Mugger Off

Quiet, still, and thoroughly unimpressed — a mugger stretched out on the warm rocks above the Zuari, wearing the kind of look that ends conversations. Jaws parted, a crooked row of teeth on show, one half-lidded eye tracking the boat: the whole posture says, plainly, move along.

Except the open mouth isn’t the threat it seems. Crocodiles can’t sweat, so a basking mugger holds its jaws agape to shed heat through the thin skin inside — the reptilian equivalent of a dog panting. The menace, mostly, is in the eye of the beholder.

The mugger, or marsh crocodile, is the broad-snouted freshwater crocodile of the subcontinent: armour-plated, ancient, and content to lie for hours between hunts. This one had hauled out onto the laterite above the river in Goa and had no intention of moving for anyone.