The term ‘crocoduck‘ was originally presented in a 2004 children’s story, ‘Guji Guji.’ The author and illustrator Chih-Yuan Chen produced the bestselling children’s story in 2004 as a modern day twist on The Ugly Duckling story in which a crocodile egg rolls into a duck’s nest and is raised in a brood of ducklings, growing up as a ‘crocoduck’ who thinks he is ‘not a bad crocodile,’ but ‘Of course, I’m not exactly a duck either.’ It was later used by creationists to claim that the absence of any half-crocodile, half-duck creature disproves evolution, an argument that quickly became a popular theme used to ridicule a common misrepresentation of the theory of evolution.
In 2007 creationists Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort participated in a televised debate, parts of which were aired on ABC Nightline, on the existence of God. Comfort says they produced composite pictures of what ‘we imagined would be genuine species-to-species transitional forms. We called one a ‘crocoduck’ and another was called a ‘birddog.’ These pictures were used to show exactly what they thought evolutionists believe, but can’t back up through the fossil record.’ Their composite picture of the imaginary ‘crocoduck’ showed the head of a crocodile on a duck’s body. However, modern species share a common ancestor, but are neither descended from each other nor from some crude composite chimera, and ducks are not descended from crocodiles.
The Daily Omnivore 