I had no idea crocodiles had hearts, but this story has confirmed it.
Yup, our little four-legged friend, let's call him Buddy, was being chased around in India near the Savitri River by a pack of angry feral dogs when he decided, what the heck, I might as well jump into the river, maybe they'll stop following me then. So he did it, he jumped into the river, and the other dogs stayed put on the shore.
"Yahoo!" Buddy must've hollered in dog language while doing the doggy paddle and trying to come up with a plan for what to do next.
But then it dawned on him…
At that time, three adult [crododiles] "were clearly seen floating close by in the water and their attention was drawn" to the animal.
Here must've been the expression on poor Buddy's face:
Yes, this was the end. It'd been a nice two, or was it three, years for Buddy — he could never remember — but this was it. He was donezo.
But then the strangest thing happened.
But rather than making the dog their next prey, two of the three crocodiles displayed "more docile behaviour" than expected. Instead of eating the young animal, the crocodiles "guided" it away from where the pack of dogs were waiting for it on the river bank.
"These crocodiles were actually touching the dog with their snout and nudging it to move further for a safe ascent on the bank and eventually escape," researchers wrote. "...Given that the [crocidile] was well within the striking range and could have easily devoured the dog, yet none of them attacked and instead chose to nudge it towards the bank, implies that the hunger drive was absent."
Man, Buddy just found his new best friends, and they were CROCODILES. Crocodiles who just rescued him from that nasty pack of feral dogs. Was this a dream, or was it real life? How had this happened, and why did these crocs not eat him?
Well, even scientists aren't sure.
Their best guess, however, is that the [crocodiles] were simply putting their emotional intelligence on display.
"Emotional empathy" - which allows one species "to experience the emotional feelings of another" - isn't thoroughly investigated in these animals, they said, but it could be an answer.
If I was a scientist, I'd say the reason Buddy didn't get eaten by those crocodiles is because they're incredibly nice crocs, and they probably weren't hungry that day or they'd have eaten him in seconds. However, this whole scene seems like something out of a cartoon, so I'm gonna go ahead and say maybe one of the locals is letting the crocs watch Nickelodeon again.
Moral of the story: Crocodiles need to watch more TV (that way they'll eat fewer dogs).
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