National Gallery of Australia

Cult crocodile is a big highlight of National Gallery's PNG exhibition

It was carved more than a century ago from a single piece of wood in a remote Papua New Guinea village. It has never been seen in Australia before.

Curator of Pacific Art Crispin Howarth said, “There are only 10 or 15 of these known in the world and this is the most fantastic.”

It had “aspects of male and female" to it and was collected in 1959 by an Australian patrol officer, he said.

The cult crocodile was carved from a single piece of wood without the use of metal tools and dates back more than a century.