Crocodiles are able to perceive cries of distress from human babies and are in fact more attracted to such cries the more distressed they become, according to a new study from French researchers. 

Using sound samples of the cries of baby humans, bonobos and chimpanzees, researchers from France's Lyon and Saint-Etienne broadcast the cries around pools containing Nile crocodiles at a zoo in Agadir, Morocco.

According to the new study, published in the journal of the Royal Society, the reptiles were more attracted to those cries when they were distressed despite their great distance in the species.

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The researchers' original idea had been to look at the universality of distress characteristics in animal calls, but during their study they realized that "acoustic parameters for judging distress were more relevant in crocodiles" than in humans.

"Experience has shown that crocodiles perfectly identify the distress in the cries of baby monkeys or humans, but also that the more the cries contain distress, the more the reptiles react," explained Nicolas Grimault, one of the study's chief authors and a director of research at Lyon's Center for Research in Neuroscience.

"Crocodiles use criteria of roughness, of chaos in the cry, which is more relevant than the criterion used by humans, which is the pitch of the sound," he continued.

For the researcher, this acuity can be explained by the fact that crocodiles are cold-blooded animals that are very economical with their movements and opportunistic, looking for prey in a situation of weakness. 

"The more an animal is in distress, the more it is an easy prey," explains Grimault.

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