Reptiles | 60 Minutes Full Episodes
In a Nutshell
Saltwater crocodiles in Australia and Nile crocodiles in Botswana show massive population recoveries after hunting bans, sparking conflicts between conservationists, tourism, and locals who face attacks and livestock losses. Conservationists like Eric Goode spend millions fighting the illegal trade in Madagascar's critically endangered ploughshare tortoises, using extreme measures like shell scarring to deter poachers. Paleontologists discovered 68-million-year-old flexible blood vessels in T. rex bones and plan to reverse-engineer dinosaur traits in chickens by manipulating embryonic genes.
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Australia is infamous for its deadly wildlife, but saltwater crocodiles stand out as apex predators. They can grow to more than 20 feet, weigh over a ton, and possess a bite force strong enough to crush a human skull. Known locally as "salties," these crocodiles live across northern Australia and are protected by law, leading to a surge in their population that creates friction with humans.
In Darwin, most people avoid swimming due to surrounding crocodile habitat and the territorial nature of salties. Crocodiles sometimes appear in residential backyards, prompting government rangers like Tom Nichols and his team to remove problem crocodiles using cages baited with wild boar meat. Capturing them is relatively easy, but safely extracting an angry crocodile from a floating trap requires skill.
A six-foot crocodile can drown a human by taking them underwater and performing the "death roll" - spinning to dismember prey. Nichols lost half of his left hand over 20 years ago when a crocodile spun during an encounter at the same location. Despite having only three fingers on his left hand, Nichols continues his work, joking that the only limitation is picking his nose with his left hand.
By the 1970s, saltwater crocodiles were nearly extinct with only a few thousand remaining. Australian officials banned nearly all crocodile hunting, allowing the population to recover to over 150,000. While some view this as a conservation success story, others see it as a menace. Saltwater crocodiles are the largest reptiles on the planet and, according to some scientists, the world's most aggressive.
Trevor Sullivan, who keeps 10 saltwater crocodiles in his backyard, argues that crocodiles are misunderstood and that humans are far more dangerous. He believes crocodiles only kill for food, while humans kill each other for money. Sullivan feeds his crocodiles whole chickens by hand and has rescued most from farms and research facilities, including a 120-year-old crocodile named Chuck missing part of his jaw.
Sullivan claims his crocodiles respond to their names, can be trained, and follow routines. He views them as family members rather than pets and states they don't see him as food because he brings food, comparing this to how dogs eat meat without seeing their owners as food. He believes living with saltwater crocodiles is possible and a privilege.
Since hunting was banned 50 years ago, approximately 50 deaths from crocodiles have been reported in Australia. Many fatalities occur when people misjudge safe swimming or fishing locations. Public education campaigns warn people to maintain distance from crocodile habitats.
Australian Parliament member Bob Katter advocates repealing the crocodile hunting ban, arguing that the law places crocodile value over human life. His electorate includes farmland where cattle are sometimes eaten by crocodiles. Katter recalls swimming in rivers as a child but states children cannot safely do so now, and he has considered shooting a crocodile himself despite potential arrest.
Darwin's tourism industry relies heavily on crocodiles, with tours offering close encounters. Proponents argue that salties are worth more alive than dead through tourism revenue.
In Kakadu National Park, indigenous guide Gleeson Namabulwa explains that traditional owners are permitted to hunt crocodiles for food using spears. Indigenous Australians have differing views on crocodiles - some favor commercial hunting while others see them as spiritual totems that should be protected. Namabulwa notes the long shared history between crocodiles and indigenous people.
Trevor Sullivan, who has indigenous ancestry, believes coexistence with saltwater crocodiles is possible and that crocodile attacks are almost non-existent. When asked if one fatal attack is too many, he questions what humans are supposed to die from instead.
Africa's Nile crocodile is considered the most dangerous and deadly crocodile species, capable of growing up to 20 feet long, weighing as much as a car, and biting with force comparable to a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Wildlife filmmakers Brad Bestelink and Andy Crawford have been filming Nile crocodiles underwater in Botswana's Okavango Delta for six years, entering their underwater lairs despite poor visibility.
