supposedly powerful jaws of a white shark. They say that even the jaw strength of crocodiles exceeds it and makes the white shark the “new record holder”!

In fact, no normal measurements of the bite force of a white shark have been made at this time. Except that Brady Barr got a figure of 303 kg when measuring the bite force of ~500 kg of a shark attacking the bait.
A hypothetical calculation of the bite force of a white shark is in turn given in S. Wroe, D. R. Huber, M. Lowry, C. McHenry, K. Moreno, P. Clausen, T. L. Ferrara, E. Cunningham, M. N. Dean and A. P. Summers, “Three- dimensional computer analysis of white shark jaw mechanics: how hard can a great white bite?"
The maximum number obtained is 18216 N, i.e. ~1800 kg. However, the record individual was mistakenly chosen to be a shark once caught in Cuba, which in fact turned out to be much smaller than was reported: well, not 6.4 m in length and not 3324 kg in weight. Experts who assessed the size of this individual from the photo estimated it to be only 5 meters. If you take a white shark with a third of its weight - i.e. close to the record 2 tons, then the bite force estimated by this method will already be noticeably lower - in the region of 13400 N or ~ 1340 kg. In principle, the data on bite force obtained by Vroe and co-authors for the white shark are consistent with real measurements of bite force in other species of sharks, and can be considered relatively reliable (probably, this is almost the only normally performed calculation of bite force using the 3D modeling method among those that I know).

Regarding the saltwater crocodile, Gregory M. Erickson, Paul M. Gignac, Scott J. Steppan, A. Kristopher Lappin, Kent A. Vliet, “Insights into the Ecology and Evolutionary Success of Crocodilians Revealed through Bite-Force and Tooth -Pressure Experimentation" for a 1308 kg individual, the bite force is calculated to be approximately 3.5 tons (34424 N). This number is much higher than the maximum bite force estimate of ~1800 kg for the non-existent 3324 kg shark. At the same time, a 4.49-meter saltwater crocodile, whose bite force was not calculated, but measured in practice by Erickson et al., bit the sensor with a force of slightly more than 1600 kg. And the 5-5.5 m Nile crocodiles gave out as much as 2.2 tons, just slightly biting the force sensor that Brady Barr stuffed into its mouth! Even more high value Adam Britton obtained the bite force relative to the size of the animal by measuring the bite force of a 4.5-meter saltwater crocodile from a crocodile farm - he got about 2 tons.

It is curious that if we compare the measurements from Erickson and the calculations from Vroe, a Siamese crocodile weighing 87 kg and a white shark weighing 423 kg have the same bite force of 4577 N or 467 kg. But there is one problem with these methods: Vroe et al. calculated the bilateral shark bite, i.e. pressure on both sides of the jaws. While Erickson et al., Brady Barr and Adam Britton measured unilateral pressure from crocodile bites—i.e. on one side of the jaws. Typically, bilateral bite force in animals is twice that of unilateral bite force, but the jaw muscles (M. adductor group) in crocodiles effectively distribute the load, resulting in bilateral bite force becoming only 50% stronger than unilateral bite force.

So, the clenching force of the jaws of crocodiles is undoubtedly and incomparably higher than that of sharks. Even if sharks are significantly heavier than crocodiles, their jaw muscles are not strong enough to generate this kind of load. Actually, in terms of jaw compression force, crocodiles are relative (i.e. per unit mass, here only some lizards, such as teiids, and “bull frogs”, such as slingshots, are comparable to them) and absolute (here they can be argued with, perhaps killer whales) are the champions among all modern vertebrates. Neither a piranha nor a hyena clenches its jaws with such force as an adult crocodile (in the case of a piranha, of course, hypothetically) of the same weight.

3) Who is the more “fierce” predator?

Now I will write the same thing that shark advocates are trying to convey to people:
All shark species kill on average only about 9 people per year, according to global attack statistics dating back to 2000 (according to the GSAF project. Arithmetic average of fatal attacks). You are much more likely to die if you encounter a dog or even a cow than if you are attacked by a shark. Moreover, even if we talk about the mortality rate relative to total number attacks, then sharks (including if you look at separate statistics on white sharks) are not at all superior to large and aggressive breeds of dogs.

What about crocodiles? Crocodiles in general are more than 100 times more dangerous than all shark species combined. Encounters with crocodiles end tragically for about 1,000 people every year.
If you can somehow fight off a shark, then it is almost impossible to escape from the rapid attack of a crocodile. This is confirmed by statistics. The chance of surviving a shark attack is estimated at 86%, and only 32% for a crocodile attack, despite the fact that the length of the attacking reptiles often does not exceed 2 or 3 meters, or the attack is only defensive/territorial/opportunistic in nature.

Of course, crocodiles are more dangerous for people than sharks. But what does this have to do with “our” encounter between a crocodile and a shark?

It seems that it has never been observed among other predators that such relatively small and weak prey was fought off in battle, as is the case with sharks!
And there is no need to say that people “are not considered prey by sharks” - white sharks are opportunistic predators (see, for example, http://sharkmans-world.eu/research/carcharodon2.pdf), willingly eating anything available to them. them meat. What has not been found in the stomachs of white sharks: sea turtles swallowed whole, three large pieces of sunfish, whale shark meat, small sharks, sea otters, seabirds, herring, sardines, bivalves, crabs and even completely inedible objects - they Literally everything is eaten. They are not “narrow specialists in pinniped nutrition.” Examination of the stomach contents shows that white sharks of any size are primarily ichthyophages (i.e. fish eaters). Secondly, they also live in regions (for example, the Mediterranean Sea) where there are no or almost no pinnipeds. White sharks do not have any selective preference for higher-calorie foods, which was even demonstrated experimentally using baits. So why do white sharks often abandon people? After all, humans are not some kind of gastronomic exception for them, especially compared to crabs, bivalves, sea urchins and small fish, eaten by even the largest sharks. Oddly enough (and I say this in all seriousness, based on the available facts), this is why a person is able to offer physical resistance to a shark. Sharks simply do not tend to suppress the resistance of prey - young elephant seals, sea ​​lions and baby whales (rare prey for white sharks), the sharks immobilize them with bites on the limbs and wait at a safe distance until the marine mammal, unable to swim away and bleeding, eventually drowns. Sometimes the process of killing such prey, which can injure a shark, can last for several tens of minutes, if not several hours.
When a white shark realizes that a 70 kg swimmer is resisting more actively than almost 50 kg of a baby seal (which can only fight off with its teeth, which are not always able to reach the muzzle of the shark that grabbed the seal pup), it gets scared and uses exactly the same tactics as against more dangerous animals . During this time, the person is pulled out of the water, or he himself gets to the shore, since attacks usually occur in the coastal zone. A white shark is simply physically incapable of killing a person instantly, since its jaws are poorly suited for “working” with bones - relatively quickly it can only damage soft tissues with them (and only because of the difference in size with the victim and the thinness of human skin) .
This is the whole secret of the low fatality of shark attacks. Other versions do not stand up to criticism. White sharks are also not known to protect their territory, offspring, or even food sources.

With crocodiles it is a completely different story. Unlike sharks, they are forced to hold their prey in their teeth, despite its resistance: even with a broken leg, large and strong ungulates are able to get to the shore, where even on “three legs” they retain a significant advantage over crocodiles in terms of speed. This is especially true when attacking a victim in shallow water, which is often the practice of crocodiles living in isolated reservoirs or shallow swamps. Crocodiles are forced to endure and, moreover, even suppress any resistance that arises from the victim. They usually do this by vigorous shaking and spinning, often plunging their prey underwater. The only real chance to escape from a crocodile is to poke it right in the eye without being confused, which will cause a defensive reflex and force the predator to unclench its jaws. Shifting the valve in the crocodile's throat can also help, preventing it from choking when underwater with its mouth open. In such a situation, the victim gets those very seconds during which he can get out of the water before being attacked again. Although, it doesn’t always work. But it is practically useless to fight crocodiles: surprisingly, even such strong, resourceful and well-armed animals as big cats became victims of the destructive persistence of these reptiles! There are many known cases when people carrying bladed weapons were forced to amputate a limb grabbed by a crocodile, which it was useless to beat in the hope of forcing it to unclench its jaws.
Real crocodiles are also characterized by fierce fights with representatives of their own species, sometimes ending in the death of one of the opponents. Especially when it comes to territorial male saltwater crocodiles - the most aggressive and ferocious representatives of their family. They tirelessly patrol their territorial areas and are sometimes capable of attacking even an animal that is not a crocodile for no reason. This behavior is most clearly expressed during the breeding season - there are known cases when crocodiles, irritated by noise, tried to attack helicopters flying at low altitude.

So, it is the crocodile that is that “fierce” predator, able to kill large prey and suppress its resistance in battle, and not the frankly non-conflict shark.

Now that we have dealt with the main misconceptions and examined many important physical aspects of animals, we can begin a more detailed assessment of their combat capabilities, reasons and places of possible meeting. This part analyzes primarily the physical potential of animals, without any emphasis on their natural behavior.

1) Locations and causes of the collision:

The natural habitat of many sharks - seas and oceans - is not a hindrance for crocodiles, contrary to the common misconception that "crocodiles live only in fresh water bodies." In general, true crocodiles evolved in brackish waters: their ancestors lived in estuaries, estuaries, mangroves, and even on sea coasts. Actually, all modern true crocodiles and gharials have salt glands and are equally adapted to being in brackish water. But only some species can be considered partially "marine". Yes, exactly “partially”: they are not able to drink salt water and when in the sea they get it from food, while extremely reducing moisture consumption due to the keratinization of the oral cavity and changes in the concentration of excretory products. In particular, saltwater crocodiles, while hunting or searching for new territories, can swim into the open sea, where they may encounter sharks. Recently, it has even been documented that crocodiles deliberately dive underwater at a considerable distance from the shore. The purpose of this kind of action is not clear at the moment, but the most logical option seems to be hunting large aquatic animals. Great white sharks are pelagic fish that prefer cool waters away from crocodiles. But still, being sluggish opportunistic predators, sometimes they look for food in warm coastal waters.

Adult male saltwater crocodiles tend to hunt large animals. In addition, as mentioned earlier, they fiercely defend their territory from any kind of intruders. Therefore, knowing the aggression and predatory nature of the crocodile, it is not difficult to imagine its accidental or deliberate attack on even a very large white shark.
An attack by a white shark, in turn, is unlikely. This is due to the rather large size of the crocodile and its ability to fend for itself. Perhaps the shark may try to test the crocodile "to the teeth", but given the lightning-fast reaction, the widest viewing angle (about 270 degrees, with small blind spots only behind and in front), flexible spine and sensitive receptors covering the entire body of the crocodile, the reptile can easily protect yourself and at least drive the shark away, making it think twice before trying to approach the crocodile a second time.

