The Crocodile Hunter: Steve Irwin's Real Legacy

Steve Irwin's father once knocked him to the ground and called him a "bloody idiot" after the seven-year-old stepped on a brown snake—the second most venomous snake in the world. The boy ran off sobbing, found a cave by the river, immediately started looking for lizards, said "goodbye, little lizards" when his dad called for him, and went back to the car. He never stopped talking to animals that way.

Who Steve Irwin Actually Was

Brianna Bowman, a science journalist and former environmental officer at an Australian coal mine, spent months researching Irwin's life. What she found complicates the flattened media character many Americans remember: the khaki-clad, hyper-enthusiastic man wrestling crocodiles on Animal Planet.

Irwin was born in 1962 in Victoria, near Melbourne, and grew up with parents Bob and Lynn who were deeply passionate about reptiles. They kept and rehabilitated wildlife in their home—Lynn Irwin nursed orphaned kangaroo joeys hit by cars. When Steve turned six, his parents gave him a 12-foot scrub python. They had the sense to tell him he couldn't play with it because it might eat him.