Australia's newest champ weighs a ton

Sep 15, 2011, 12:31 GMT

Sydney - Australia's latest world champion is a cold-blooded creature measuring 5.5 metres and weighing close to a ton.

Meet Cassius Clay, endorsed Thursday as the biggest crocodile in captivity.

Guinness World Records is so taken with the 100-year-old salty that Cassius Clay, the birth name of legendary heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali, has been picked as the centrefold for their latest world records book.

'We thought this record was so amazing that it deserved its own two-page spread and that's now going out in 4 million copies worldwide,' publishing house spokesman Chris Sheedy told national news agency AAP.

For the past 24 years Cassius Clay has been the star attraction at a crocodile park on Green Island, off the far-north Queensland coast.

Keeper George Craig said the measuring was a dangerous business.

'We drained the pool, got him out and settled, gave him a great big feed and then over a matter of hours he let us get closer and closer until we could put the tape on him,' he said.

While a larger beast has been reported in the Philippines, and even photographed, Guinness World Records is sticking with Cassius Clay.

Sheedy said that until the Philippines specimen was 'in acceptable captivity, which is humane and professional, and until it has been properly measured, we can't accept it.'