2) Musculature and movement of animals:

The streamlined body of the white shark is well suited for swimming: a 3.5-meter shark can reach speeds of up to 40 km/h for short distances, and a 5.5-meter specimen can reach speeds of up to 25 km/h. Surprisingly, the saltwater crocodile is an equally efficient pelagic swimmer as the white shark, having a comparable hydrodynamic efficiency coefficient. This means that crocodiles spend no less energy on swimming than sharks. Crocodiles are also capable of developing decent speeds of around 24–32 km/h, and diving to depths of up to 60 meters, which makes them almost as agile swimmers as white sharks. Paradoxically, crocodiles, adapted to a semi-aquatic lifestyle, have more effective buoyancy regulators than sharks: sharks have neutral buoyancy, maintained by fat in the liver, and constantly expend effort to maintain it, while thanks to the lungs moving air inside themselves and moving liver inside the body cavity "hepatic-piston mechanism", in crocodiles buoyancy is positive or negative. This allows reptiles, if desired, to float to the surface, “like a float,” or, conversely, to go to the bottom “like a stone,” without wasting energy on swimming in the water column.

Shark muscles are quite primitive. They are not able to control the force of contraction of the white (i.e., “power”, working in an anaerobic mode) muscles, unlike bony fish and, of course, higher vertebrates. In sharks, white muscle fibers literally work on an “on-off” basis. This means that sharks' muscles, designed for high effort, are always working at their maximum capacity. Red (i.e., “endurance”, working in an aerobic mode) muscle fibers in sharks are responsible only for cruising swimming and other simple movements: yes, it is thanks to them that sharks are constantly in motion and create the illusion of great physical activity. Moreover, the red muscle fibers of large sharks become proportionally slower and weaker compared to those of smaller sharks. Those. Large sharks need to increase the number of red muscles in order to simply move and filter water through their gills. Naturally, to the detriment of the amount of white muscle that provides strength for powerful power throws.
It should also be taken into account that no matter how “calcified” the shark’s cartilaginous skeleton is, by itself it is unable to attach powerful skeletal muscles and withstand high loads without deformation. Therefore, the muscles of even large white sharks themselves are quite weak. The muscle mass of the white shark is approximately 70% of the total body mass of the animal, however, one must take into account the fact that a significant proportion of muscle formations serve these fish not for movement, but for creating support for internal organs: in particular, they have a peculiar an analogue (of course, less effective in terms of protecting internal organs) of ribs.
Large white sharks are able to accumulate relatively greater amounts of lactate in the blood than small white sharks, and are thus somewhat more durable under anaerobic effort (which growth in size is common to all vertebrates). However, relying on anaerobic metabolism and having a smaller amount of oxygen at their disposal (with an increase in linear size, the oxygen-collecting area of ​​​​the gills increases in the square, and the volume requiring oxygen increases in the cube), they recover significantly longer than their small relatives. The accumulation of large amounts of lactic acid can also be dangerous for the shark's body - it is known that many mako sharks and sled sharks, having smaller sizes and similar metabolic rates (hence, less vulnerable to anaerobic lactic acidosis), still die after capture from irreversible metabolic disorders due to active muscle activity.

In large crocodiles, white muscles absolutely predominate. It is attached to strong bones and allows you to generate impressive forces. However, her "rest" takes a large number of time, and therefore crocodiles cannot afford long and very active movement (however, their aerobic metabolism, which is more developed than that of sharks, copes well with cruising swimming, holding prey in the teeth, etc.).
Anaerobic performance in crocodiles is enormous not only due to their large muscle mass (skeletal muscle makes up about 60% of body weight), leaving little room for internal organs, but also due to their unique resistance to the accumulation of lactate in the blood and muscles. Anaerobic metabolism, which quickly uses the “fuel” available to the muscles, gives crocodiles truly phenomenal strength in the first couple of fights!
Large saltwater crocodiles are the champions among all vertebrates in their ability to accumulate relative and absolute amounts of lactate in the blood without harming themselves. Some of the lactic acid is “deposited” in the osteoderms and skull bones, but the main thing is that the crocodiles’ body itself is extremely resistant to pH disturbances. This allows them to fight and maintain muscle tone much longer than sharks, and also reduces the risk of metabolic disorders dangerous to the body due to an excess of lactic acid. Thus, large saltwater crocodiles are capable of actively fighting for more than 2 hours, and some particularly large individuals, as is known, remained active even after 6 hours of struggle, which significantly exceeds the time required to completely exhaust any, even the largest white shark.

In underwater combat, maneuverability is also very important, in which the saltwater crocodile is also superior to the white shark. Crocodiles have a spine that is very flexible in the vertical and horizontal directions (it is known that a crocodile is able to bend so as to be able to bite itself almost at the very base of the tail), which attaches ungrouped muscles that allow crocodiles to easily turn around and grab an enemy or victim , located directly behind your back. The cartilaginous spine of a white shark itself is quite flexible. But the muscles attached to it are rather poorly differentiated and not very strong. In addition, a shark is somewhat thicker than a crocodile and has neutral buoyancy, which means it requires more space and more physical effort to turn around.

Therefore, the crocodile will turn and turn around faster, making sharper zigzag movements than the shark, which, in turn, only has the ability to swim away from the crocodile due to its high speed. The saltwater crocodile's powerful neck and strong tail will allow it to physically control its opponent if it grabs it with its jaws. In general, the white shark is noticeably inferior to the saltwater crocodile in terms of physical strength, agility and endurance.

3) Sense organs:

The shark's lateral line allows it to detect objects at very great distances. The same function is performed by sensory receptors located throughout the crocodile’s body. The shark has a good sense of smell, but crocodiles' receptors are also able to determine the chemical composition of water, i.e. They also “smell”.
It is worth noting that at close range, the shark’s developed sensory organs can disorient its owner, while the crocodile’s numerous receptors allow it to determine the exact distance to the approaching target.
A saltwater crocodile has a significantly more developed reaction than a shark. I think the following observation will be indicative:
“What makes a crocodile a terrible opponent is its explosive power and monstrous jaws. A zoologist from Sri Lanka, Deraniyagala, observed how an adult langur, a rather large monkey, who had escaped from a cage, tried to jump over a pool where a three-meter crocodile lay at the bottom. The motionless, sleepy reptile, having jumped half out of water, grabbed the monkey in a jump! A squeal, one sip, and the monkey was gone. Five years in a cramped pool had no effect on the crocodile’s mobility..."
http://aquaria2.ru/node/8480 (by the way, this is quite a good article for the Russian-language Internet, mentioning facts that were discovered and analyzed in detail only some time later.)
Or, for example, this video where a crocodile reacted to a shark when it came very close: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJHW9ilhwLk (0:07).
Cott (1961) gives two examples of the phenomenal reaction speed of crocodiles: in one case, a young Nile crocodile caught a dragonfly flying over the water by the wing, and in another, a larger crocodile grabbed one that had jumped over the water. tiger fish right in the air.

4) Armament:

It was previously described that the jaws of a crocodile are more than three times more powerful than those of a shark. Even if you compare the bilateral bite force of a shark with the unilateral bite force of a crocodile (the bilateral bite force of a crocodile, in turn, should be 50% stronger). Moreover, the pressure at the tip of the jaws in crocodiles is 2/3 of the pressure at the base, and in sharks it is 1/2. Those. the latter lose more jaw force from the base to the tip of the jaws, despite shorter muzzles (see data from previously mentioned works on bite force). Most likely, this is due to special muscles located on the crocodile’s skull, absorbing shocks and loads, and effectively distributing the resulting pressure when the jaws are compressed.

But what kind of weapon is powered by the jaw muscles?
The white shark's teeth reach 5 cm in length, are triangular in shape and unevenly jagged along the edges. They have no roots and fall out with relatively little effort, but at the same time they are very numerous. The principle of operation of the jaws of a white shark is comparable to the operation of a hand saw - by shaking its head, the shark saws its prey with its teeth. This is a very energy-consuming tactic, losing some of the effort put into it due to water resistance, but it is quite effective in dismembering a fish or young seal into several pieces suitable for swallowing, or inflicting a bleeding wound on a larger marine mammal. More is not required from the white shark: as mentioned earlier, it is an opportunistic predator, as an adult it feeds on carrion and small animals - mainly fish, and only occasionally (for example, while visiting pinniped rookeries) attacking marine mammals when they are young, sick or injured. It’s not that a healthy sea lion is too large for a white shark (after all, the mass of an adult white shark usually exceeds the mass of adult representatives of most species of eared seals by 4 or 5 times) prey - it is simply unable to keep up with it, while the seal moves around freely and bites the shark on the gills and tail.
Some sources often mention that sharks are supposedly able to bite through the shells of sea turtles with their teeth. In fact, this is mainly attributed to tiger sharks, not white sharks, and nothing like this has ever been observed in practice with living turtles. The shells of dead turtles become soaked in the water and undergo decomposition processes, eventually making them available to sharks. Lemon and tiger sharks, feeding on a fresh turtle carcass, are able to bite off only its flippers, head and tail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3mkTgzWKCQ However, due to the wide mouth of the mouth, a white shark can simply swallow it whole a decent-sized turtle with a carapace length of at least 60 cm.

The saltwater crocodile's teeth are thick, strong and rounded. cross section. They have several small but very sharp edges that help the tooth penetrate the skin, meat and even bones of large animals. The largest tooth in a crocodile's mouth is usually the fourth tooth from the lower jaw, reaching 9.5 cm in length in a 4.8 m individual. It serves to effectively and quickly pierce the skin of the thickest-skinned victims for subsequent dismemberment.
In general, the teeth of crocodiles are adapted primarily to hold onto captured prey. Otherwise, in most cases the victim would simply get out of the water with pieces of meat torn out. But this is not a design flaw: the teeth of the upper and lower jaws of the crocodile are combined with each other in such a way that the largest teeth of one jaw are opposite the smallest teeth of the other, forming a kind of “scissor-like” bite in the middle part of the jaws, allowing the crocodile to bite off a large one if desired. a piece of meat from the victim. Lateral jerks to the sides are also used, as well as the most effective technique - the “deadly rotation”, with the help of which the crocodile literally unscrews what it cannot bite off.
In the tea swamps of Australia, some saltwater crocodiles are known to specialize in feeding on Asian water buffalo, overpowering these large and powerful animals in shallow water.
The following observation by Alfred Brehm about a relative of the saltwater crocodile, the Nile crocodile, will be very revealing:
“He even hunts large mammals: he drags donkeys, horses, bulls and camels to the depths of the river. On the two main branches of the Nile, shepherds annually lose many animals from their herds. We saw a bull lying on the shore without a head near the Blue Nile. Its owner , crying, told us that a few minutes earlier he was grabbed by “the son, grandson and great-grandson of a monster cursed by Allah” and bit off his head with his teeth; I still cannot explain to myself, despite the strong armament of his mouth, such a powerful manifestation of strength. I was later convinced that he was overpowering the camel.
During my stay in Khartoum, one camel that went to water on the White Nile had its leg bitten off by a crocodile, and when I went to the river, I saw that the shepherds in Eastern Sudan take precautions when watering their camels. They drive the herds into the river with a strong cry, and all the animals at once, in order to drive away the crocodile with noise and confusion. Smaller animals, cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats are never given water directly from the river in which crocodiles are found, but always from specially dug pools and ponds on the banks. Shepherds must fill these reservoirs with water, or they fence off an area in the river itself with a thick thorn fence in order to form a watering hole that is safe from terrible predators."

