Remember when a helicopter started a crazy crocodile love fest?

Odd animal stories are always making the news. But few stories in 2023 were as weird as the crazy crocodile love fest that went down on a farm in Australia. Here's what happened and why the story made headlines.

Some very unusual hanky panky unfolded on a saltwater crocodile farm in the land down under. It seemed a mating frenzy of epic proportions took the Australian farm by force and you'll never guess why.

It turns out a Chinook helicopter flying over the farm caused the crocodiles to go a bit crazy with desire, spurring their unhinged love fest. But you might be asking yourself how chinook helicopters could prompt reptilian copulation.

If you want to understand what happened at Koorana Crocodile Farm then you first need to understand a little something about how crocodiles mate and why saltwater crocs get down and dirty at a certain time of year. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

“Warm and wet weather usually triggers mating behaviors, and October is just about the right time for crocodile romance in Northern Australia,” Live Science’s Jacklin Kwan wrote in an article about the incident. But what happened at Koorana was quite unusual. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

The crocodiles on Koorana, which is owned by John Lever, got a little too frisky when they were paid a visit by a Chinook helicopter that came to look at the crocs. Lever explained all the juicy details of his crocodiles and their lustful chicanery to ABC News. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

"The crocodiles start vocalizing to each other," Lever explained. "They don't have a very sophisticated voice box, but they vibrate their windpipes to send messages through the water,” the saltwater crocodile farmer continued.

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

However, Lever noticed something a little different in his reptiles when a helicopter from a nearby military base often used for bi-lateral training operations by the Australian and the Singapore Armed Forces stopped for photos. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

Lever explained that the Chinook helicopter in question flew in low over his property and then hovered overhead so that the soldiers inside could snap a few shots of his reptiles. “Of course, Chinooks have got a big thump, thump, thump, like that," Lever said.

You can probably guess what happened next. The crocodiles started getting busy with it and Lever told ABC News that “all of the big males got up and roared and bellowed up at the sky, and then after the helicopters left they mated like mad.”

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

Why Lever’s crocodiles went crazy after their surprise visit from the helicopter can likely be explained by their biology according to Dr. Cameroon Baker, a researcher at Charles Darwin University, who said the chopper noises may have acted as a signal. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

Baker explained that the helicopter could have served as a cue prompting the male crocs to think the wet season had arrived, which in turn prompted them to think it was “a good time to start mating so the eggs are ready to be laid at just the right time.”

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

The crocs might have also mistaken the sound of the helicopter for that of another male competitor Baker suggested, which might have prompted each of the crocodiles to mate as quickly as possible to ensure their seeds took root. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

"It might be producing a very low-frequency 'thump, thump' as it hits the water,” he went on to explain about the Chinook. “That may just coincidentally be similar to some of the sounds big male crocodiles produce to say, 'Hey, this is my turf'.”

University of Wolverhampton Herpetologist Mark O'Shea offered a similar explanation to Live Science and said that heavy rains are a known aphrodisiac for saltwater crocodiles and added that the Chinook might have acted in a similar way. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

"I imagine that the downdraft from a large, heavy helicopter would create a change in pressure that the [integumentary sensory organs] on crocodile skin can detect," O'Shea explained, adding that the barometric pressure changes may resemble that of a storm. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @kooranacrocodilefarm

“Chinooks may artificially recreate the sound of the start of a thunderstorm,” O’Shea told Live Science, but he also noted that the crocodiles may have already been picking up on cues in the like temperature changes from their traditional mating season.