Elementary's Adventure of Ersatz Sobekneferu: West African Crocodiles

Summary: Elementary's The Adventure of Ersatz Sobekneferu July 2, 2018, solves fraud and murder, not the fate of a mummified worshiper of West African crocodiles.

West African crocodile (Crocodylus suchus); Bazoulé, central Burkhina Faso; September 2007: Marco Schmidt, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

West African crocodiles indirectly advance the plot through their association with an alleged Egyptian mummy that appears on The Adventure of the Ersatz Sobekneferu, Elementary procedural drama series episode July 2, 2018.

Director Lucy Liu and writers Robert Doherty, Kelly Wheeler and Robert Hewitt Wolfe brandish a mummified body (Grace Gray) as the missing mummy of Pharaoh Sobekneferu. Archaeological fraud simultaneously cloaks homicide, as crimes that conceivably copycat the Persian Princess Wardegauna or Persian Mummy Rhodugune (flourished fifth century B.C.?) controversy Oct. 19, 2000. Sobekneferu, as "beauty of Sobek" and Sobek's priestess, drew upon her father Amenemhat ("Amon is foremost") III's (died 1814 B.C.) devotion to the crocodile-headed god Sobek.

Nile and West African crocodiles elicited reverence and revulsion from ancient Egyptians even though the latter, smaller-sized species entered into Nile River- and pharaoh-related religious ceremonies.

Dry seasons function as nesting months in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

August through January likewise get West African crocodiles above high water lines in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Sudan. Physically and sexually mature female West African crocodiles hone sealed underground nest holes that hold 50 to 80 eggs for hatching within 80 to 90 days. West African crocodile mothers-to-be inhabit the nesting grounds for the entirety of the nesting months and for one month or more after their eggs properly incubate.

Female West African crocodiles journey around watersides and over water bottoms with hatchlings, whose diets jumble egg yolk the first day and insects the first month.

Behavioral patterns, distribution ranges and life cycles keep West African crocodiles in arid desert caves; brackish, open waters; forested wetlands; lagoons; mangrove swamps; and river basins.

Arid adaptations, cultural roles, habitat niches and genetic testing lead to the names desert, sacred and West African crocodiles commonly and Crocodylus suchus ("Crocodile crocodile") scientifically. Even five-foot- (1.53-meter-) long adults maintain docility; manifest minimally aggressive predation; mirror crocodile deities in Egyptian wall art; and move sustainably amid dried-out burrows and caves. Brown- or olive-bodied sub-adult and brown- or gray-bodied, gray-, white or yellow-bellied mature West African crocodiles need birds, carrion, crustaceans, fish, frogs, insects, snakes and spiders.

West African crocodile populations no longer observe as distribution ranges such original homelands as Egypt because of obstinate, organized hunters of meat, skins and trophy parts.

Swimming with six pacifist crocodiles in Chad prompted Wildlife Conservation herpetologist Michael Klemens' providing Evon Hekkala, Fordham University biologist in Bronx, New York, with specimen tissue.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis queues West African crocodiles up as the same species as Egypt's bejeweled, cossetted, revered temple pets and mummified residents of royal tombs. Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (April 15, 1772-June 19, 1844) revealed in 1807 ancient sacred and West African crocodile resemblances recorded by Greek historian Herodotus (484 B.C.?-425 B.C.?). Behavior, scales, size and skulls suggest aggressive, large Nile crocodiles and amiable, little West African crocodiles as ancient Egypt's geographically overlapping, respectively feared and favored crocodiles.

Sherlock's tackling archaeological fraud turns up a pseudo-mummy's modern identity even as it thrusts a missing, mummified West African crocodile god-worshiping pharaoh back among unsolved mysteries.

left to right: Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller), Morland Holmes (John Noble) and Lucy Liu (Joan Watson) in Elementary tv series' The Adventure of Ersatz Sobekneferu (season 6 episode 10): Elementary @ElementaryCBS, via Facebook July 2, 2018

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

West African crocodile (Crocodylus suchus); Bazoulé, Burkhina Faso; September 2007: Marco Schmidt, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bazoule_sacred_crocodiles_MS_6709.JPG

left to right: Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller), Morland Holmes (John Noble) and Lucy Liu (Joan Watson) in Elementary tv series' The Adventure of Ersatz Sobekneferu (season 6 episode 10): Elementary @ElementaryCBS, via Facebook July 2, 2018, @ https://www.facebook.com/ElementaryCBS/photos/a.151627898295663.14686.151013691690417/1097860497005727/

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