From another wildlife program I caught last week:

If you look very, very carefully at the individual scales on a crocodile hide, you will see what appears to be a black dot, rather large, within each scale. Those black dots are called 'mechanoreceptors' and they allow the croc to sense the movement of prey a hundred or more feet away. Amazing. The narrator pronounced the receptor term this way:

MEH-cuh-no-rih-SEP-tors

He also mentioned chemoreceptors in the croc's mouth that enabled to croc to sense the precise position of the prey it was after once it came in close for the kill. Flavor-based reception, I suppose.

this just sounds unreal for some reason. hard to believe something like that could be so sensitive.

Crocs done been around for a long time. Longer than Steve (may he rot in hell) Irwin, for instance. I suppose they have to have something going for them. Who'd have thought that they were such sensitive types? They're not exactly renowned for being shy and retiring at mealtimes ....

Actually, I've omitted the MOST interesting fact about the program, and Cap's comment reminded me of it...crocs having survived for so long:

Crocodile blood is unbelievably aggressive in fighting all kinds of bacteria and viruses. The program dealt with a researcher who was determined to have some top minds investigate croc blood to begin to discover its limitations.

Problem was: Tame croc blood has too high of a fat content, thereby not breaking down adaptably for chemical research. So, researcher #1 (a croc specialist) had to go into the wilds to get wild croc blood (i.e., not loaded with fat).

Problem was: That blood was not picked up at the airport in a timely fashion, so it went back. Back into the wilds went croc. specialist #1.

After working with several crocodiledundeetypes, specialist #1 did finally get an ample supply (two, in fact) to the blood specialist and a certain protein was isolated that was able to fight infectious bodies that human blood is powerless against. I suppose if that protein can somehow be articifically manufactured, we may see in the not-so-distant future a chemical bastion with which we humans can more effectively fight disease. I wish I could remember the name of the protein; its newly-given name is 'croco*' something or other.