The shark's teeth and jaws are designed to eat small and soft-bodied animals. Relatively large animals are a rare item in the diet of the white shark, which comes to it for lunch mainly in a weakened or dead form. At the same time, the teeth and jaws of a combed crocodile are a tool for holding and killing resisting large prey. The second design will definitely be more lethal and will have incomparable priority in a battle with a comparable enemy.

5) Other features:

The white shark rarely attacks relatively large marine mammals if they are healthy and able to resist. However, sometimes this kind of predation occurs if animals for one reason or another (for example, swimming in troubled water) lose their vigilance and do not detect the shark. At most, sharks killed animals (small elephant seals) weighing, roughly speaking, up to half of the shark itself.
As a rule, a shark injures the limbs of a large prey, thereby depriving it of a decisive advantage in agility and preventing it from escaping. Next, the victim is exhausted by attacks, the interval between which can be a very decent amount of time, and eventually drowns or dies from blood loss.
It is curious, but it is crocodiles that are very resistant to blood loss: their perfect circulatory system quickly blocks blood access to damaged areas. And the appearance of the crocodile will somewhat disorient the shark - it will hardly know where it is better to strike.
The back of a crocodile is covered with a kind of “armor” - osteoderms that serve to quickly heat the body, which are unlikely to succumb to shark teeth. In general, the saltwater crocodile has no weak points in front of the white shark: even its belly, which seems vulnerable compared to its armored back, is in fact protected by powerful muscles and abdominal ribs. Well, of course, it hides behind faultless reflexes.

On the contrary, if a saltwater crocodile grabs a white shark, it will simply crush and cut its vulnerable body with its jaws.

The saltwater crocodile is a born fighter. As already mentioned, interspecies fights between crocodiles that end in the death of one of the opponents are not something out of the ordinary. White sharks do not fight with each other at all if they are individuals of approximately equal size, determining the dominant side by size. In addition to aggression and cockiness, saltwater crocodiles also demonstrate rare vitality, surviving with bitten off limbs, tails and pieces of jaws, and then even defending their territory as “invalids”, despite the highest intraspecific competition.

A frankly ridiculous consideration used when comparing these animals:

“The crocodile will not have enough air, it will float to the surface, and the shark will deliver the final blow, the reptile’s only chance is to end the battle quickly, but it will not be possible to kill such large prey quickly,” says a statement borrowed from “animal battles.” But in an active state, crocodiles are able to stay under water for about 30 minutes! And no one forces a crocodile to swim after a shark, and especially to dive into the depths behind it (and if this happens, it will easily float to the top, changing its center of gravity and without losing attention), it will rather simply “hover” at the surface and be catch a shark with its jaws as it approaches. Of course, in reality, if a saltwater crocodile fails to grab a white shark that swims up to it immediately, then the shark, after a sharp throw in its direction, will simply swim away in fear, while the crocodiles will not be able to catch up with it, and it is unlikely that they will even try do. But we are considering a slightly different scenario, right?

Having figured out the abilities and combat skills of the opponents that they can use in a fight, we can imagine what they can do to each other. This is a purely hypothetical part and does not in any way affect the analysis of the natural behavior of animals when they meet.

Let's imagine a scene: a saltwater crocodile is swimming, and a white shark is meeting it. And, no matter how stupid it may sound, both animals are burdened with the goal of killing each other at any cost.

What can a crocodile do to a shark? The combination of its powerful jaws, designed for capturing large prey, with strong teeth is a truly formidable weapon. Grabbing the tail, throat, lower head or lower jaw, if not applicable, will result in the death of the shark. A crocodile can tear off a shark’s fins, lower jaw, twist or tear out a piece of meat from it (and thereby, say, rip open its belly), break its tail, or even crush its head. In fact, in theory, a crocodile can even simply clamp the shark between its jaws, change its center of gravity (thereby constantly floating to the surface, like a float), and keep it near the surface until it is exhausted and drowns.

On the contrary, in order to kill a crocodile, the shark will have to tear the tenacious reptile with its teeth for a long time: it will have problems with the skin and especially with the bones of the crocodile covering the internal organs. The usual tactic of a shark against dangerous prey is to bite and hide, but it is useless due to the crocodile’s great resistance to blood loss.
Even if a shark has a chance to launch a surprise attack, it is unlikely to work due to the sensitive receptors covering the crocodile's body. Moreover, the white shark closes its eyes to protect them, and at the moment of the attack it becomes completely blind. The saltwater crocodile at this point can simply intercept the shark, grabbing it right by the snout and tearing it apart. If the shark misses, the crocodile can suddenly launch and grab it, preventing the fish from escaping after an unsuccessful attack. But the shark’s speed should help it get away from the reptile and, purely hypothetically, try to attack again. Even when attacking a crocodile at right angles from below or above, the shark will not be able to avoid retaliatory bites due to the flexibility of its opponent.

Without drawing premature conclusions, let us turn to the most important part of the analysis - the practice known to us of encounters between sharks and crocodiles:

1) The case described by Gerald Wood of the killing of a 5.5-meter white shark by a 6-meter saltwater crocodile. The crocodile turned the shark on its back and literally tore off its head. Australian fishermen claimed that in other cases they observed, saltwater crocodiles killed other white sharks of the same size.
Gerald Wood, 1982. The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats.

2) “Megalania” is mentioned, entering the ocean and killing the white shark that attacked it. Most likely, this is a saltwater crocodile, and “megalania” is an aboriginal story adjusted to a cryptozoological sensation.
"Author and journalist Peter Hancock is an expert on the Aboriginal legends of Megalania Prisca. He relates one story of a Megalania that wandered into the ocean. The Megalania is attacked by a great white shark. The Megalania kills the shark and drags it to shore "Hancock notes that it is strange that these stories and paintings are so fresh with Aboriginal tens of thousands of years after Megalania Prisca supposedly went extinct."
Real Dragons: the Search for Megalania Prisca The MonsterQuest Search for Megalania Prisca and Giant Komodo Dragons.

3) The book "Fangs of the Sea" by Norman W. Caldwell and Norman Ellison describes the easy killing of a 408 kg bull shark by a hungry saltwater crocodile:
"They fought for front rank as they crept over the mud and waited. Foot by foot the crocodile worked its way backwards. How it managed to drag approximately nine hundred pounds" weight of shark through the soft oozy mud I cannot tell. But it did. I saw the last gasping struggle made by the whaler as it was hauled from the water; heard the last snapping of jaws. Then silence. The crocodile had won the unequal struggle. But its grip on the tail did not relax until the body of the captive had stiffened. There had been a foul, a complete ugliness about the fight, if such it could be called. And now, spoilers to the victor! Spoils then and there going down his great gullet. I have been told that a crocodile buries its food before eating it. This one did not. It ate and ate and ate. At daybreak, I sculled to the scene. The remains of the shark had been buried in the thick evil-smelling mud. It had been a very hungry crocodile - from the tail well up forward of the dorsal fin had been eaten."

4) The Nile crocodile kills a blunt-nosed (bull) shark commensurate with itself in the river mouth.
Text from quora.com:
"The following observation, which also reported by Pooley (pers. comm.), describes successful attack by adult (~370 cm TL, originally reported as "young") Crocodylus niloticus on large (~300 cm TL) Carcharhinus leucas. This incident also casually mentions Cott (1961) as “fight between a crocodile and a shark was once witnessed in mouth of the estuary.”
By the way, predation on bull sharks is the norm for any large crocodile species. See for example Robert Reid (2011) "Shark!: Killer Tales from the Dangerous Depths", Pergamon Press (1981) "Surveys of Tidal River Systems in the Northern Territory of Australia and Their Crocodile Populations", and Possibly Eating Sharks by Crocodiles may greatly influence the distribution of bull sharks in river systems: Nile crocodiles have also been recorded predating sand sharks.
Renzo Perissinotto, Derek D. Stretch, Ricky H. Taylor. Ecology and Conservation of Estuarine Ecosystems: Lake St Lucia as a Global Model.
In general, unidentified remains of fairly large sharks are found relatively regularly in the stomachs of crocodiles.
Malcolm Penny, 1991, Alligators and Crocodiles.
The IUCN Amphibia-reptilia Red Data Book, Part 1. IUCN, 1982.
According to Discovery's shark research team and Adam Britton, the film "Shark-Croc Showdown" (Shark Week 2017) describes the presence of crocodile teeth marks on the bodies of 10% of the river sharks and sawfish rays studied. Britton also described the discovery of the remains of tiger sharks in the stomachs of crocodiles (quote from “Animal Battles”, minute 37: “We have found crocodiles with sharks in their bellies. It has been proven that crocodiles defeat sharks.”, the species of sharks was established through personal correspondence), based on which he assumes that a saltwater crocodile can cope with a white shark.
Crocodiles, at least the saltwater ones, generally freely hunt sharks of their own size:
"...and are sometimes known to attack and kills sharks of close to their own size."
Karleskint, G., Turner, R., & Small, J. (2012). Introduction to marine biology. Cengage Learning.
Blue Carbon Reservoir of the Blue Planet, Abhijit Mitra, Sufia Zaman, 2014.
And even young crocodiles, about 1.2 m long, attack sharks:
5) A saltwater crocodile was spotted eating a tiger shark on the beach.
Croc Spotted Devouring a Tiger Shark by NQ Fishing Show, Townsville, North Queensland.
Original text:
"A CLASH of the titans has taken place off a Townsville beach, with a crocodile spotted devouring a tiger shark.
The bizarre spectacle is just one of two croc sightings at the Northern Beaches within the past month.
They come as rangers prepare to launch the Newman Government's new crocodile management plan in the coming months.
Department of Environment and Heritage Wildlife Protection manager Mike Devery said the department received indirect reports of a crocodile eating a tiger shark at Toolakea Beach, 30km north of Townsville, in the early hours of March 13.
"A subsequent report...advised the witness had returned to the site and the crocodile and shark carcass were gone."
The department also received a report of a 2m long crocodile in a remote area of ​​Bluewater Creek, the second report of a croc in the creek since January.
"The animal was on the bank but slid into the water and submerged as the witness approached," Mr Devery said.
"It was not seen again."
James Cook University shark expert Dr Colin Simpfendorfer believed the tiger shark may have been dead before the crocodile decided to feast upon it.
"I don"t think it"s something that you would normally see happen, just as a straight predation event," Dr Simpfendorfer said.
"It"s more likely that the shark was either sick or dead for that to have occurred, and it was more than likely a scavenging event, rather than a predation event."
He said it would be difficult for a saltwater crocodile to attack and kill a tiger shark at sea, unless it was a small shark.
"I would guess they would probably flee each other quite rapidly, because they don"t want to interact,” he said.
"Most animals, when they get into a situation, unless they know they have dominance, they would try and escape.
"They both live in habitats that aren't very similar, and tiger sharks rarely come close to shore."
Toolakea Beach resident Bodhi Ashley-Doran, 15, said he frequently spotted sharks and crocodiles off the beach, but never attacking each other.
He said a 4m crocodile had been spotted regularly on the beach earlier this year.
"There"s always been crocs in the creek," he said. "I did see a shark off the beach, once eating a turtle in early March."
He said locals knew about the crocodile in Bluewater Creek, which had been seen in a freshwater area near the bridge."
Dr. Colin Simpfendorfer ruined the whole account with his statements. =) But it is known that saltwater crocodiles displace tiger sharks from coastal waters. The crocodiles off Australia's Cape York Peninsula, which juts out into Papua New Guinea, even have a cautionary saying among divers and boaters: "Don't worry about the tiger sharks, the saltwater crocodiles have already eaten them." -
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/372532200402254680/
So, they should be quite capable of killing tiger sharks. Yellow Water staff in Australia discovered a 4.6m tiger shark killed and eaten by a saltwater crocodile:
"This was the remains of a 15 foot (4.6 m) Tiger shark; it seems that it had provided breakfast for one rather hungry saltwater crocodile! But it was too much even for that bad boy! The staff at Yellow Waters had never known a crocodile attack a shark before..."
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1125968627415703/
Estuaries, including Australian estuaries, as in the photo with the killed shark, are quite typical habitat for tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier): But, obviously, only if there are no crocodiles there.

