Reports that crocodiles have a taste for fruit go back decades, says Thomas Rainwater at the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Charleston, South Carolina. "But since these animals were long considered carnivores, no one paid much attention."

In a routine analysis of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) living in the Everglades National Park in Florida, Rainwater and his colleagues found fruit including pond apples in the alligators' stomachs. They then turned up reports that at least 13 of the 23 living crocodilian species are fruit eaters.

Whether or not crocodilians actively go after fruit is debatable – especially as the predators are secretive and tend to do most of their foraging at night. A crocodile might simply eat an animal that has itself recently dined on fruit, for example.

But there is some evidence that fruit is consumed deliberately, too.