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A 1,500 pound, 16 foot saltwater crocodile called Rex eagerly devoured a sizable portion of beef ribs on Wednesday, his first feed after emerging from three months of hibernation at the WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo in Sydney, Australia.  

In the winter, it is common for crocodiles to enter a period of inactivity where they survive on the existing energy stores inside their body, but once the weather starts warming up, so does their appetite.

-- Agence France Presse, Getty Images

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A 14.5 foot male estuarine (saltwater) crocodile retrieved from a crocodile trap at Daly River Community some 139 miles south of Darwin, Australia.

A 14.5-foot-long crocodile that may have eaten up to nine pet dogs has been hauled out of a river in Australia.

Community police officer Mark Casey told Australia's Northern Territory News that there had been nine reports of dogs being taken in the month before the crocodile was trapped.

"Crocs are an ever-present danger but you don't see them," he said.

"They can sit for days on end on the other side of the river and watch you go fishing off the same log or rock - that's how they hunt."

"Next thing you know, bang, the dog's gone."

Previously on PhotoBlog: Just who is the biggest crocodile of them all?

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Tracey Nearmy / EPA

Fifty year old Australian Saltwater Crocodile Elvis is fed by keeper Billy Collett after attacking a lawn mower in his enclosure earlier in the morning at the Australian Reptile Park in Gosford Dec. 28 2011. Elvis was acquired by the park in 2008 after he had been causing a nuisance in Darwin harbor by climbing onto fishing boats.

I didn't realize landscaping was so dangerous.

The Herald Sun reports: The 5 meter croc, named Elvis, attacked the staff at the Australian Reptile Park at Gosford after they went into its enclosure about 9 a.m. today.

The hulking beast lunged at one of the lawnmowers and dragged it into his pond. The staff, who were tending to the enclosure at the time, escaped unharmed.

"Elvis is sitting at the bottom of the lagoon with the lawnmower next to him. He's guarding it," said park spokeswoman Libby Bain before the rescue.

Tracey Nearmy / EPA

Fifty-year-old Australian Saltwater Crocodile Elvis watches his keepers place a lawnmower back in his enclosure after having attacked the mower earlier in the morning at the Australian Reptile Park in Gosford December 28, 2011.

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The Associated Press reports from HOMESTEAD, Florida:

An unexpected but fruitful relationship has blossomed between two potent forces in the swamps of South Florida: the American crocodile and a nuclear power plant.

Wilfredo Lee / AP

A wildlife biologist holds a small crocodile that will be released into one of the cooling canals adjacent to the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant during a nighttime crocodile survey in Homestead, Fla., on Nov. 28, 2011.

The reptile has made it off the endangered species list thanks in part to 168 miles of manmade cooling canals surrounding Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant in the southeastern corner of the Florida peninsula. It turns out that Florida Power and Light was building prime croc habitat just as virtually every other developer was paving it over.

Federal wildlife officials give the state's largest public utility part of the credit for a five-fold increase in the species' population in Florida. There are only two other sanctuaries for the crocodiles, which are still considered threatened.

Wilfredo Lee / AP

Wildlife biologist Rafael Crespo measures a small crocodile captured in a cooling canal adjacent to the nuclear plant on Nov. 28, 2011.

Wilfredo Lee / AP

Wildlife biologists Michael Cherkiss, left, and Joseph Wasilewski weigh a small crocodile that they captured in a cooling canal adjacent to the nuclear plant on Nov. 28, 2011.

"The way the cooling canal system was designed actually turned out to be pretty good for crocodile nesting," said John Wrublik, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It wasn't designed for crocodiles, but they've done a very good job of maintaining that area."

Hundreds of crocodiles, as long as 15 feet and as heavy as one ton, roam the swampland surrounding the power plant. They're monitored by wildlife biologists hired by the utility, who sometimes need quick reflexes to keep all their fingers. Continue reading.

Wilfredo Lee / AP

Wildlife biologists on an airboat head out on a cooling canal adjacent to the nuclear plant during a nighttime crocodile survey on Nov. 28, 2011.

Related content:

• Nuclear neighbors - Population rises near US reactors
• Hunting alligators, a renewable resource in Louisiana
• Just who is the biggest crocodile of them all?

Bunawan Vice Mayor Sylvia Elorde via AFP - Getty Images

An unidentified wildlife hunter subdues a giant 6.4-metre (21-foot), 1,075-kilogramme (2,370-pound) saltwater crocodile in the town of Bunawan, The Phillipines, on Sept. 3. The crocodile is suspected of killing a 12-year-old girl in 2009 as well as livestock and a farmer who went missing in July 2011.

AP

Mayor Cox Elorde of Bunawan township in the southern Phillipines' Agusan del Sur Province, pretends to measure a huge crocodile which was captured by residents and crocodile farm staff along a creek in Bunawan. Elorde said Monday that dozens of villagers and experts ensnared the 21-foot male crocodile along a creek in his township after a three-week hunt. It was one of the largest crocodiles to be captured alive in the Philippines in recent years.

"We were nervous but it's our duty to deal with a threat to the villagers," local mayor Cox Elorde told the AP. "When I finally stood before it, I couldn't believe my eyes." Read the full story.

Bindi Irwin, the 12-year-old daughter of the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, is promoting a new line of books in her Wildlife Adventures series. See the full story here. It's been 5 years since her father was killed after getting stung by a stingray while filming in Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

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Bindi Irwin attends a signing for "Trouble at the Zoo" at Barnes & Noble at the Americana on March 31, 2011 in Glendale, California.

Australia Zoo via Getty Images

Steve Irwin poses with his daughter Bindi Irwin October 2, 2006 in Uluru, Australia.