Crocodile underwater, how long can they hold their breath?
Crocodiles are made for life in the water! It is their safety, it's where they spend vast majority of the hours in the day, it's their refuge. But they do not breathe in the water, like fish. They have lungs like you and I, but unlike you and I, they can spend literal hours underneath the water's surface on a single breath of air.
The longest ever recorded time was on a 93-pound (approx. 8-foot) Australian freshwater crocodile who stayed under for 6.7 hours! This was a forced dive to understand the threshold of their physiology and NOT something they do on a regular basis, but it is theorized that the larger crocodilians (as 8-feet is only an average length) can far exceed this number!
On a regular basis, crocs tend go up for air more frequently, depending on a variety of factors like activity level and water temperature. During active dives where they are likely foraging for food, they may spend about 1 minute intervals under the water hunting for fish.
During resting dives though, where they may sit on the bottom of the lagoon or in a cave motionless, they have been noted staying down from anywhere from 11 minutes to 149 minutes, and only coming up for about 50 seconds of surface time in between. That is some serious free-diving skills!
Photographs by ACES
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