A scientist has claimed crocodiles aren't dying of old age because there are so many other variables the reptiles have to deal with.
They cited "starvation, accidents or disease" as the three outliers, and questioned just how long a crocodile could live without those factors cutting their lifespan shorter than usual.
Ageing may not be as problematic for crocodiles as it is for humans though, with researchers citing some odd animal outliers, including a 255-year-old tortoise and a 400-year-old shark.
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Crocodiles could potentially live as long as those centuries old creatures, had they not gotten lazy with hunting food or riddled with diseases.
According to American physicist Dr Michio Kaku, crocodiles currently have no recognisable lifespan, with the reptiles getting bigger and bigger until, inevitably bumped off by "starvation, accidents or disease".
Doctor Kaku also made the bizarre claim that the standard 70-year-old lifespan of a crocodile is only believed because "zookeepers die at 70".
To his credit, Kaku cited some oxygen-based theories as evidence to that, with anoxic periods, where Earth's oceans were depleted of dissolved oxygen, providing crocodiles with hours of survival without having to intake oxygen.
Dr Sarah Milton of Florida University said that to survive longer periods without oxygen sets up organisms for surprisingly long lives.
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Unusually enormous crocodiles have also been cited as being fairly active despite Kaku's claims, with research noting that crocodiles are just as vigorous at 70 as they are at just five years old, Vice reported.
Billy Collett of the Australian Reptile Park said: "[once they] hit three and a half or four metres, their growth rate slows right down to about an inch or two a year. Obviously to grow another metre takes a very long time."
The world's oldest living crocodile died over a decade ago, with Mr. Freshie dying at the impressive age of 140.
Terrifyingly and fittingly enough, a crocodile named Big Daddy in Kenya which ate five people in 1986, is still alive after being born in 1916.
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