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Wild Adult Mugger Crocodile Recorded Galloping for the First Time

Wild mugger crocodile moving at the water's edge in India
Research · Behaviour

A natural-history note published in 2026 reports what the authors describe as the first record of a free-ranging adult mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) galloping. The observation was made during an annual mugger census in Kutch, India, in February 2021.

The crocodile, estimated at about 2.5 m long, was initially stationary on land. A drone being used during the survey startled the animal, which abruptly accelerated in a galloping gait towards the water before submerging. In crocodilians, galloping differs from the usual belly crawl or high walk because all four limbs leave the ground during part of the stride.

Galloping has been documented in several other crocodilian species, but records are more common in juveniles than adults. For mugger crocodiles, the authors found only anecdotal reports from captivity before this observation. They conclude that the record adds to evidence that crocodilians have a wider range of terrestrial locomotion than is often documented.

Sources and image credit

  1. Pandhi, D., & Desai, B. (2026). First record of galloping in a free-ranging adult mugger crocodile Crocodylus palustris. The Herpetological Bulletin, 176, 45–46. https://doi.org/10.33256/hb176.4546Natural-history note in the Summer 2026 issue, describing a wild adult observed in Kutch, India, in February 2021.

Image: Kandukuru Nagarjun / Wikimedia Commons — wild mugger crocodile at the water's edge in the Chambal riverine ecosystem, Dholpur, Rajasthan, India, 27 February 2022; representative image showing the species on land, not the individual in the Kutch observation · CC BY 2.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ · Source

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