To the distress of South Floridians, several potentially man-eating Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) have turned up in Florida waters, where they are not supposed to be. Nile crocs are far more aggressive than the American version, being responsible for 200 human deaths yearly on average in Africa.

From the AP story:

Step aside, Burmese python — you may no longer be Florida’s scariest invasive species. Researchers have confirmed that three Nile crocodiles were captured near Miami, and they say it’s possible more of the man-eating reptiles are still out there, although no one can say for sure.

The big question now: How did they get to Florida?

“They didn’t swim from Africa,” University of Florida herpetologist Kenneth Krysko said.

They didn’t swim… Did they raft?

Probably not. On their own, animals rarely resort to cross-ocean seafaring except under the combined pressure of biogeography and neo-Darwinian theory.

See Casey Luskin in No. 9 of our series “The Top Ten Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution,” “Neo-Darwinism Struggles to Explain the Biogeographical Distribution of Many Species.”

See here as well for more in our coverage of rafting animals:

• “Rafting Monkeys ‘Fill a Gap’ in Evolutionary Theory?“

• “The Curious Incident of the Non-Rafting Foxes“

• “Evolution and Monkeys on Rafts“

• “Return of the Rafting Primates: New Tarsier-Like Fossil Poses ‘Problem’ for Early Primate Evolution“

• “The Case of the Mysterious Hoatzin: Biogeography Fails Neo-Darwinism Again“

• “Sea Monkeys Are the Tip of the Iceberg: More Biogeographical Conundrums for Neo-Darwinism“

• “Sea Monkey Hypotheses Refute the NCSE’s Biogeography Objections to Explore Evolution“

In any event, do you have this straight? Monkeys, which don’t swim, can navigate oceans while clinging to mats of mud, shrubbery, and tree debris. Crocodiles, which do swim, cannot.

Photo: Nile crocodile, by Tim Muttoo [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.