Dr. Adam Britton, an Australian zoologist studying crocodiles for nearly 20 years, describes them as "Ferraris" - extremely finely honed creatures and the smartest of all reptiles. He is building a genetic database on Nile crocodiles in the delta to understand their movement patterns. Britton has begun taking DNA samples underwater by cutting small pieces from crocodile tails, with the animals showing no apparent distress.
Diving with Nile crocodiles is only possible during winter months when water is chilly and animals are sluggish. In summer, the crocodiles become too active and dangerous to approach. Brad and Andy emphasize getting off the water surface quickly when diving, as crocodiles attack from the surface but don't recognize humans as prey when underwater.
During a dive, a 12-foot crocodile weighing approximately 1,400 pounds approached closely but did not recognize the diver as prey, instead treating the diver's light as debris. The underwater environment includes caves, papyrus walls, submerged trees, and lilies. Crocodiles can slow their heart rate and close heart valves to stay underwater for hours.
Nile crocodiles kill more people annually than great white sharks. Despite being ruthlessly hunted and vilified as mindless killing machines, underwater observation reveals them as perfectly evolved ancient creatures.
Turtles and tortoises have existed for over 200 million years but now face extinction threats, with approximately half of over 300 species at risk due to habitat loss and illegal trade. Eric Goode, owner of New York City's popular hotels, restaurants, and bars, spends a million dollars annually of his own money fighting the illegal turtle and tortoise trade.
The turtle and tortoise trade, particularly in China, generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The trade flourishes because penalties are low and profits are high. In Madagascar, poverty drives local communities to participate in poaching, with many villages earning less than a dollar daily.
Madagascar has lost 90% of its forests due to logging and slash-and-burn agriculture, causing soil erosion visible as red rivers. The island's isolation created unique biodiversity including lemurs, chameleons, geckos, over 200 frog species, and five rare turtle and tortoise species.
The ploughshare tortoise is Madagascar's fastest-disappearing animal and the world's most endangered tortoise. Its habitat is so remote it requires boat access. The tortoise's golden shell makes it highly valuable in Asian markets, where gold is prized, essentially making these tortoises "gold bricks" for poachers. The wild population may have declined to as few as 300 adults.
Eric Good has helped hire around 40 locals to go out and find the tortoises before the poachers do. The team lines up 30 feet apart, searching systematically like police searching for a missing person. By midday, they found one tortoise. Good identified it as a beautiful female with a perfect dome shell unique to this species, resembling an army helmet. This species is extremely valuable, with Good estimating based on his research that a tortoise like this could sell for $60,000 in Asia.
To stop trafficking, Good and his colleagues have begun scarring the shells of tortoises, leaving an indelible gash that makes the animals undesirable to collectors. The process involves drilling 1/16 of an inch into the shell carefully to avoid hitting bone and drawing blood. Good acknowledges the difficulty of this approach, noting that with so few animals left, extreme measures are necessary. He compares the practice to chainsawing off a rhinoceros's horn to save a rhino.
Good took the 60 Minutes team to a market in Mahajanga, Madagascar, where hidden cameras captured shells of endangered tortoises displayed openly for sale. Vendors offered live tortoises, including a spider tortoise from southern Madagascar that is critically endangered, and a radiated tortoise on the endangered species list for $400. A ploughshare tortoise was offered if the team paid up front and waited several days, which would have violated Madagascar and international laws against smuggling endangered animals.
One refuge in Madagascar attempts to protect tortoises behind locks and razor wire. The facility is guarded with automatic rifles. Richard Lewis with the British conservation group Durrell runs this refuge and breeding center. The animals there are estimated to be 50 to 200 years old, making them among the longest-lived animals on the planet. Asian collectors believe owning one confers long life.
The center was robbed in the late 1990s in what was called one of the heists of the century, with thieves stealing 75 youngsters and two adults—half of all the youngsters the center had ever bred. Since then, with the help of Eric Good, the population of ploughshares has rebounded. The female enclosure houses tortoises responsible for producing 300 offspring.
