Crocodiles Without Tails Are Aggressive?

Talking about crocodiles, there was that legend that says a crocodile named "Putol" was notoriously ferocious. Putol is a local term that means that its tail was severed. It may be aggressive because it encountered someone in the past and got its tail cut off. So, the story goes that the crocodile attacks humans because of this. It's some kind of vendetta. Does this mean that crocodiles without tails are aggressive? I don't think so.

I was reminded of this story when I noticed my photographs of crocodile offspring with this condition several years back. The tails of these crocodiles did not develop during incubation. When they broke out from their thick eggshell, all of them have no tails.


The mother of this group of hatchlings was once reared near a plantation somewhere in Mindanao. The veterinarians pointed out that somehow, pesticides in the chemicals sprayed on the growing crops adjacent to the crocodile's pen contaminated the food of the mother crocodile. Feeding on the contaminated food, the mother crocodile ingested the harmful ingredients of the pesticide. These crocodiles were victims of pesticide residues that prevented the growth of their tails.