Crocodiles enjoy sliding, surfing and playing with balls

This video is called Biology documentary on Crocodiles.

From Wildlife Extra:

Research reveals crocodiles enjoy sliding, surfing and playing with balls

Fancy a game of something?

A research assistant professor in psychology at the University of Tennessee, Vladimir Dinets, who has been studying crocodiles and alligators for 10 years, has revealed that they enjoy playing with objects, as well as other animals and fellow crocodilians.

Alongside his own observations of crocs displaying play-like behaviours in surfing waves, tossing balls and giving each other piggyback rides, he conducted an informal survey of groups on social media and attendees at conferences who were interested in crocodiles.

His results show a gentler aspect than is usually associated with these predators. They are seen to engage in all three main types of play identified by behaviour specialists as locomotor play, play with objects, and social play.

Play with objects was reported most often. Crocs have been seen playing with wooden balls, noisy ceramic items, streams of water, their prey, and debris floating on the surface of the water.

Cases of locomotor play include young alligators repeatedly sliding down slopes, crocodiles surfing waves and caimans riding currents of water in their pools.

Observed cases of social play include baby alligators riding on older animals’ backs, baby caimans playfully “courting” each other, and a male crocodile giving his lifetime mate rides on his back.

Crocodiles have also been seen playing with other animals. Dinets observed a juvenile alligator playing with a river otter.

In rare cases, individual crocodilians have even been known to bond closely and enjoy the company of people. There is a story of a man who saved a crocodile that had been shot and the two played together for 20 years.

“The croc would swim with his human friend, try to startle him by suddenly pretending to attack him or by sneaking up on him from behind, and accept being caressed, hugged, rotated in the water and kissed on the snout,” says Dinets.

His work, published in the journal Animal Behavior and Cognition, is the first study of play in crocodiles from a scientific basis. The full study can be viewed here.

Dinets’ research builds on the work of colleague Gordon Burghardt, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, whose work defined “play” in connection with a species not previously thought capable of play.

Dinets’ work provides further evidence that play is a universal feature of “intelligent” animals, with complex, flexible behaviour.

He believes that providing crocodiles in captivity with amusements and objects to play with will give them happier, healthier lives.

The finding of this research may contribute to the knowledge of how intelligence evolves and what is needed for its development.

Previous research by Dinets discovered that crocodiles are able to climb trees, work as a team and use lures such as sticks to hunt prey. More of his crocodile research can be found in his book Dragon Songs.