While filming at the facility, a female tortoise began digging a nest for laying eggs—an event Richard Lewis had never personally witnessed. The tortoise, estimated to be 60 to 100 years old, took nearly an hour to dig the hole using her stubby elephantine feet to cup the soil. She laid multiple eggs, which Lewis described as breaking a secret code when hatchlings eventually emerge.
Eric Good operates his own breeding center in the mountains outside Los Angeles, started with 150 turtles and tortoises given to him by the Bronx Zoo. Each species receives specialized care with fresh-cut flowers, salad greens, and a tortoise smoothie blended with organic milk. Different species require different ecosystems—some from Burma need warm, high-humidity conditions. Good now has 680 animals from 30 endangered species, including the golden coin turtle from India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, one of the top 25 most endangered turtles in the world.
Good wants to send animals back to the wild rather than keeping them in captivity permanently. He is currently protecting 11 ploughshares and trying to breed more. Last year, he hatched 250 other tortoises and turtles.
The segment transitions to paleontology with the discovery of B-Rex, a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex named by a paleontologist from Montana State University. Jack Horner, the real-life inspiration for Jurassic Park's Alan Grant, is introduced as a prominent and controversial paleontologist who never finished college but received a MacArthur Foundation genius grant. Horner is dyslexic and focuses on how dinosaurs lived rather than why they went extinct.
Horner has found more T-Rexes than anyone else in the world. His team discovered the teeth of the oldest T-Rex ever found, showing the replacement tooth pocket where new teeth develop. Dinosaurs replace all their teeth every year. Horner discovered the first dinosaur nesting ground in the world in Montana's badlands, uncovering eggs, nests, and babies that changed perceptions of dinosaurs from solitary to social animals living in colonies.
Horner found that baby dinosaur bones showed rapid growth patterns indicating they couldn't walk initially, meaning parents brought food back to nests like birds. This supports the theory that dinosaurs gave rise to modern birds. Sean Carroll, professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin, confirms that dinosaurs never went extinct because birds evolved from them and survived the asteroid event.
Mary Schweitzer, professor at North Carolina State University, studies the internal makeup of ancient bone. She demonstrated that dinosaur bone can be identified by touching a tongue to it—the moisture gets sucked into capillaries, making it stick like Velcro. Rocks do not do this. Schweitzer needs to break bones apart and sometimes dissolve pieces in acid to access internal structures, which most paleontologists resist.
In 2000, Bob Harmon discovered a T-Rex metatarsal sticking out of a 50-foot cliff. The excavation required climbing crews with jackhammers rappelling down cliffs over three summers, with bones lifted by helicopter. The thigh bone cast was too heavy for the helicopter, leading Horner to cut one of B-Rex's femurs in half. Fragments were shipped to Mary Schweitzer.
Schweitzer identified B-Rex as female and pregnant by recognizing medullary bone, a specific type of bone female birds produce when about to lay eggs. This was the first time gender had been identified in any dinosaur, providing another link to birds. The discovery meant B-Rex was definitely not Bob.
When Schweitzer put bone fragments in acid to dissolve the mineral layer, the acid worked too quickly and dissolved all mineral away. Instead of nothing remaining, elastic tissue like living tissue remained—flexible, transparent blood vessels from 68-million-year-old bone. This contradicted the scientific rule that organic material cannot survive even a million years.
Schweitzer, Horner, and their team published findings in Science and faced criticism suggesting contamination or that the vessels were actually biofilm. Schweitzer replicated findings with an 80-million-year-old duckbill dinosaur, consistently finding blood vessels with branches. Critics have been partially swayed, but controversy continues. If blood vessels can survive 80 million years, DNA survival becomes possible.
Horner's crews now wear surgical gloves, previously unheard of in paleontology where skin cells, sweat, and spilled beer on fossils were not concerns. Horner is skeptical that full dinosaur DNA sequence will ever be found but continues research.
Horner proposes using modern chickens to reverse engineer dinosaur traits since birds carry ancestral DNA. Birds still walk on hind legs, have three toes forward with one back, and have wishbones. Chicken embryos develop long tails before a gene destroys them. Horner believes switching genes on or off could produce chickens with long tails, teeth, and claw-like hands instead of wings. He predicts a dino chicken could be created within five years.
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