Crocodilians eat fruit?

[elefante]

I was in Omaha on Wednesday and saw them feeding the crocodilians fruit like apples. Are these animals normally omnivorous? Is this common in captivity?

 

[Chlidonias]

I've never heard of zoos feeding any crocodylians on fruit before. I have a vague recollection of dwarf crocodiles or dwarf caiman eating fruit in the wild but I'm not sure if that is an accurate recollection or not. (I know deliberate ingestion of fruit has been seen in a couple of species of snakes, and there are a couple of frogs that have plant-heavy diets).

If the observation was indeed correct (i.e. that the crocodiles were being fed the fruit directly and it wasn't for some other species sharing the space) then perhaps it is to simulate the stomach contents of prey which their captive diet would otherwise be lacking??

 

[elefante]

There were turtles and fish in the exhibit so the fruit could have been for them but the crocodilians were eating it. The other alligators and caimens in the main swamp area had fruit floating around theirs as well.

 

[Zoovolunteer]

Darren Naish in one of the earlier incarnations of tetrapod Zoology ( a definite must read by the way) had a post about caiman eating fruit quite regularly. The post is here: Alligators eat fruit – Tetrapod Zoology

A very interesting article, like all his work