6) Fearful reaction of sharks to the smell of chemical secretions of crocodiles. In this case, C. acutus is an American sharp-snouted crocodile, which in the coastal zone reaches a very modest size (up to a maximum of 4-5 m, usually less than 3 m) and lemon sharks, which grow to at least 3.5 m.
Joseph A. Sisneros,c & Donald R. Nelson. "Surfactants as chemical shark repellents: past, present, and future."
"Perhaps the most encouraging area of ​​shark repellency research is in the study of semiochemistry. This area of ​​research was first proposed by Rasmussen & Schmidt (1992) who suggested that sharks may be chemically aware of the presence of potential danger by sensing the bodily secretions from potential predators. Semiochemicals found in the bodily secretions of predators may convey survival information to a shark and elicit rapid flight from an area that is potentially dangerous. Rasmussen & Schmidt (op. cit.) hypothesized that lemon sharks, especially juveniles, inherently recognize chemical exudates produced by the American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus, a known predator of sharks."
A similar reaction to the smell of sharp-snouted crocodiles was observed in blunt-snouted sharks. This is the theme of the Shark Week 2016 film from Discovery, called “Jungle Sharks” in Russian. An example was given when a large number of adult sharks, tormenting the bait, reacted violently to a repellent with the smell of a sharp-snouted crocodile (moreover, quite modest in size) and left the feeding area, returning only when the smell dissipated.
The fearful reaction of reef sharks to the approach of a juvenile saltwater crocodile, as well as how an adult saltwater crocodile drove away larger lemon sharks (considered, by the way, one of the most aggressive sharks), was demonstrated in the film "Shark-Croc Showdown" of Shark Week 2017.

7) An 1819 book by George Dawson Flinter, called "A History of the Revolution of Caracas", describes an attack by a 2.4 m sharp-snouted crocodile on a huge, most likely white shark.
Text translation:
"I witnessed, at Puerto Cabello, in the 1817s, the most stubborn battle between a shark and an alligator: the shark was very large, but the alligator was not more than eight feet in length. Hundreds of spectators flocked to the beach to see such an incredible scene The alligator fought more frantically, hitting his antagonist with his tail, causing the shark to turn over with its belly up, but still trying to grab the alligator with its teeth. We did not have the patience to see the fight to the end, but directed all our efforts to destroy them both: several were made shots, and we at last succeeded in killing the alligator, which the commander of the place politely presented to me: it was prepared for me, and I brought it with me to Cadiz, where I gave it to a gentleman who had a small office with curious things, and after that I felt very satisfied to place the stuffed alligator among them due to the special situation in which it was obtained. This reptile was obtained in sea water, near mangrove trees, which, however, contrary to the belief of many, disproves that alligators can be found only in fresh water. I saw some of them in the same place; and the commandant had two live small alligators, about eighteen inches in length, in a bath of water. There is another popular opinion, which I believe has been discovered by experience, that their skins cannot be penetrated by a musket ball; but, I believe that this depends on the bullet, and even more on the distance and quality of the gunpowder, and not on some invulnerability of their skin. Alligators, as I have already said, are very numerous on the banks of the Tui River, and in all the rivers adjacent to the plains, where they eat large numbers of livestock."
"Alligators" were previously the name given to all neotropical crocodiles. This is just for reference.

8) A fight between a ~2.1 m shark (most likely a blunt-nosed one) and a ~3 m saltwater crocodile in the Adelaide River is described in detail. That is, the animals had approximately equal weight. The crocodile threw the shark into the air with a swing of his tail, demonstrating his remarkable strength, and then tore it to shreds:
"Darwin, North Australia, Feb. 28. -A shark fought a crocodile on Adelaide River near here and lost. First honors went to the crocodile which, with a sweep of its tail, sent the shark into the air. The crocodile then divide . A fierce struggle followed, beating the muddy water Into foam. Then the battle ceased suddenly. The blood-stained shark appeared on the surface, and was slowly dragged down. The crocodile is estimated to have been 10 feet long and the shark 7 feet , by the shooting party from Darwin who saw the battle."
The Sunday Morning Star - Feb 27, 1938.

These are not all known cases of reprisals by crocodiles over more or less large sharks, but they are completely enough to understand the essence of the interaction of these animals. There is no point in mentioning the countless reprisals of crocodiles over small sharks. They end up for lunch just as accidentally as any other large fish.

There is very little normal evidence of sharks killing crocodiles (one might say none at all), but we will still mention a few of the most interesting descriptions:

1) The head of a 3.5-meter Nile crocodile, found by a married couple on the beach, is unconditionally attributed in the media to “the activity of a 6-meter white shark.” In fact, the cause of death of this crocodile is unknown and no examination of the remains was carried out by authorities. In addition to the couple who discovered it, shocked by the idea of ​​a “6-meter shark,” other observers put forward the possibility of the head being cut off by poachers, a consequence of an attack by a hippopotamus or other crocodile. Many of them seem much more logical and understandable.
Most likely it was the propeller of a large ship, everything is well described here: http://sandcroc2014.livejournal.com/1024.html

2) In Durban (South Africa), a large (4.3 m) tiger shark was once caught with the remains of the head and forelimbs of a (Nile?) crocodile in its stomach, the size of the remains of which was not specified. This gave rise to the rarely mentioned but existing myth that, supposedly, “the remains of crocodiles are found in the stomachs of tiger sharks”: in reality, you need to be able to distinguish between the exception (a single find) and the rule. Moreover, experts consider this case of eating carrion, because... the shark ate the least edible parts. In general, the remains of land or river animals are regularly found in the stomachs of tiger sharks, washed out into the sea when they are already dead.

3) Exceptional attacks by white sharks on razorback crocodiles have been reported from Fuerte Island.
The size and age of the animals, as well as the circumstances and outcome of the attacks are not specified - everything is described from the words of local residents.
Medem, F. 1981. Los crocodylia de Sur America, Volume 1, Los Crocodylia de Colombia. Colciencias, Colombia.
However, as is known, sharp-snouted crocodiles living on the islands do not reach large sizes. And in coastal habitats in general. For example, the average weight of adults in coastal Belize was estimated to be only 77.8 kg. Perhaps the shark could cope with such a small crocodile.
Platt, S. G., T. R. Rainwater, J. B. Thorbjarnarson & D. Martin 2011. Size estimation, morphometrics, sex ratio, sexual size dimorphism, and biomass of Crocodylus acutus in the coastal zone of Belize.

