This is not an ad for Toyota. It's a photo of a 4.8-meter crocodile that was shot and killed earlier this week in the small Australian community of Palumpa.

This isn't a Just So Story. It's a science story — but don't worry, it's still weird. New research suggests that the spotty bumps that pepper the skin of crocodiles and alligators are even more receptive to touch than human fingertips. But how do the spots work — and what purpose do they serve?

As apex predators of the Cretaceous period go, Tyrannosaurus Rex is pretty iconic. And yet, it's likely even formidable tyrant-lizards would have watched their steps around Deinosuchus - North America's so-called "terrible crocodile."

Among the fossils unearthed from the Lake Turkana Basin of Kenya, a new species of crocodile has been described in terrifying detail. In a press release, University of Iowa associate professor of geoscience Christopher Brochu describes the new Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni as big (up to 27 feet long) and hungry.

Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to Snappy. Snappy is an 8-foot-2-inch long crocodile; he lives at Roaming Reptiles animal park in Victoria, Australia; and — in case you hadn't noticed — Snappy is very, very orange.

Sixty million years ago, the world belonged to Titanoboa, a gigantic snake that measured 40 to 50 feet long and weighed over 2,500 pounds. Only one creature could challenge it: a newly discovered, twenty-foot freshwater crocodile.

Youtube videographer MorRokko dressed up her dwarf caiman in an itty-bitty suit of Tony Stark's armor. Ergo, Iron Croc! Reptiles in power suits are right up there with four-eared kittens on the Scifi Cuteness Scale.