There are worse things than 35ft crocodiles

I admire the late Steve Irwin, the Australian crocodilaphile who, coming from nowhere, contrived to make £2 million a year sporting with these ugly, dangerous and tremendous beasts, and was then killed by a miserable stingray. I say ‘ugly’ but that is a matter of opinion. I love drawing them more than any other creature except a rhino. Humanity has a long and mysterious history of crocodile-fancying. In Central America, in the region known as the Gran Chingui, Indian tribes in the deep pre-Columbian era seem to have worshipped them. They figure prominently in pottery as stands, handles, beaker-mouths and entire vessels. There is a whole range of ware known as the Alligator Group. No accounting for tastes, eh? It may be that crocs have been worshipped, as in ancient Egypt, for their size and power. Significantly, the first ruler to treat them as gods was a woman, Queen Sebeknofru. She called a town after them, Crocodilonopolis (modern Medinet el-Fayyum). This is one of only two Pharaonic places called after animals, the other being Elephantopolis, much further up the Nile. This got its name from the trading place where Sudanese and equatorial Africans brought their ivory tusks to swap for spices, scents, medicines and precious metals. It may be that croc-town was an emporium of the leather trade, the skins, then as now, fetching high prices for purses, pouches and shoes.

Cleopatra also liked crocodiles, which may account for the mysterious passage in the play where Lefridus cross-questions Antony about them and is answered with deadpan nonsense — Shakespeare in his proto-Stoppard vein:

Lefridus: What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?

Antony: It is shaped, sir, like itself , and it is as broad as it has breadth; it is just so high as it is, and moves with its own organs; it lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.