crocodile
animal · 4 works · 4 mentions · 8 anchored passages
the crocodile · crocodiles · khampsae
in the texts
Eudemian Ethics
Named as one party in a reported cooperative pairing with a small wading bird.
On the Nature of the Gods
Cited as an example of an animal with instinctive, self-sufficient behavior from birth.
such as the crocodiles, the river-tortoises, and certain serpents, which, born away from the water, as soon as they are first able to crawl, make for the water.
but tortoises and crocodiles, they say, when they have laid their eggs on land, bury them and then go away:
Stromata
Egyptian sacred animal symbolizing both time and shamelessness in the described temple imagery.
Some of the Egyptians show the sun upon a ship, others upon a crocodile.
The Histories
The Nile crocodile, given extended zoological description and shown to be sacred in some Egyptian districts, reviled or hunted in others.
All birds and beasts flee from it, except the sandpiper, with which it is at peace because this bird does the crocodile a service;
Hearing the squeals of the pig, the crocodile goes after the sound, and meets the bait, which it swallows;
for whenever the crocodile comes ashore out of the water and then opens its mouth (and it does this mostly to catch the west wind), the sandpiper goes into its mouth and eats the leeches;