Ahmedabad: A mugger crocodile in Kutch has given wildlife science an unexpected headline. Its rare burst of speed was recorded during the 2021 mugger census and published this year in The Herpetological Bulletin of Summer as the first documented record of a galloping free-ranging adult mugger crocodile. The quarterly, peer-reviewed journal is published by the British Herpetological Society.
The paper was authored by Valsad-based Brinky Desai, chief scientist at the Mahim Pandhi Wildlife Foundation, and Dax Pandhi, a Bhuj-based conservationist and the foundation’s director. The observation was made in February 2021 near Chadva Rakhal in Kutch, when an adult mugger, estimated at about 2.5 metres long, suddenly galloped from land into the water after being startled by a drone used during the survey. The moment was filmed by Pandhi.
Muggers are usually thought of as strong swimmers and steady walkers, not sprinters. Desai herself puts a light spin on the moment, saying that public perception often sees muggers as slow on land, even though the team has regularly documented fast behaviour in different forms and discussed it in workshops. This gallop, however, showed the animal moving even faster — almost like switching to “deadline-mode sprint”.
The scientific claim, however, is carefully defined. Galloping or bounding was observed earlier in other crocodilians, including Australian freshwater crocodiles, saltwater crocodiles and Nile crocodiles. Later locomotion studies also documented it in species such as the Philippine and Cuban crocodiles. But for a wild adult mugger crocodile, this Kutch record is the first published proof to date. In muggers, such movement had earlier remained largely anecdotal, especially in captivity.
The discovery also draws attention to the work of the Mahim Pandhi Wildlife Foundation, a Kutch-based non-profit focused on crocodile research, conservation, education and outreach. Its DesertCrocs initiative studies Kutch’s uniquely arid mugger population and its unusual coexistence with people.
The research paper, titled ‘First record of galloping in a free-ranging adult mugger crocodile Crocodylus palustris,’ states, “In muggers, galloping has only been recorded as an anecdotal movement in captivity. The Kutch record is perhaps the first record of a wild, adult mugger galloping, which itself is rare.”
“Incidences of galloping in crocodiles was observed in juveniles. This galloping behaviour has mainly been recorded in Crocodylus johnstoni, Crocodylus porosus and Crocodylus niloticus, but other crocodile species may also be capable of such agile movement,” the paper states.
In the late-February 2021 census, teams with Gujarat Forest support directly sighted 408 crocodiles across 113 sites in Kutch, while estimating Kutch’s broader mugger population at around 1,000. Drones were key to this work because Kutch’s vast terrain and large water bodies make many sites difficult to survey on foot.