In general, both theoretical and practical considerations indicate a clear victory for the saltwater crocodile over the white shark in a hypothetical fight.
A white shark has no chance of killing a saltwater crocodile with its jaws, which are ineffective against large and especially protected and resistant to blood loss animals, while a crocodile can easily tear a shark into pieces.
In fact, these animals are from, let’s say, completely different “fighting leagues.” This observation can be compared:
"In the Philippines in 1831, a giant saltwater crocodile, representative of one of the most dangerous species reptiles, ate at least one shepherd (and one horse). The animal, known as a Mugger, was somewhere between 27 and 30 feet long, had a girth of about 11 feet behind its front legs and had a head that was 5 feet 6 inches long from the nose to the first vertebra.
This was a formidable opponent. A French plantation owner saw him attack a horse and rider fording the river where he lived. They fled when the crocodile's jaws slammed shut on the saddle and tore it off the horse's back. The rider, a shepherd, took out his sword and waited for the animal in the shallow water, despite advice to the contrary. Ignoring the courageous blows of the sword, Mugger grabbed him by the leg and dragged him away.
Two months later, the crocodile attacked again, killing the horse, which was the last straw. The plantation owner, a visiting American hunter, and local residents decided that enough was enough. Using harpoons, nets, ropes and firearms, they attacked. But the crocodile held them for six hours before he was finally killed. It is reported that only 40 people were able to pull him to shore.
The plantation owner presented Mugger's skull to an American guest, George Russell. Russell gave it to the Boston Museum of Natural History, which donated the skull to Harvard."
With this:
“One Australian angler, Elf Dean, broke the world record by catching four of the largest sharks ever caught with this gear on a spinning rod. All four were great white sharks, each weighing more than a ton.
Dean, funny strong man, is engaged in growing grapes - of course, when he is not busy catching sharks. He caught his first shark in 1939. She weighed three hundred and ninety kilograms. As the years passed, Dean's skill grew, and so did the weight of the sharks he caught. He hunted, as a rule, in the Great Australian Bight, on the southern coast of the continent. Numerous schools of fish enter the bay and many sharks, including the largest of those found in the seas and oceans of the globe, scurry about, challenging each other’s prey.
McCormick. Shadows in the Sea: First sea devil caught in Australia In 1951, Sir Willoughby Norrie, Governor of South Australia, caught a great white shark weighing 1,009 kilograms - at the time the largest shark caught on a spinning rod. Dean was determined to break Norrie's record. And in 1952 he did it.
Dean's encounter with his first record shark occurred at two o'clock in the morning when, after a whole day spent in vain searching for a shark large enough to satisfy his tastes, he dropped anchor and went to bed. He was awakened by knocks on the bottom of the boat. He jumped out of his bunk, walked onto the deck, and the beam of his flashlight illuminated the dorsal and tail fins of the largest shark he had ever seen. The shark furiously butted the boat, intoxicated by the smell of whale oil dripping from the tank at the stern: with the help of whale oil and seal blood, a bucket of which he occasionally poured into the water, Dean left a trail behind his boat that was unusually attractive to sharks. The sharks smelled him from many kilometers away and followed his boat, trying to get to the treat that this delicious smell promised them.
All night long the huge shark was noisily hitting the stern of Dean's boat. The smell of food drove her crazy. Once she even grabbed the propeller with her teeth, so that the boat began to shake: it seemed that the shark wanted to wake up the sleeping people in order to get the breakfast promised to it. At dawn, Dean threw line overboard, and the shark immediately grabbed the bait and rushed forward. She beat her tail and spun around her axis. Once she completely jumped out of the water. If she had gone into the depths, she would have been saved, but she soon got tired. Forty-five minutes later it was all over. The shark - it belonged to the great white species - weighed 1058 kilograms and was four meters long. Elf Dean broke the world record. And less than a year later, he broke his own record by catching a great white shark weighing 1,076 kilograms.
On April 10, 1955, Dean caught a seven hundred kilogram shark, tied it to the side of the boat and moved on in search of something more interesting. Suddenly, another shark, of enormous size, rushed at his prey, not paying attention to Dean, who was bludgeoning it on the head with the handle of a spear; it continued to tear off huge pieces from the body of the dead shark. Finally, Dean's partner cast a baited hook. The shark rushed at her, but somehow managed to catch the hook with its tail. Dean tried to pull the shark out, but it turned out to be impossible. Then he cut the forest. They threw baited hooks again, and this time the shark swallowed the hook. For half an hour Dean fought the shark, but the shark got off the hook and left.
During this time, the boat drifted almost a kilometer from the place where they met the shark. Dean decided to go back and drop anchor. As soon as they anchored, the same shark appeared from the water again - a piece of fishing line was still dangling from its tail. Dean decided to try his luck again, and this time, after an hour and a half of struggle, he managed to take the stubborn shark. She weighed 1141 kilograms. Dean broke his own record for the third time.
He broke the world record for the fourth time in 1959, when he caught a shark weighing 1,199 kilograms. But his biggest fish, as happens with all anglers, got away from him.
In Australia, this shark was nicknamed Unapproachable Lil, because she is female and has broken the heart of more than one sports angler. Dean met her one moonlit night, where he always hunted, in the Australian Gulf. She hit the boat with her snout and tore off the seal carcass from the stern, which Dean often hung overboard so that the piquant smell would attract sharks. While she was dealing with a seal a few steps from the boat, Dean managed to see her. His mouth was literally watering. The shark was six meters long and weighed about two tons.
He lowered fresh bait overboard - another seal. Near it, he cast a line with his favorite bait - a seal liver, impaled on two large hooks. Unapproachable Lil rushed to attack the hooks, bait, bait - everything that was there. Through the spray raised by her desperate leap, Dean saw that she had swallowed the bait. He used the reel to force the hooks into the mouth more firmly. Again and again she tried to get off the hook, soaring from the depths to the surface, so that her huge graceful body was completely visible from the water. Then she went to the depths - 2000 kilograms of concentrated rage against Dean’s hands trembling from unbearable tension and the line stretched like a bowstring. She fought for two hours without a break. Then slowly, centimeter by centimeter, turn by turn, he began to unwind the line.
He led Lil to the side of the boat. His assistant leaned over the side and grabbed a wire leash attached to the end of the line with his hands dressed in canvas mittens. But Unapproachable Lil did not even think of admitting defeat. She gathered her strength and rushed into the depths again.
Dean's hands turned to a bloody mess. Blisters swelled and burst on the palms, the fingers, cut to the bone by the incessantly twitching fishing rod, were numb with pain. My legs were cramping. The muscles in my back almost burst from tension. And the battle continued. The third hour... the fourth hour... Three times Dean led the shark to the boat, three times the sparkling leash appeared from the water and three times the Impregnable Lil rushed with renewed vigor into the open sea.
...It was the sixth hour of the battle, and Dean felt that his strength was running out. But the trembling of the forest, or rather, his own intuition told him that Lil was starting to get tired. And again, clenching his teeth in pain, he began to unwind the line. He brought the shark to the side, and his assistant began to select a leash. Already three meters of the ten-meter leash were in the boat when Unapproachable Lil made last try free yourself. She dived and sank like a stone to the bottom. From a sharp jerk the forest burst - the indomitable Lil was free.
Several sports fishermen saw and pursued Unapproachable Lil even before Dean met her, others tried to catch her after that, but this has not been done to this day."
40 people with rifles and harpoons are needed to kill a really large male saltwater crocodile (5.5-6.5 meters, but not 8-9 meters, judging by the size of the skull, see the document on the size of crocodiles) in a 6-hour fight. A white shark twice its weight is ALMOST overcome by a lone fisherman armed with a spinning rod. And sharks comparable in weight to this crocodile are even caught in less than an hour... They are simply incomparable in power! But “Mugger” from the Philippines is far from the largest and strongest saltwater crocodile.

This situation is probably related to the behavior and lifestyle of animals: saltwater crocodiles, as predators with a much higher level of aggression, often fighting with relatives and attacking large prey, are much better adapted to conflicts and fights than white sharks, which try to avoid fights with others predators and feed mainly on small or easily accessible animals. Crocodiles are much more ferocious, reckless, durable, tenacious and powerful than any kind of shark.

Currently, saltwater crocodiles are found mainly with tiger and tip-snout sharks, as well as smaller river, coastal or reef species, while modern populations of white sharks are increasingly less likely to enter warm waters that are of little use to them. However, these opponents are generally similar to white sharks in their abilities in similar size ratios, and all also fall prey to crocodiles from time to time.

Who is stronger: a shark or a crocodile?

Here victory depends, as it were, on the shark itself. And victory depends on the crocodile himself.

If you turn the shark over, it will fall asleep. This is a scientific fact. The truth is little known to anyone except killer whales.

Everything that IGOR PROKHOROV 5.3K described is true, I have nothing to add to his words.

And you do a search on the topic Shark vs. crocodile. For example, good information on this topic http://www.akulizm.ru/akula-protiv/krokodil-protiv-akuly.html

The shark has a very weakness, which few people know about: being turned over on her back, she very quickly falls into a stupor, as if falling asleep. Killer whales often take advantage of this. Swimming along the bottom and seeing the silhouette of a shark above, they grab it from below and immediately flip it onto its back. And after a few minutes the shark falls asleep, after which the killer whale devours it. A person can handle it in the same way (I saw a video of a man grabbing a medium-sized shark in a swimming pool, turning it over on its back and it quickly fell asleep).

If a crocodile grabs onto a shark and can turn it belly up, it can celebrate victory. Several years ago I found an interesting story on the Internet by one local resident from the banks of the Amazon. He witnessed a battle between two sharks and two (or three?) crocodiles. Sharks swam into the Amazon from the sea, probably looking for new places of prey and food. And local crocodiles came out to meet them. After a short fight, the sharks retreated.

Who are you more afraid of? Personally, I am a shark.

Doesn't have a more powerful body. The crocodile has a definite advantage in armor on its back. But even skilled people catch crocodiles with their bare hands. How about trying to catch a large, predatory shark with your hands?

I don’t know how I think they can’t be compared at all, each is strong in his own way and each has his own habits, strength, abilities, etc. this is the same as comparing an elephant and a giraffe, one has weight and one has length! As for me, both animals are strong!

Every family has very strong individuals. There are such individuals in both the crocodile family and the shark family. And besides, both predators are very strong. Therefore, in my opinion, it is more correct to divide the victory fifty to fifty.

Both are very strong, but it seems to me that if a crocodile grabs it, it will break all the bones, because when it grabs it, it suddenly lights up its prey in the water, and goes to the bottom, although sharks are much larger, which may not have the strength to do this, and The crocodile has very strong scales, which are very difficult to pierce or bite through if you just get to the stomach, although sharks themselves are very strong and agile, but it seems to me that the crocodile is stronger, I’m not an ace, I just think so)))

Here, after all, the answer lies in who bites whom first. If the crocodile grabs onto it and begins to spin around its axis, the shark simply will not survive this damage. And if the shark, in turn, bites off the crocodile’s head, then the headless crocodile will also have trouble in the future.

If you think like this, then it seems to me that a shark will be stronger, it is larger than a crocodile, and it has a larger mouth :) And perhaps a crocodile, since a shark is good only in water, and a crocodile is good both in water and on land.

The great white shark is the largest predatory fish, reaching a length of 6 meters, and weighs up to 2 tons. Is the strongest poisonous fish. This predator owes its name to the white color of the abdominal part of the body, separated by a broken border on the sides from the dark back. In addition to its very large size, the great white shark has also acquired a notorious reputation as a merciless cannibal due to numerous attacks on swimmers, divers and surfers. The great white shark is the only surviving species of its genus Carcharodon. The body of the great white shark is spindle-shaped, streamlined, like most sharks - active predators. A large, conical head with medium-sized eyes located on it and a pair of nostrils, to which small grooves lead, increasing the flow of water to the shark’s olfactory receptors. The mouth is very wide, armed with sharp, triangular-shaped teeth with serrations on the sides. With such teeth, like an ax, the shark easily cuts off pieces of flesh from its prey.The diet mainly consists of marine mammals. In addition, it hunts a variety of fish and seabirds.

Locations and causes of collisions

The saltwater crocodile and the white shark are native to Australia. There have been cases of saltwater crocodiles swimming hundreds of kilometers from the coast, and at such a distance there are great white sharks. The reasons for their clashes may turn out to be hunger. However, in nature there will be no fight, since the shark will be afraid to attack the crocodile, and a crocodile does not fight in the open sea. Small sharks primarily view the saltwater crocodile as a potential threat. This is the most famous fight, and here we can only guess by studying the weak and strengths both opponents.

Known conflicts:

1. There was a case where a huge saltwater crocodile killed a bull shark. The Briton managed to film everything. Peter Jones, 62, was on a river cruise in Kakadu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory. The steamboat came across a bull shark, which was being chewed by a saltwater crocodile. Seeing that he was being watched, the crocodile went under the water along with his prey.

2. There was a case where a huge 5-meter saltwater crocodile tore a 3-meter bullish shark, not sixgill (wrong translation).

3. There was a case where the head of a 3.5 meter crocodile lay on the shore. Nobody knows who it is, but there is evidence that it was a white shark that did it. This evidence about a shark is very unlikely, because any shark actually does not have enough strength to bite through all the bones that were in the crocodile, and the shark simply cannot accommodate this entire part of the Nile crocodile. However, first of all, it was Nile crocodile, and Nile crocodiles live only in Africa, They have never, in the entire history, been found in salty waters, from where the head of the Nile crocodile swam ashore. So the most likely evidence in this battle was poachers, not a shark. But despite the fact that this evidence is very unlikely, we decided to show this case. The site that describes this will be an incredible exaggeration of the white shark, because the head of the Nile crocodile, which lived in Africa, could not get into salt waters, and it was a Nile crocodile, not a saltwater one, as stated on the site.

