The Rest of the Cast

You have now met the two crocodilians that account for almost every human death across this half of the world: the saltwater crocodile of the coasts, described at length in the Australian chapters, and, on the subcontinent, the mugger. Set beside them the falsely feared gharial, which kills almost no one, and you have the three animals the region argues about most. Three animals. They are not the whole cast. The Australasian arc is richer in crocodilians than any other region on Earth, and the animals still to introduce are, with a single sharp exception, not dangers to be feared but species to be mourned. Meet them before we walk the danger country. But hold on to the one thing that outranks all of this naming: knowing which water is theirs will keep you alive where knowing the crocodile's name will not, because the water is what keeps you out of reach in the first place.