A croc once considered the crankiest in Australia has celebrated his 49th birthday at a reptile park on the New South Wales Central Coast.

Elvis, a five-metre saltwater crocodile originally from Darwin, was treated to a lamb carcass - a gift that was gleefully accepted.

"He will think he's killed prey, take it into the water, deathroll, guard and eat," predicted Tim Faulkner, general manager at the Australian Reptile Park in Somersby.

And that is just what Elvis did.

"I just saw a massive crocodile tear apart a sheep," said one young bystander.

Weighing in at half a tonne, Elvis did not quite get to have his cake and eat it too.

If the crocodile was allowed to keep the whole sheep, he would not need to eat again for 12 months.

The birthday boy, however, enjoyed a good mouthful, before keepers took the meat away.

Elvis was dubbed the crankiest crocodile in the country after losing two teeth during an attack on park staff and their lawnmowers in 2011.

"He's just amazing, isn't he?" said the reptile park's marketing manager Libby Bain.

"You can't second guess what he's going to do but once he goes into that death roll it's just a sight to behold."

"Obviously if we were in the Territory right now, we wouldn't even know he was under the water, so it's really exciting to be able to see it."

Elvis came to the Central Coast in 2007 after wreaking havoc in Darwin Harbour, getting into trouble for attacking fishing boats and trying to steal barramundi.

He was sent to a breeding property, but that did not work out after he opted to eat his stable mates.

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