Team Crox – it all began with a special encounter…

…in the autumn of 2014 in Dubai. This is where we, namely my husband, our daughter Allegra and I, began our six-week voyage around half the world: Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. In Dubai one special visit was definitely a must – we had to go to see the Dubai Aquarium once again. We were constantly fascinated by the magical underwater world, and Allegra would have just loved to move in to live in one of the colourful coral pools as Nemo, Dory and Co‘s best friend.

During that year‘s visit we were very surprised to see that someone else had moved in there. A 750kg (that‘s approximately as heavy as 14½ large men) five metre long someone with 60 white teeth: welcome, King Croc!!! This gentleman is one of the largest crocodiles in the world, and together with his “only“ three metre long and 183kg “light“ wife, Queen Croc, they are the aquarium‘s newest attraction.

We discovered that the King had become rather unpopular in his old home in the Queensland botanical gardens, Australia. He was quite aggressive, and had begun taking over the garden‘s whole crocodile enclave. A decision was made to move him and his long standing lady companion to a more enclosed area, so a specially adapted crocodile “apartment“ was constructed for them within the Dubai Aquarium, and the relocation could begin!

One big question soon popped up: How does the relocation of such a huge creature happen? We were soon giggling at the idea of two crocodiles packing their cases and travelling to their new home in a pantechnicon, sandwiches in hand. How this really happened can be seen in this impressive clip…

After King Croc was captured by a specialist team in a very adventurous procedure during which the water was drained from his own swimming pool, he was injected with a sleep inducing drug and was placed into a special travel-container. A Boeing 747 was chartered, and his three-day voyage to his new world in Dubai began.

It was at this point that we also dived into a new world – our imagination!

We began to envisage the two crocodiles waking up in the aircraft cargo area below and coming up to visit us at our seats. What would happen? Will it be a dangerous situation? Are we going to leap, screaming, out of our places??? Or maybe the crocodiles can also be loveable and funny, with strengths and weaknesses, the same as us!? Maybe some of them don‘t actually like fish, but do like cake or ice cream? In this case the encounter with the crocodiles could be quite different than expected…

Allegra and I wanted to linger a while longer in this world of imagination, and so began to create our first story. Two ice cream-loving vegetarian crocodiles from two different continents, Australia and Africa, get to know each other during a student-exchange. They become very good friends, and end up experiencing an adventurous move to the Dubai Aquarium with the help of their animal friends.

Our travels soon took us to Sydney, Australia. During our obligatory side trip to the Sydney Sea Life Aquarium we met two new crocodiles: Rex and Goldie. Allegra decided that these were the perfect names for our protagonists!

There was a big surprise awaiting us in the Aquarium when we visited Dubai once again a year later in autumn 2015! King and Queen Croc had become parents. This was also the birth of Team Crox! In our imagination the four crocodile siblings Milly, Minny, Molly and Manny experienced the most funny, enthralling and exciting adventures that one could imagine – without their parents Rex and Goldie knowing anthing about it, of course.

Would you like to join them?

By the way: It is even worth paying the Team Crox Story World a visit in my day-to-day work as a dentist. Many children are afraid of going to the dentist, just as they would be afraid to see a crocodile. With the help of Team Crox one can learn that it is worth to conquer one‘s fear and anxiety, to trust and to believe in oneself. Nothing awful can happen with four brave crocodiles as friends! Even at the dentist‘s…

Milly, Minny, Molly und Manny are very excited to get to know you all!

PS: I haven‘t treated crocodile teeth as yet, but anything is possible…

Information: Dr. Vivien Weidinger has been practising as an independent dental surgeon in Munich since 2007.