English words (unlike Chinese words) usually do not require a measure-word or quantifier — this is because most English nouns are countable (on their own). On the other hand, singular countable nouns always require a determiner (like “a(n)”, “the”, “this”, “that”, or a possessive). In this case, the best way to resolve the issue is to make the subject plural. The grammatically correct sentence would be:
Crocodiles are vicious animals.
In the singular, we’d need an article — either “a” or “the” would work here, with almost exactly the same meaning (in most contexts).
A crocodile is a vicious animal.
We could use "crocodile" without a determiner in reference to the meat (which is uncountable):
Crocodile is delicious.