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[Duke Dapper]

I have tried for about a month now to get hold of giant crocodiles. I read on the wiki that both giant saltwater crocodiles and giant alligators can be found in tropical wetlands and that cave crocodiles can be found in the caverns. But I cannot seem to find any of them no matter how much I search. I have started multiple fortresses and ran them for about 2-4 years each without finding a single one. I did however find normal alligators and saltwater crocodiles on one fort but they disappeared before I could capture them before never coming back. I wonder if anyone has any knowledge on how animals migrate or how they spawn in the world. Any help would be appreciated.

[Salmeuk]

1. make sure your world has extant populations of giant alligators using a utility like legendsviewer
2. embark in savage / untamed wilds area with river and appropriate biome (tropical broadleaf, savannah I think?)

now, I have encountered giant alligators in the past. so its not impossible.

but one factor you might not be aware of is that (IIRC) the populations of wild animals that migrate onto your embark are pulled from a large table, which appears to equally weight all creatures present in that biome regardless of type. so for most embarks you will generally only see a very small percentage of wild animal species. the majority will be the usual types - normal alligators, hippos, various equines, etc etc. and only rarely might you get interesting things like giant varieties, or even rare mythical unicorns or mountain gnomes..

so it's a mixture of setting yourself up for success and then a whole lot of luck.

[delphonso]

Aye, it's all related to biome. Embark on the tundra and you'll see the same 6 creatures over and over. Some areas, like plains, have a pretty wide variety, so as Salmeuk says, it will sort of cycle through them.

[Shonai_Dweller]

1. make sure your world has extant populations of giant alligators using a utility like legendsviewer

You can't right now, there is no option to export Legends info in the latest version.

[Inatun]

As someone who just had an unfortunate encounter with a giant alligator, your best bet to catch one is to embark in a savage version of an appropriate biome with some kind of river that's larger than a brook. Their behavior seems to emulate real alligators in the sense that they'll lurk in water and lunge out at passing dwarves, so keep that in mind when trying to catch them.

[Duke Dapper]

1. make sure your world has extant populations of giant alligators using a utility like legendsviewer

Wow thanks, didin't even know that legends Viewer could be used that way. I have previosly just used it to see if rocs are extingt.

[Duke Dapper]

with some kind of river that's larger than a brook.

Oke will try, I have mostly settled around smaller streams but I will try bigger ones then. Thanks.

[Shonai_Dweller]

1. make sure your world has extant populations of giant alligators using a utility like legendsviewer

Wow thanks, didin't even know that legends Viewer could be used that way. I have previosly just used it to see if rocs are extingt.

If you're playing 47.05 (last version you could export legends data from) you don't even need Legends Viewer. Just open Legends Mode and hit p.
That immediately produces a text file with the populations of each site and the "outdoor populations" of every creature in your world. (regionxxx-world_sites_and_pops.txt)
I see my 100 year old world has 1241 saltwater crocodiles and 990 giant saltwater crocodiles.