Photo of the Day 36

Crocodile, Cape York Peninsula, Australia, 1995

Photograph by Sam Abell

Seventeen feet (five meters) of brute reptilian force, a saltwater crocodile snaps at the camera in Shelburne Bay, Cape York Peninsula, Australia. Earth's largest living crocodilians, "salties," as they're affectionately known in Australia, are among the area's most dangerous predators. Without warning, they explode from the water with a thrash of their powerful tails and drag their victim—water buffalo, monkey, shark—under water.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Uneasy Magic of Australia's Cape York Peninsula," June 1996, National Geographic magazine)