Australia reptile handler Tracey Sandstrom can't explain why her two-metre saltwater crocodile, Snappy, sank his teeth into her arm at a Christmas party in Victoria.
It was the kind of cranky behaviour she would have expected from her bigger croc, Getcha.
"He's named Getcha because if you take the tape off his mouth he'll get ya. He's over two-metres long and double Snappy's body mass," she has told AAP from Geelong Hospital, where she is recovering.
"He started to get a little bit agitated and grumpy at displays, so we don't use him much anymore."
Sandstrom says she wasn't terrified, just rather annoyed, when 22-kilogram Snappy lived up to his name and chomped.
The Roaming Reptiles operator was presenting a reptile display at Geelong's Eastern Gardens for a private end-of-year function when Snappy moved, snapping the tape binding his jaws.
"I was just standing next to him supervising him, and he turned around and half of the tape broke off his mouth and he opened his mouth about a centimetre or two and bit my forearm," Sandstrom says, adding it was only a second or two until she pulled her arm out.
"He's sitting on the table looking around. I think (he was) thinking: `What else can I bite?'"
Although St John Ambulance officers were in attendance, they could not approach the Roaming Reptiles operator until she'd secured Snappy.
With the help of her co-worker, Sandstrom - who was well aware Snappy could smell the blood seeping from three puncture wounds - managed to slip a net over the croc's head.
"He just sat there because that's the normal procedure that we follow.
"I got my noose, which is a very stress-free way of taping him up for both of us.
"I just gently put it over his snout and closed it," she says.
A bystander then helped drag Snappy off the table and place him in his crate.
At the same time, Sandstrom was plugged in to her Bluetooth device calling an ambulance on her mobile phone.
"There was a bit of a pause when I said I'd been bitten by a crocodile in Geelong," she says.
"They were waiting for the punchline."
Sandstrom, 46, says it was "an annoying shock" rather than a terrifying ordeal when the croc she's had since he was a 30cm-long baby bit her.
She prides herself on rarely being bitten by her reptilian mates and says she feels disappointed.
She now has a number of staples in her arm but the incident has not impaired her sense of humour.
"It looks like I'm part of an Officeworks Christmas party. I don't know what they do at Officeworks Christmas parties but someone ran amok on my arm."
As for Snappy, he'll still be part of her reptilian repertoire, but with a bit more tape around his jaws.
"We'll probably be a little bit more cautious with him.
"We'll use extra tape, that's obviously a given."
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