Crocodile carcasses with hardened, fatty deposits in the tails are posing a macabre puzzle for researchers at South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
Staff at the park are speculating over what killed at least 30 of the animals in late May and early June. “We suspect that because of the hardening fat in the tails, the animals could no longer swim and so sank and drowned,” says park spokesman William Mabasa.
Preliminary tests at the University of Pretoria were inconclusive, so the fat samples have been sent to Spain for further tests. The appearance of the tough fat has been associated in the past with a condition called pansteatitis, brought on by eating rotten or rancid fish. “But the fish are OK, and all the other animals in the Olifants river are OK,” says Mabasa. One other possibility is exposure to pollutants: the Olifants is the most polluted of all the park’s rivers.
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