The batagurs seemed to enjoy chasing this gharial, which it was fine with until one particularly painful nip from the terrapin made it flinch, and the gharial responded by attempting to bite it. Some excellent action in this pool.
I wonder if this shows a sign of a crocodilian engaging in play. If so it's very interesting since I've never heard of this in any kind of reptile apart from lizards.
@Rohin a very interesting suggestion, and thank you for bringing to my attention the fact that lizards are known to play as I wasn’t aware of this.
When I saw this at Prague, my first thought was a symbiotic relationship of sorts. The turtles looked to be biting, quite gently and harmlessly, at the gharial’s scales, as though they were cleaning it of any parasites. This would explain both the number of turtles mobbing the Gharial and the reason that the crocodilian was so ignorant to it until it flinched.
A quick search to see what the batagur’s diet consists mainly of fruit and vegetation, although are occasionally omnivorous and preys of molluscs. Would whatever small animals were living on the gharial’s scales be too much of a stretch of their omnivorous nature?
Definitely puzzled me on my visit and to this day, but was very fun to watch!
@Kalaw regarding lizards playing, I have heard of zoos offering Komodo dragons enrichment which they use, despite it not giving them food. I believe London has also relatively recently observed their blue tree monitors play and have published studies on them. I seem to recall watching a video with an alligator playing with a ball toy and death rolling with it so I suppose, crocodilians can observe play.
I did a search for batagurs eating parasites, but I couldn't find anything about it unfortunately.
