Crocodilian

A group of animals for which I’ve always held a particular fondness is the crocodilians: crocodiles, alligators, caiman, and gharial. As a youngster I was even known to happily swim with alligators without incident here at my swampy Southern home. Of the crocodile the Bible says in the book of Job, “Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? Or his head with fishing spears? Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more... Who can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so near another, that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like eyelids of morning... Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear. Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.” Leviathan is truly unequaled in all the earth, and I love him deeply.