4. There was a case where a saltwater crocodile easily coped with a bull shark of almost equal size. Below is an excerpt from the documentary "Invasion of the Crocodiles", where this fight was filmed. The quality in this documentary is much better.

5. There was a case where a saltwater crocodile easily killed a white shark of almost equal size. In this case, the crocodile used killer whale tactics. “The 20-foot crocodile grabbed the shark by the throat and began a “deadly rollover.” Once upside down, the shark could no longer do anything.
A saltwater crocodile tore off the throat and head of a great white shark with its jaws." It also described a case where a crocodile also killed a tiger shark. A link to this double case is given below in the source.

Main mistakes when comparing

The fact is that a saltwater crocodile holds its breath for 2 hours (with active movement for 30 minutes), and this is much longer than the entire fight lasts. Therefore, a crocodile cannot come to the surface specifically for oxygen. But if the crocodile swims for oxygen, then no matter what it is, the shark will not be able to attack it due to the sensitivity of the crocodile. The crocodile will simply dodge. Therefore, do not believe "Beast Battles", they have such an impossible fiction that a black bear can turn over a Mississippi alligator.

Let's study the weaknesses of our opponents:

Shark: belly, fins, gills, cowardice, tail, fragile teeth, nose.

Crocodile: belly, endurance, poor teeth adhesion.

Advantages:

Shark: endurance, feeding frenzy, sharp teeth, speed, tactics, camouflage.

Crocodile: aggression, jaw power and bite, agility, armor, reaction, vitality, muscle grouping.

Animal comparison

1. Size - approximately equal

Crocodiles grow up to 6.7 meters, and white sharks approach this size and grow up to 6.1 meters. The choice is obvious, a crocodile is longer than a shark.

2. Weight - per shark

White sharks (record) weigh up to 2 tons, which is more than saltwater crocodiles weigh (record) - 1635 kg. So, weight is a shark's advantage.

3. Durability - for a crocodile

Crocodiles have "armor" that protects them from many things. After all, his armor consists of bone plates. Whether a white shark bites through a crocodile's armor or not, armor is still a very useful defense for a crocodile. Also, the shark has a little armor. It saves her in a small way; if you stroke a shark against the fur, you will feel like you are stroking sandpaper. Of course, armor helps a crocodile better.

4. Speed ​​- for the shark

Sharks are very fast, judging by their armor and movements. The crocodile is less adapted to swimming, because it does not spend its entire life in water. Even to breathe, a shark needs to be constantly in motion, so there’s no need to think about speed.

5. Fins - for a crocodile

The fact is that a shark has fins, but a crocodile does not, but if you think logically, then the fins in a fight with a crocodile will only interfere with the shark and become another vulnerable point.

6. Jaw - for a crocodile

7. Sensitivity - approximately equal

Crocodiles have hundreds of tiny receptors on their bodies that detect splashes of water at a distance of about 100 meters, and the approach of prey, including fish, at a certain distance. Crocodiles also have nerve cells between their horny scutes that sense the approach of their prey at a distance of a kilometer or more. The shark has a lateral line, which is more sensitive than all the sensitive organs of the crocodile. However, this will not benefit her. If a shark senses a crocodile before it does, then when it swims up to it, the crocodile itself will feel it, even if it does not notice it with its vision.

8. Tail - for a crocodile

Saltwater crocodiles break a canoe in half with a blow of their tail, and sharks swim only thanks to their tail, especially since a shark’s tail can become a vulnerable point, because with a bite a crocodile can easily break a shark’s tail.

9. Muscle mass - for a shark

The fact is that sharks move throughout their lives, even in their sleep. And crocodiles often pretend to be motionless. It is not surprising that 600 kg. a crocodile is 4 meters in size, has 400 kg of muscle mass out of 600 kg. But since the shark is always on the move, it gains more muscle mass.

10. Skeleton - for a crocodile

A shark has a cartilaginous skeleton, while a crocodile has a bone skeleton. This gives him a significant advantage in many ways, including bite force. The fact that cartilage gives an advantage to flexibility will not play any role in the fight.

11. Gills - for a crocodile

12. Vitality - for a crocodile

Crocodiles are pierced through with spears, but crocodiles survive this and heal their wounds. Even if the crocodile is completely skinned, the crocodile can live for 2 - 3 hours. When they tear off each other's limbs, then their pace does not slow down: his perfect circulatory system blocks the access of blood to the damaged area, eliminating the possibility of severe blood loss. Sharks at that time were also very tenacious - they suffered very severe wounds on their gills from their relatives, and survived with their fins slightly torn off. But this vitality is small for a crocodile.

13. Disguise - as a shark

Shark coloring blends with the water in the open sea, unlike crocodile coloring. At that time, it will be easy for the shark to notice the crocodile, thanks to its dark coloring, and the very lateral line of the shark. But the crocodile itself can also feel it with receptors, however, in the worst case, not see the shark. In addition, the shark camouflages itself in the depths and attacks from the depths, which can help the shark during a fight.

14. Reaction - for the crocodile

Crocodiles have super-fast myosin: the slightest touch to sensitive organs causes a lightning-fast response. Super-fast myosin was also found in the shark, but it is very slow for a crocodile.

15. Teeth clinging - for a shark

A shark has sharper teeth, a crocodile has dumber teeth. That’s why a crocodile doesn’t grip its teeth well on its victim, and when a shark bites a victim, its teeth literally dig into the victim. Due to the fact that the crocodile has a longer jaw, it slips off the victim more often.

16. Nose - like a crocodile

The fact is that a shark's nose is very sensitive and is a vulnerable spot. The shark will not be able to do anything to the crocodile's nose at that time.

So who will win the most? formidable predators Australia, great white shark or saltwater crocodile? The choice is obvious: in the maximum sizes, and in the same sizes, the crocodile will certainly win. Whether in shallow water or in the open sea, a shark always has one unlikely chance - to bite a crocodile on the side. A crocodile has many chances, for example, it can gnaw off a shark’s fins, or break its tail, it can also easily rip open its belly, or it can even tear off its jaw, or in any case, just bite its skull. Well, a crocodile can simply injure a shark’s gills, and the shark will not live long after that. Well, besides,the crocodile's muscle grouping is more perfect than the shark's; if in a fish all the muscle work is aimed at jerking its head and moving forward, then in a crocodile - muscle mass distributed, giving him a large sample of movements. That’s why a lightning-fast 180-degree turn is why a shark performs it more slowly, taking several movements, while a crocodile does it in one go.

Conclusion: a crocodile has a great advantage over a shark in any element.

Let's try to imagine what the battle will be like in reality.

For a crocodile in this case, the temperature of the pool can be a deadly problem. For most species it should be between 20-38 °C. He will ignore the white shark as a likely victim, since he chooses the animal that he can deal with one way or another. And it lives in fresh water (although there are species that can tolerate salt water).

The white shark, on the other hand, lives in salty ocean and coastal waters. And the temperature of its range is much lower - 12-24 °C. In general, the tolerable temperature spectrum is wider, from cold seas to the tropics, but we are still talking about the usual.

Bloody encounters between sharks and crocodiles are not that uncommon. Proof of this is the image of the battle between a crocodile and a shark on the coat of arms of the city of Surabaya. The main antagonists are the saltwater crocodile, which can swim far into the sea, and a shark of comparable size, due to its aggressiveness.

But a crocodile has more powerful jaws, grip strength, and teeth have roots. With equal sizes, in addition, the crocodile will have more weight due to the presence of a skeleton.

With anaconda it is more difficult. A lot depends on chance here. The crocodile will be lucky to grab it with its jaws - perhaps, with its favorite twisting, it will have time to tear out a piece of flesh sufficient to at least weaken and prevent the snake’s body from wrapping around it. And if the anaconda manages to “ensnare” the reptile, then that’s it, it breaks the bones and pushes it inside, there are enough such videos.

I'm afraid that in the end, one of the remaining three will jump onto the edge of the pool and get dessert in the form of the pool worker who drove the three of them into this death trap. And then they will shoot another... the twentieth Hollywood horror film.

Everyone will calmly wait to see if food that is more familiar to everyone will appear. A crocodile is something that is smaller in size, an anaconda is something that can swallow (again, something that smaller in size). The white shark will wait for blood markers (blood) to appear in the water. Most likely, both the anaconda and the crocodile will not challenge the white shark’s right to prey if it is interested in it. I think every predator will wait until they faint with hunger for their food, and not fight like spiders in a jar.

"A crocodile is something that is smaller in size."

In fact, crocodiles calmly attack animals that are not just larger, but significantly larger than themselves.

He (Kermit) also shot a 12-foot (3.6 m) crocodile. The ugly, formidable beast retained in its stomach sticks, stones, cheetah claws, impala hooves, large eland bones and fragments of the shell of one of the largest river turtles; Apparently, he accepted the fee from among his fellow inhabitants of the river, or from among the creatures that came to quench his thirst. He didn't care whether the animals were grazing in the pasture or getting fresh flesh, he simply hunted them. (Roosevelt, writing from Guaso Nyiro, pp. 286-287.)

The popular belief that crocodiles do not hunt waterbucks was clearly refuted by our observations in the Kruger National Park, and, as can be seen in Table 6, waterbucks are one of the most common types of warm-blooded prey in the diet of crocodiles. An important part of the crocodiles' diet is impala, as well as kudu and bushbuck. We happened to observe how an adult male giraffe, intending to cross the Olifants River, suddenly tripped, fell and was dragged into the water by a large crocodile. An adult male buffalo was grabbed at a watering hole in Nyavutsi by a fourteen-foot crocodile and drowned after a horrific struggle. Over the years, there have only been two recorded cases of crocodiles predating baby hippos, however, there have been several recorded cases of hyenas, hyena dogs and even lions being killed by crocodiles.
Table 6. List of observations of animals killed by crocodiles in the Kruger National Park during the periods 1936-1946 and 1954-1966.
1936-1946: 80 impala, 1 zebra, 21 waterbuck, 7 kudu, 2 buffalo, 1 warthog, 2 marshbuck, 2 duiker, 1 nyala, 1 stenbok, 3 bushbuck, 2 bush pigs, 1 baboon, 1 hyena dog. Total: 125.
1954-1966: 163 impalas, 7 zebras, 4 wildebeest, 41 waterbuck, 22 kudu, 2 buffalo, 2 giraffes, 3 warthogs, 3 marshbuck, 3 nyalas, 1 stenbok, 21 bushbuck, 1 leapbuck, 2 hippopotamuses ( cubs), 2 hyenas, 1 lion, 1 baboon, 1 vervet monkey, 1 porcupine. Total: 280.

