- (DPA) -- Crocodiles living in the Sahara sounds like
fiction, but Spanish scientists are investigating such a group in southern
Mauritania.
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- The reptiles are regarded as the last remains of the
abundant crocodile population which roamed the Sahara before it dried up
9000 years ago.
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- The few dozen Nile crocodiles subsist at a pond near
the Senegalese border, Madrid's Complutense University veterinary professor
Eduardo Costa said.
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- The pond, just 100 square metres in size, is 200 km from
the nearest river, the daily El Mundo reported.
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- French students first discovered the crocodiles in the
late 1990s. The ancestors of the animals are believed to have taken refuge
near water when the once green Sahara was turning into a desert.
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- Spanish scientists found the pond to contain large amounts
of micro-organisms which favour the presence of weeds. These nourish fish
that the crocodiles feed on.
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- The delicate ecosystem had remained functional despite
its small size for millennia, experts said, and is a "unique ecological
phenomenon".
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- "I was struck by the active life of the crocodiles,
the presence of quite a few young ones and the amount of fish they were
eating," said Fernando Hiraldo, an investigator at a research station
belonging to the Donana National Park in southern Spain.
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- Costa believes the crocodiles survived because they were
far from human settlements.
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- Even today, local people believe that killing the crocodiles
would cause the pond to dry up. In exchange, the crocodiles never attack
goats or other domestic animals which come to drink from the well.
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- Costa said the Mauritanian desert was known to house
only one other such group of crocodiles several hundred kilometres away.
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- The last crocodiles of the Sahara could well be doomed,
if their presence becomes known and begins to draw tourists, Costa added.
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- The threat could also come from the local animal herders,
Hiraldo said, adding he had seen traces of pesticides and anti-parasite
medicines around the pond.
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- Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald.
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- http://www.smh.com.au/news/Science/What-a-croc-=true
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