The Nile crocodile lives in Africa's rivers. Nile crocodiles live in Africa, and on the island of Madagascar, in rivers, freshwater marshes and mangrove swamps.

As of November 2026, the Nile crocodile is the largest crocodile in Africa, and an average adult is about 16 feet (about 5 meters) long, counting its tail, while the longest reach about 20 feet (6 meters), counting the tail, as of November 2026.

An average adult Nile crocodile weighs about 500 pounds (225 kilograms), and many weigh more, and the biggest Nile crocodiles are reported to weigh as much as 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds), as of November 2026.

Crocodiles have about 9,000 touch-sensing domes on their bodies, many more than the roughly 4,000 an alligator has on its head, and the sensing bumps on a crocodile's skin are more sensitive to touch than human fingertips.

Nile crocodile touch domes connect to the brain through the trigeminal ganglia, the nerve bundle that gives sensation to the face and jaw in humans, and some of the domes are tuned to vibrations of 20 to 35 hertz, just right for detecting tiny water ripples.

A crocodile's heart has four chambers but works like a three-chambered heart when the crocodile is under water, which helps it save oxygen, and laboratory studies say the functioning of the crocodile heart is perhaps the most complex of all vertebrates.

A resting Nile crocodile may stay underwater for up to two hours when it is not moving, and a crocodile's ear slits close up when it dives, which keeps water out.

In daylight a Nile crocodile basks in the sun, and it cools off in the water when it needs to, so it warms up and cools down by moving between sun and shade or land and water, and Nile crocodiles often rest in the sun with their mouths open.

A Nile crocodile waits patiently underwater for prey, then launches itself forward, and it may ambush prey near the shoreline, swimming silently underwater until it is near the shore.

Fish are the main food of a Nile crocodile, and besides fish, Nile crocodiles eat animals such as zebras and porcupines, while a crocodile's tail stores fat, so a big crocodile can go a long time without food.

A mother Nile crocodile makes her nest on a riverbank, a sandy shoreline or a dry streambed, and the eggs are placed in a hole nest and buried 30 to 45 centimeters deep, while Nile crocodile mothers often make their nests close to each other.

A mother Nile crocodile lays at least 25 eggs in one nest, and she guards her nest until the eggs hatch, which takes about 90 days, or three months.

A Nile crocodile's nest temperature decides whether its babies are female or male, and only females hatch from eggs kept between 28 and 31 degrees Celsius, while eggs kept below 27 degrees Celsius never hatch.

Baby Nile crocodiles call from inside their eggs just before they hatch, and when the babies are ready to hatch, the mother Nile crocodile digs up the nest, and a Nile crocodile parent may gently roll an egg in its mouth to help a baby hatch, and then the mother carries her newly hatched babies to the water in her mouth.

In the middle of the 1900s, Nile crocodiles were hunted until they were almost gone, and the Okavango Delta, between Botswana and Namibia, lost 48,000 adult Nile crocodiles between 1957 and 1968 when hunting was allowed.

Laws and protection have helped Nile crocodile numbers recover in many places, and the IUCN Red List says the Nile crocodile is a species of Least Concern, as of November 2026, with an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 mature Nile crocodiles living in the wild, as of November 2026.

Words to know

• domes: small raised bumps
• oxygen: gas animals breathe
• ambush: hidden surprise rush
• recover: grow back