“One day I saw a crocodile attack and actually overcome the resistance of a bull buffalo. I watched the reptile lying on the sandy shore with a huge open mouth, his feathered friends are probably the only ones he has. However, the crocodile refused to brush his teeth , when a herd of buffaloes came down to drink. Instantly and silently the crocodile slid into the water, and I wondered with surprise whether he would attack such a large herd. Six cows were drinking at the very edge, and the bull went deeper and buried his head in the water, before I saw another sign of the reptile's presence. Then a whirlpool of water rushed by with lightning speed, and the bull threw up his head with the crocodile grasping his muzzle. His position on the low bank slope no doubt helped the "croc" and inch by inch he dragged the bull closer to water. Suddenly, with great effort, the buffalo broke free, but before he could get any distance, the "croc" grabbed his paw. His head sank down, and the horns lifted the "half" of the crocodile out of the water and laid it on the sand. But the efforts cost the buffalo its position. He knelt down, and at the moment the crocodile grabbed his nose again. Then I shot at the reptile, the crocodile loosened its grip and soon disappeared under water. I hoped I could get it. But later I was never able to get the carcass. Before the bull could rise, I shot him too to examine his wounds. Looking at the nose, I discovered that the crocodile's huge mouth had crushed the bones into mush, the flesh, like the paw, was torn and hanging away. It seemed incredible that such deadly strength and ferocity of a crocodile could have evolved from a creature that, perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago, had emerged from an egg; and which began its life as a lizard about six inches long!”

Giraffe killed by crocodiles:

A wild African buffalo struggled to take its last breath before it was dragged underwater by a Nile crocodile in Kazinga Channe, Uganda, Africa. Predator-prey relationships. The African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is one of the African "Big Five". They are often seen in large herds and cooperative defense of relatives (strength in numbers).

This is the first evidence that came to mind. And so, there are plenty of such cases. And this is precisely with successful attacks, but there are also unsuccessful ones. Crocodiles are highly specialized hunters of large prey.

Answer

Comment

First of all, it depends on which crocodile you take. A saltwater or Nile crocodile will bite both a white shark and an anaconda. Especially the last one. After all, in fact, no 10-meter snakes exist and never existed, with the exception of a number of species that are extinct today. The largest green anacondas reach somewhere between 5.5-6 meters in length and weigh up to approximately 100 kg, while the largest modern saltwater crocodiles can weigh up to approximately 1750 kg with a length of up to 7 meters, and white sharks can weigh more than 2.3 tons with a length of not less than 6.1 meters.
And the so-called “videos of anacondas defeating crocodiles” that were mentioned here actually demonstrate snakes eating “harmless” crocodiles or yakar caimans. And they are usually smaller in size than anacondas themselves. But the point here is not even a matter of “more or less,” but the fact that a caiman is far from a crocodile of the same size. In fact, young crocodiles easily eat caimans of similar size when kept together in captivity. Whether an anaconda will be able to cope with a crocodile of the same size, or whether it will be bitten in half by it, is another question. Be that as it may, even if a 100 kg anaconda can compete “on equal terms” with an approximately 3-meter 100 kg crocodile, then it simply has no chance against a larger one. Against a shark, I think it will have a better chance, since the shark’s body is devoid of bones and can easily be flattened by the compression of the anaconda’s rings. But not against a 2-ton shark.)

As for the white shark, although it is larger than a saltwater crocodile, sharks themselves are downright bad fighters. They live by opportunistically eating carrion, fish, cephalopods, and only sometimes young or weakened by old age/disease marine mammals. One should not fall for the common and obviously erroneous discussion that “white sharks specialize in feeding on seals.” This is a myth from documentaries, which have nothing else to show except their seasonal shark feeding on sea lion pups. Sharks have an extremely primitive physiology: in particular, the kidneys are practically disabled and waste products accumulate in the blood until they themselves flow through the rectal glands and gills. And this greatly (and by no means for the better) affects endurance, the strength of muscle contractions, coordination of movements and the nervous system as a whole, which are already not very well developed in sharks. The cartilaginous skeleton, even with proper calcification, cannot support such powerful muscles as even the thin bones of bony fish, not to mention the powerful bones of such developed higher vertebrates as crocodiles. The same goes for the jaws: the cartilaginous jaws of sharks are also very unstable to stress and are easily deformed. The jaws of young white sharks do not allow them to handle even seal pups without risk, without literally risking their heads. In large sharks, during ontogeny, this deficiency is partly compensated by an increase in the calcium content in the cartilage of the jaws. But, I emphasize - only partly. Being ordinary modified scales, shark teeth do not have roots and easily fall out of the gums even from slight stress. And their large number cannot always compensate for this. I say right away that sharks don't bite through sea turtle shells- this is also a myth, based on the study of the contents of the stomachs of sharks and the finds of the carcasses of unfortunate turtles with marks from shark teeth. But the shell of a turtle, softened by water, becomes very fragile, especially if it is some kind of leatherback turtle or Australian green turtle. And pieces of sea turtle shells in the stomachs of sharks, in addition to eating carrion crushed in the water, can also end up as a result of swallowing turtles whole: thus, by the way, turtles are eaten by snakes and monitor lizards that do not have sufficient bite force to open the shells. No one has ever seen such a situation where a shark would swim up and gnaw the shell of a fresh turtle, and I guarantee you that. But there are more than enough videos where large tiger sharks bite off turtles’ tails, heads and flippers, but cannot do anything about the shell. And although protective function in osteoderms of large crocodiles, it is frankly secondary; it will be very difficult for a shark to bite through the thick skin of a crocodile. Even the belly of a crocodile, the vulnerability of which is invented and imposed by the pseudo-documentary program “animal battles,” is in fact strengthened not only by quite decent skin (in strength comparable to buffalo and used for elite leather products), but also by a large layer of muscles with abdominal ribs. Finally, sharks are downright cowardly: the white shark is the only large predator that people regularly fight off with their bare hands. Moreover, there are cases where people survived attacks by even 5.5-6 meter sharks. Again, since white sharks are not experts at eating fatty seals, don’t think that they don’t like people. The shark will eat any meat available to it, it is an opportunistic predator: in the stomachs of white sharks they found bivalves, herring, small squid, sea turtles, rats, the remains of unidentified terrestrial animals, in one case they even found a 1.2-1.5 meter Australian narrow-snouted crocodile. These animals are by no means less “appetizing” than people, but white sharks eat them with pleasure. After all, the same polar bear is a much greater specialist in fatty foods. But this does not prevent him from considering people as food... And even if you do not focus on the low fatality of shark attacks on people, then the same seals, as a rule, also survive shark bites. It is easier to find photographs of seals injured by sharks healing their injuries on the beach than to find cases of successful predation by white sharks on adult pinnipeds. White sharks are not hunters of large prey, and they do not suppress the resistance of even relatively small prey.
Therefore, I do not think that a saltwater crocodile will have any problems killing a primitive and frankly timid white shark. After all, many successful attacks by crocodiles on a variety of sharks have been recorded. Saltwater crocodiles are extremely aggressive - males, defending food or territory, often rush even at helicopters (seemingly very “scary” because of the noise and size of unfamiliar objects) of rangers. But what is most important is that, unlike sharks, crocodiles regularly fight with each other and are able to suppress the resistance of even large and well-armed prey (after all, successful attacks by crocodiles even on big cats are known). They calmly cope with large animals and some individuals in the tea swamps of Australia even specialize in preying on adult Asian water buffalo. The white shark and the saltwater crocodile are, let’s say, animals from two completely different “leagues,” despite the shark’s superior weight.

So I propose to complicate the question: what happens if you put a plesiosuchus, a plesiotilosaur, a liopleurodon, a large saltwater crocodile and a seasoned male walrus in the same pool?

Of course, in this case he will not be a priority fighter. But of the marine mammals of this size, only the walrus can do something:

