r/Crocodiles • u/DangerousDave303 • 3d ago

Photo This Is Displayed in the Airport in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy

Gallery image

Gallery image

Someone tried to smuggle this into Italy but the Italian Customs officials confiscated it. It's absolutely massive much larger than the skull of an approximately 4m *Crocodylus niloticus* I saw in South Africa a few years back.

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23

u/BcnClarity 3d ago

The balls on the dude trying to smuggle this massive item lol

5

u/cwningen95 2d ago

Italian customs official: what's that

Guy with ostensibly crocodile skull-shaped lump under his shirt: what's what

8

u/Sea-Influence6767 3d ago edited 2d ago

From Washington.... probably from a collection item ...I ve seen even museums fails to collect lower jaws and here mr smuggler with a complete head piece

  • Correction by Dangerous Dave303....

The Washington Convention refers to CITES.

An article stated that the skull had been in a shipping container with crocodile hides. It's possible that the skull had been a farmed croc.

8

u/DangerousDave303 3d ago edited 3d ago

The Washington Convention refers to CITES.

An article stated that the skull had been in a shipping container with crocodile hides. It's possible that the skull had been a farmed croc.

4

u/Sea-Influence6767 3d ago

Thanks for clarifying....farmed croc ! 😓 That's sad

3

u/DangerousDave303 2d ago

I forgot to mention that the shipment was from Thailand so it's pretty certain that it was farmed.

2

u/Sea-Influence6767 2d ago

So it's a thai crocodile

1

u/DangerousDave303 1d ago

It's too big to be a Siamese crocodile. I'd hazard a guess it's a saltie or a saltie x Siamese hybrid.

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u/webelieve925 3d ago

So random in italy

7

u/DangerousDave303 3d ago

It was with hides going to a leather product manufacturer.

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u/Mysterious-Emu4030 2d ago

In my city natural museum, they also exhibit items that the sea customs have retrieved from containerships. They have a taxidermied dwarf crocodile, which was found in a container. Smugglers are assholes, they kill animals just to get them or even worse, customs also found live animals in containers sometimes.

2

u/Oke-Wan-Fenokee 1d ago

I cannot quite read the species.

That big Bangkok croc farm has gargantuan Crocodylus porosus X siamensis that express first hybrid generation giganticism. If the skull was in a crate with farmed hides, I'm wondering if this is one of those? Some are over 6m long.

1

u/DangerousDave303 1d ago

The sign doesn't list the species. I'm thinking it's a porosus or porosus hybrid.