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.
In fact, Snappy is quite possibly the world's first orange crocodile. Yes, we know, an orange alligator was discovered in Florida earlier this year, but that's exactly the point...that was an alligator; Snappy, on the other hand, is most definitely a crocodile, and proud of it. Just look at the pose that he's struck in the image up top — Snappy is clearly seething with crocodile baditude.
Incidentally, it may have been his baditude that turned Snappy orange in the first place.
"Snappy's pretty territorial and he attacked the filter [in his water tank] one day, and a few weeks after that, I noticed he was orange," said Tracey Sandstrom (Snappy's owner) in an interview with the Herald Sun.
"I think it caused the pH levels in his water to soar which has led to the change in color," said Sandstrom.
When the Herald Sun consulted reptile expert Grahame Webb about the croc's status, he said that the change in color could also have been from something in the water that actually stained Snappy's scaly skin.
Webb said that, as far as he could tell, Snappy appears to be in perfectly good shape. His sentiment was echoed by Sandstrom, who said "it doesn't seem to have affected him at all. He's still got a healthy appetite, is normally aggro and doing everything he always does."
We're happy to hear that Snappy's doing alright. We just hope his orange hue — which is expected to fade back to green in time — lasts until Halloween.
Herald Sun via Discovery News
Images via Herald Sun