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Crocodylia · CrocodylidaeEntry 12,788 of 21,572

Reptilia · Crocodylia

Mecistops leptorhynchusBennett, 1835

Central African slender-snouted crocodile

No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.

A crocodilian from the Afrotropic region, reaching 400 cm nose to tail.

ReptiliaCrocodyliaCrocodylidaeMecistops

What is known

11 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Standing in the world

Conservation status
Critically Endangered

The animal itself

Pupil
Vertical slit
Venomous
No
Fangs
None

Size

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
4000mm13 ft 1 in

total length, tail included — Colston, Kulkarni, Jetz, and Pyron, 2020, BMC Evol. Biol., 20:81

How it lives

Region
Afrotropic

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous

Naming and history

Subspecies
No
Described by
Bennett
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1835

What nobody knows

These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.

  • Still living
  • Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
  • Length snout to vent · adult female mean
  • Length snout to vent · adult male mean
  • Length snout to vent · adult mean
  • Female length · mean, nose to tail
  • Length nose to tail · adult male mean
  • Length nose to tail · adult mean
  • Largest female · snout to vent
  • Largest male · snout to vent
  • Largest female · shell length
  • Largest male · shell length
  • Hatchling length · snout to vent
  • Hatchling length · nose to tail
  • Largest juvenile · snout to vent
  • Largest juvenile · shell length
  • Egg length
  • Egg width
  • Body mass · greatest
  • Body mass · a typical adult
  • Body mass · adult female, mean
  • Body mass at hatching
  • Longest recorded life
  • Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
  • Diet
  • Eats arthropods
  • Eats vertebrates
  • Eats plant matter
  • How it hunts
  • Active
  • Where it lives
  • How the young develop
  • Gestation or incubation
  • Average clutch
  • Smallest clutch recorded
  • Largest clutch recorded
  • Mean clutch · smallest reported
  • Mean clutch · largest reported
  • Clutches in a year
  • Clutches a year · fewest
  • Clutches a year · most
  • First breeds from · youngest recorded
  • First breeds by · oldest recorded
  • Hatchling length · smallest recorded
  • Hatchling length · largest recorded
  • Age at first breeding · female
  • Mature from · youngest recorded
  • Mature by · oldest recorded
  • Size at maturity · smallest recorded
  • Size at maturity · largest recorded
  • Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
  • Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
  • Limbs
  • Colour on the back
  • Pattern on the back
  • Sex decided by
  • Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
  • Population trend
  • Red List criteria
  • Biome
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Suborder
  • Infraorder
  • Type locality
  • Habitat
  • Active in
  • Mainland or island
  • Lowest it lives · above sea level
  • Highest it lives · above sea level
  • Range size

Others in Crocodylidae

Take this data

Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.

This species as JSON · the whole dataset

Cite this page

The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Mecistops leptorhynchus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/mecistops-leptorhynchus

@misc{mecistops_leptorhynchus_2026,
  title  = {Mecistops leptorhynchus},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/mecistops-leptorhynchus}
}

Sources

  1. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  2. GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
  3. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
  4. Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.