Of all the adjectives you could use to describe a crocodile’s face, “sensitive” might not be an obvious one. But their huge jaws, pointed teeth and armoured scales belie a surprising secret. Their faces, and possibly their entire bodies, are covered with tiny bumps that are far more sensitive than our own fingertips.

The bumps are obvious if you look carefully. Each one is a small dome, barely a millimetre wide, surrounded by a groove. There are around 4,000 of them on an alligator’s jaws and inside its mouth. Crocodiles and gharials also have the bumps on virtually every scale of their bodies, giving a total of around 9,000. (All of these animals are called crocodilians.)

They were first described in 1895,