Daintree River tour guide captures growling crocodile

A tour guide has captured the moment a mother crocodile emits a booming growl as the father of her babies approaches. WATCH THE VIDEO.

A popular Daintree River tour guide has captured the moment a mother estuarine crocodile greets the father of her babies with an impressive growl.

“How’s that for a prehistoric sound, hey?” says David White from behind the camera.

A 3m saltie lies on the bank near three baby crocodiles as “king of the river,”, 4.7m Scarface, silently glides towards them in video footage posted to Mr White’s Solar Whisper Daintree River Crocodile and Wildlife Cruises Facebook page.
Mr White, 58, points out the two-month-old babies are on a log to the right of their mum and advises his passengers to listen carefully.

“Listen out for that. We’ve got Scuter here, and her babies,” Mr White says in the footage.

“There are little babies on the log there to the right of her head. And over here we have Scarface heading towards Scuter.”

Scarface can be seen approaching a growling Scuta in this still from a video. Picture: Solar Whisper Daintree River Crocodile and Wildlife Cruises/Facebook

Mr White explains crocodiles can communicate through vibrations in the water, so he expects Scuter has just realised Scarface was on his way.

Scuter then lifts her head and lets out two booming growls in succession.

“How’s that for a prehistoric sound hey?” Mr White says.

“Absolutely” a passenger off camera replies.

Scuter, the 22-year-old first time mum, continues to growl again as 70-year-old Scarface slowly glides closer.

She lifts her head again and keeps growling as he swims just centimetres from her face.

Scarface can be seen stopping for a moment, before continuing to cruise past.

“Wow,” Mr White can be heard saying in the video. “That was pretty special.”

Scarface can be seen approaching a growling Scuta in the Daintree River in Far North Queensland in this still from a video. Picture: Solar Whisper Daintree River Crocodile and Wildlife Cruises/Facebook

The wildlife expert told the Courier Mail he captured the interaction on Saturday morning.

“It looks real aggressive but it’s not. It’s actually a greeting,” he said.

Mr White said scientists who studied and marked Scuta – by cutting some of her scutes, or spiky parts of her tail off – when she was three years old determined she was a male.

But that belief was recently proven incorrect when Mr White, who is on the river daily, noticed Scuter getting friendly with Scarface in October.

“We started to get a little bit suspicious last October when they she was getting close to Scarface and we thought that was strange but weren’t judging,” he said.

“Then, she disappeared during nesting time and we couldn’t find her at all. On the second of March, we found her lying on the bank with 26 young “scuties.”

“She’s still looking after some of her babies, she still has about five babies hanging around. She’s a good mum for a first time mum,” he said.

Three of Scuta’s two-month-old babies are camouflaged on the log to the right of their growling mum in this still from a video. Picture: Solar Whisper Daintree River Crocodile and Wildlife Cruises/Facebook

Mr White said most crocodiles mated between the ages of 12 to 15, so Scuta was a “late bloomer,” but she had previously turned down Scarface’s advances.

“Now his persistence paid off,” he said.

After he filmed the pair, Mr White said Scuter entered the water and followed Scarface to a nearby beach.

“She jumped in the water and very quickly followed him a bit further,” he said.

“He parked himself on the beach and have a sunbake for the rest of the day, and she parked herself next to him so she could stare into his eyes.”

The Solar Whisper Daintree River Crocodile and Wildlife Cruises Facebook and Instagram pages have garnered a huge following thanks to stories the photography lover posts under the guise of a crocodile soap opera he dubbed “Days of the Daintree.”
“It’s easy just to write underneath it what it is, but I’ve always thought it was like a soap opera out here,” Mr White said.
“Its like we’re the paparazzi looking at the celebrities, and we’re out there trying to get them in their most embarrassing moments.
“We just like to talk to the relationships they have with each other. People are terrified of crocodiles … but if you give them the human characteristics they make them less terrifying.
“Once you get to know them you work out how placid they are most of the time, eat fish and crabs.”

Scuta growls as she realises the suspected father of her babies approaches in the Daintree River on Saturday, in this still from a video. Picture: Solar Whisper Daintree River Crocodile and Wildlife Cruises/Facebook

Mr White has given the wild reptiles names, with Scarface and another saltie dubbed Big Nick known to battle, while Scuter, Lizzie, Nate, Margaret and Dusty also often pop up in his photos and videos.

The tour guide has now proclaimed Scuter to have the best voice of the “celebrities.”

“If I’m going to single out Days of the Daintree Celebs with a voice that I consider the BEST of the rest! That honour would definitely go to the A-lister ladies. (sic).
“On top of being ridiculously beautiful and super intelligent they have a no-nonsense booming voice that commands attention, that one simply can’t ignore,” he wrote underneath the video.