Anyone with a pet cat will have borne witness to the nauseating process of hairball expulsion, but it is also necessary for crocodiles.
They grunt, squeeze, dribble and snort until a repulsive mass of wet, undigested fur plops onto the carpet.It turns out crocs, like cats, also hock up hairballs – or bezoars as they're known – and a handful of Queenslanders collect them.Townsville man Marc McConnell first stumbled across a bezoar while conducting drought resilience field work with NQ Dry Tropics, a not-for-profit natural resource management group.
Mr McConnell described his first bezoar as a "tight mat of feral pig and wallaby hair" — but there can be plenty of variation in their composition. "This crocodile had been around for a fair while … and being opportunistic feeders, he'd had his munch on a couple of people as well.""It was like a diet list of what the crocodile had eaten for the last 40 years," Mr Lever said.The Central Queensland croc farmer said the biggest bezoar he ever found was about the size of a football inside the decaying corpse of a croc at Kakadu in the Northern Territory.
"The little bit that was left in the ponds blocked up every drainage pipe we had – so that fine rabbit hair became a complete nuisance to us."Mark Norman spent decades working as a crocodile safari guide on the Proserpine River but had only ever seen a bezoar in a display cabinet. Herpetology collection manager Andrew Amey speculated that the variation in consistency might be due to the length of time in the digestive tract."Perhaps the smoother object was in the stomach for longer and the fur has been abraded smooth," Dr Amey said.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
This is food fraud: The growing problem in Australia that 'can fool anyone'Food fraud can be simple deception, like diluting wine with fruit juice — but it can also be complex and deadly.
Read more »
I’ve had to end many friendships over the years. How can I be more discerning upfront?There would be no value to friendship if we formed it with just anyone, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, but friendship doesn’t have to mean mutual enmeshment
Read more »
Queensland's Transport Department to Investigate Replacement for Ageing Licensing SystemQueensland’s Transport Department will spend $8 million investigating a replacement for its ageing licensing system after multiple failures, including the upgrading of unqualified P-platers to open licences. An increase in technical issues has seen some Queenslanders upgraded from provisional to open licences despite not being old enough or having served the correct provisional period.
Read more »
The Greens housing plan won’t fix anything – it’s a campaign tacticIt’s obvious to anyone who understands housing policy that the Greens’ plan would make the housing crisis worse. People like Max Chandler-Mather would benefit, not those who really need the help.
Read more »
The Greens housing plan won’t fix anything – it’s a campaign tacticIt’s obvious to anyone who understands housing policy that the Greens’ plan would make the housing crisis worse. People like Max Chandler-Mather would benefit, not those who really need the help.
Read more »
Mother of Three Missing for Ten Days in AustraliaA 51-year-old mother of three named Samantha Murphy has been missing for ten days after going for her regular run in the trails near Ballarat, Australia. Despite extensive search efforts, no trace of her has been found. Her family is desperate for answers and urges anyone with information to contact the police.
Read more »