"One can hardly speak of any serious food competition between walrus ami and polar bears, even if we take into account the fact that walrus and from time to time they also feed on carrion - for example, the corpses of whales. During the hungry months of the polar winter, whale carcasses are the main food for all inhabitants of the Arctic, from seagulls and ravens to arctic foxes, wolves and bears. Robert Brown notes that stomachs walrus those killed near skinned whale carcasses are invariably stuffed with whale meat. Walrus and sometimes they even kill small ringed seals - as we already know, the main prey polar bear. It is quite possible that they do not hesitate to sea ​​hares. Pedersen says seals are afraid walrus they avoid their hiding places. Freuchen says that the herds walrus It usually drives seals out of the bays where they spend the summer months.
We have no reason not to believe the stories about how Eskimos catch fish north of Baffin Island. walrus to her on the edge of the ice floes; they put a piece of seal blubber into the water in the hope that walrus, attracted by the bait, will grab it and try to drag it under water; but because walrus cannot eat a piece under water, he must pull it out onto the ice, and that’s when it becomes the hunter’s prey. They say that upon noticing black spots - seals lying on the ice, walrus and break through the ice from below to get to them. According to Pedersen, the walrus deliberately chiseled the ice floe, trying to split it under the man’s feet. The Hudson Strait Eskimos say that in the fall, when they are tracking walruses at the holes, the walruses, noticing the place where the hunter is standing, dive and then begin to break the ice under him.
Frederick Jackson, who lived for about four years in the southeast of Franz Josef Land at the end of the last century, and one of Haig-Thomas’s companions were attacked by a walrus right on the ice floe: the walrus leaned out of the water and tried to strike with its tusks. K. Kolleway, a member of the German expedition that landed on the northwestern coast of Greenland in 1869, wrote: “We were making our way with difficulty along the path among the treacherous ice fields and suddenly we saw a walrus: it broke through the ice from below very close to us and frightened us with its unexpected appearance. We ran as fast as we could, but the walrus did not leave us - with great speed he swam after us under the water, breaking the ice under our feet. We set off in all directions, jumping over a thin crust of ice, which the alpenstock kept breaking through. Loud rustling. and the flapping of the monster’s flippers accompanied us all the way, until finally we got out onto the old ice, where our pursuer left us alone.”
If suddenly a group of people from the ship scares a seal and a walrus lying on an ice floe not far from the hole, then the walrus, which moves faster than the seal on land, will be the first to reach the saving hole. But instead of peacefully walking around the seal, the walrus deliberately hits him on the back with his tusks; this unexpected manifestation of aggressiveness is certainly a consequence of fear. Walruses usually hunt seals in the water. Pedersen twice saw a walrus chase and then kill a young ringed seal. And the Eskimos from the shores of Cumberland Bay told Gantzsch that they had more than once observed walruses catching seals in the water, grabbing them with flippers and then stabbing them with their tusks. The Eskimos of Pond Inlet say the same thing.
In the pools of the New York Aquarium, the speed at which walruses of different age groups swim is constantly measured. The maximum throwing speed does not exceed 7-9 kilometers per hour, and the normal cruising speed is only a little over three kilometers. In the wild, walruses make 10-13 kilometers per hour, and the slowest of the seals makes at least 15-20 kilometers. Therefore, it is not surprising that walruses hunt only young seals. However, admitting that walruses swim much faster in the sea than in the pool (and we know that they catch up even with fast-moving beluga whales), we still cannot help but admit that seals in the water are much more mobile than walruses. Therefore, when hunting seals, the walrus, like a bear, swims on its back and dives under the seal at the moment when the seal pokes its head out of the water to breathe. Having grabbed it with flippers, the walrus strikes with its tusks, cutting open the seal’s chest. Then, holding his prey with his flippers in the same way as a female walrus holds a puppy, the male walrus swims with her to the nearest ice floe, throws the carcass onto the ice and climbs out himself. There he rips open the seal with his tusks and greedily swallows large pieces of skin and fat. It is quite possible that he uses his vibrissae for this operation. Observations show that in captivity, a walrus, tearing pieces of meat from a seal carcass, helps itself with whiskers. Walruses especially love to feast on soft seal fat: the small distance between the tusks sitting on both sides of its mouth does not allow it to swallow large pieces of meat. Therefore it is not surprising that most of The seal carcass turns out to be untouched. However, one day Pedersen discovered a whole flipper in the stomach of a walrus.
In those months when there are especially many polar cod, walruses sometimes catch these fish, crashing into schools and eating them in large quantities.
Walrus predators are still an anomalous and quite rare phenomenon. Fey believes that in the Bering and Chukchi Seas there is barely one male predator per thousand walruses. But they still exist and are much more common than is commonly thought. Young narwhals, as well as whale skin and fat, have been found in the stomachs of walruses more than once. There is even the only evidence of how two walruses attacked a whale from both sides, which defended itself with its tail. Apparently, whales avoid going into waters where there are walruses. The famous polar explorer of the early 19th century, William Scoresby Jr., observed many times in the Norwegian and Greenland Seas how walruses ate narwhals. The Simpson Sound Eskimos told William Schwatka that walruses often attacked porpoises. The Englishman Robert Gray, the skipper of a whaling ship that entered the waters of the Norwegian Sea in 1890, wrote: “Standing on the bridge, I noticed some object in the dark water, over which birds were circling. Having lowered the boat into the water, we saw that it was a narwhal ", completely covered with wounds; his belly was almost eaten away. The culprit of the crime was a huge walrus, calmly sleeping nearby on a piece of ice."
Twelve years before this message, Gray's father, whose ship was in the Greenland Sea 275 miles off the coast of Spitsbergen, writes in the ship's log: “Moving north through ice fields and drifting ice, this morning I saw some object ahead that at first thought it was the shaft of a hand harpoon. The water around it was oily, and several birds were sitting nearby. At first I thought it was a dead whale, but then I saw that it was the tusk of a narwhal. As we got closer, I noticed something in the water near it brown and wondered for some time what it could be, but I soon realized that it was a walrus, tightly clinging to a narwhal.
When we got very close, I sent two boats and ordered a hand harpoon to be thrown at the narwhal and a harpoon gun to be fired at the walrus. The blow of the first harpooner landed right at the walrus's nose. The walrus became furious and released the narwhal, which immediately began to drown. The walrus clearly did not want to part with the prey, and, diving, he pulled the narwhal to the surface. Wrapping his flippers around it, he sank his teeth into it again.
At this time, the second boat approached, the harpooner fired a cannon right at the walrus’s neck, and he finally released the narwhal. The walrus dragged the boat quite far in the wind until a shot from a gun in the back of the head finished him off.
Upon examining the carcass, we found that the narwhal's entrails were missing, and most of the belly had been eaten or torn apart by the walrus, who selectively selected the pieces, apparently having spent a lot of time on the meal. He ate the fat from the skin as cleanly as if it had been scraped off with a knife. The narwhal was killed recently; in a mortal fight, the walrus wounded him with tusks from nose to tail. The walrus itself was intact. There was a layer of fat three inches thick on it, and its stomach was filled with seal skin and pieces of narwhal meat that it had just eaten. According to our rough estimates, there were at least fifteen gallons of blubber in his stomach.
The narwhal was about fourteen feet long, not including the tusk, and nine feet in girth. The length of the tusk was five feet.
The walrus was eleven feet long and had a girth of nine feet ten inches.
How, one wonders, did the walrus manage to hold such a powerful beast as the narwhal? A narwhal in its native element feels much freer than a walrus, and can leave with a harpoon embedded in it, unwinding a hundred-length whale line.
This is the only explanation I can think of: the walrus caught the narwhal while sleeping, dived under it and, plunging its tusks into its belly, grabbed it with its flippers. This is the position we found them in, with the only difference being that the walrus was now on top."

Relatively small species of sharks are common prey for crocodiles. Saltwater crocodiles, being the largest modern reptiles and having a tendency to stay in brackish water, and even go on long sea voyages, have sometimes been observed in predation towards fairly large sand and bull sharks that live in coastal waters and can even swim into rivers.

Nile crocodiles also prey on bull and sand sharks in the Zambezi River and Lake St. Lucia. Lemon sharks avoid areas where sharp-snouted crocodiles live, reacting to chemical compounds released by them. And although all these sharks are usually much smaller than large crocodiles, there are references to crocodiles being able to kill sharks close to their own size. In one such case, a young Nile crocodile killed a large bull shark, and in another, a 3-meter saltwater crocodile threw a 2.1-meter shark, approximately equal in weight to itself, above the water, and then tore it into pieces.

Encounters of larger species of sharks with crocodiles are relatively rare, as they prefer completely different habitats. However, tiger sharks, which sometimes hunt in coastal waters or even estuaries, can encounter crocodiles. Yellow Waters staff reported finding the remains of a 4.6m tiger shark in the estuary, killed and partially eaten by a saltwater crocodile. A saltwater crocodile has been observed eating a tiger shark on a Townsville beach.

It is believed that tiger sharks avoid the habitat of saltwater crocodiles, possibly due to similar feeding preferences. Thus, saltwater crocodiles off Cape York Peninsula in Australia have an instructive saying among divers and yachtsmen: “don’t worry about the tiger sharks, the saltwater crocodiles have already eaten them.” Although, on the other hand, a 4.3 meter tiger shark was caught in Dubai, South Africa, whose stomach contents included the remains of the head and forelimbs of an unidentified approximately 2.5 meter crocodile. However, this find is considered to be the result of eating carrion.

Norman Caldwell described a case of a very large shark (weighing about 900 pounds) being killed by a hungry crocodile; According to the author, after a stubborn struggle, the crocodile pulled the exhausted shark ashore and ate off the tail of its victim, leaving the rest to decompose in the fetid mud. In another case, a fight was observed between a shark and a crocodile off the coast of Madagascar, as a result of which the shark managed to fight back and bite off part of the crocodile’s tail, which was immediately lassoed and pulled out of the water by the sailors, thereby stopping the fight. There is a report of a saltwater crocodile killing a mako shark in the waters near Kakadu National Park. In the intertidal zones of northern Australia, especially near river mouths, some scars on the bodies of young saltwater crocodiles have been identified as possible marks from the teeth of sharks, suggesting frequent aggressive interactions between these animals.

In addition, there is fairly reliable information about the killing of an approximately 5.5 meter female white shark by a very large, approximately 6 meter saltwater crocodile in 1939. As a result of this encounter, the crocodile turned the shark on its back, tore out its skull and severed its neck using a lethal spin. Moreover, Australian fishermen at the beginning of the 20th century claimed that this had been observed more than once. Author and journalist Peter Hanhawk described a "huge lizard" that entered the ocean and killed a great white shark. There is a fairly high probability that the described "megalania" was actually a saltwater crocodile. On the other hand, a small 1.2-1.5 meter Australian freshwater crocodile was found in the stomach of a 4.9 m white shark caught in Queensland.

Comparative characteristics
Different types of sharks and crocodiles have different sizes. White sharks usually reach 3.9-4.8 m in length, weighing 680-1100 kg, tiger sharks usually have a length of 3.25-4.25 m, weighing 385-635 kg, bull sharks have an average length of 2.3 up to 2.4 m with a weight of 90-130 kg. And at the same time, female sharks of these species are, as a rule, larger than males.

In crocodiles, as a rule, the opposite is true - males are much larger and stronger than females. Male saltwater crocodiles usually reach approximately 4.3-5.2 m in length and weigh between 400 and 1000 kg, while females range from 2.3 to 3 m and weigh no more than 40-100 kg. Male Nile crocodiles are typically 4 to 5 meters long and weigh 300-600 kg, while females are 2.2 to 3.8 m long and weigh 40 to 250 kg. The length of adult males of sharp-snouted crocodiles in continental rivers throughout most of their range ranges from 2.9 to 4 m, and females - from 2.5 to 3 m, while on the islands and coasts they are much smaller - for example, in the coastal zone of Belize, adult individuals weigh only 77.8 kg.

Armament
The saltwater crocodile has the potential to have the strongest bite in the animal kingdom. The estimated jaw compression force of a large male saltwater crocodile weighing 1308 kg is from 27531 to 34424 newtons, which is equivalent to a gravity force of 2809.3-3512.7 kg. The greatest practical result was obtained when measuring the jaw pressure of a 4.59 m 531 kg male saltwater crocodile - 16414 N, or approximately 1675 kg. Thus, this is the second strongest bite measured in any animal in the laboratory. The first place here is certainly occupied by the pressure of 2268 kg, issued by a more than 5-meter Nile crocodile when measured by Brady Barr. The length of the largest teeth in the mouth of a 4.8 m combed crocodile reaches 9 cm, the total number of teeth in real crocodiles is 64-68, in alligators - 74-80, in gharials - up to a hundred. The teeth of crocodiles are not designed to cut meat, but given their monstrous bite force and physical strength, this is not a disadvantage - with its jaws a crocodile can easily cut through the skin, muscles and even bones of a large animal, like an ax.

As for the white shark, its jaw clenching force is relatively small. However, given the structure of the teeth and the mechanism of the bite, these sharks do not need to have a very powerful bite. In 2008, a simulation was carried out that allowed the power of shark jaws to be assessed. It was found that the bite force of a white shark 2.5 m long and weighing 240 kg could reach 3131 N, while for a shark 6.4 m long and weighing 3324 kg it would be 18216 N. The bull shark has relatively much more powerful jaws, than the white one - one individual bit the sensor with a force of about 6000 N. The teeth of the white shark reach 5 cm in length and have serrated edges, which make it possible to cut off pieces of soft fat and meat from the victim with some efficiency. Their total number is up to 300. Some other sharks have similar adaptations for feeding on relatively large animals. But it is highly unlikely that a shark's jaws can handle the tough skin of a crocodile.

Temperament
In general, crocodiles are significantly more aggressive animals than sharks, usually more prone to conflict of any kind.

The most aggressive crocodiles are considered to be saltwater crocodiles - the most asocial modern representatives of their order, known for brutal territorial battles. Among large species of crocodiles, Cuban crocodiles, which dominate larger sharp-snouted crocodiles in nature and in captivity, and Nile crocodiles also have a high level of aggression. Contrary to popular belief, size does not play the most important role in crocodile conflicts, unlike experience and aggression.

Among sharks, bull sharks are considered the most aggressive. Mako sharks and some smaller shark species can also be aggressive. There is a known case in which a mako shark chased away a great white shark. Typically, social hierarchy among sharks is based on the size of specific individuals, and larger females tend to dominate males.