Adult alligators are primarily dark gray in color with a lighter color underside, although juvenile alligators will have light colored stripes on their sides for camouflage. American crocodiles are a brownish gray color, and are generally paler colored than alligators.[1]
What Is The Real Color Of An Alligator?
The color of adult alligators varies with habitat and can be olive, brown, gray, or nearly black, with a creamy underside. Algae-laden waters produce greener skin, while tannic acid from overhanging trees can produce darker skin.Oct 14, 2020[2]
What Does The American Alligator Look Like?
Alligators have a long, rounded snout that has upward facing nostrils at the end; this allows breathing to occur while the rest of the body is underwater. The young have bright yellow stripes on the tail; adults have dark stripes on the tail. It’s easy to distinguish an alligator from a crocodile by the teeth.[3]
What Is The Difference Between An American Alligator And An American Crocodile?
To distinguish the two, alligators have a more U-shaped snout while crocodiles have a more pointed or V-shaped one. In addition, alligators are black, while crocodiles are usually a lighter grayish brown. Learn More: American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)[4]
Are American Alligators Rare?
American alligators were once threatened by extinction, but after being placed on the endangered species list in 1967, their population increased. This species is now classified as least concern.[5]
What Is The Average Weight Of A Baby American Alligator
How much do baby alligators weigh? Hatchlings weigh about 56 grams when hatch and are almost 10 inches long. For every year, they gain about a foot of length and usually stop growing at around 10 to 11 feet for females, and for males, they get to be about 14 feet long on average.Dec 30, 2021[6]
What Is The Average Size Of A Baby Alligator?
When the baby alligator hatches it measures about 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 centimeters). Newly hatched alligators live in small groups, called ‘pods.’ Some 80 percent of young alligators fall victim to predators such as birds, raccoons, bobcats, otters, snakes, large bass and larger alligators.[7]
How Many Pounds Does A Baby Alligator Weigh?
Newborns come in a range of healthy sizes. Most babies born between 37 and 40 weeks weigh somewhere between 5 pounds, 8 ounces (2,500 grams) and 8 pounds, 13 ounces (4,000 grams). Newborns who are lighter or heavier than the average baby are usually fine.[8]
How Heavy Is A 5 Ft Alligator?
Four-foot alligators average about 11 pounds, while gators measuring 5 feet average only about 22 pounds.[9]
How Much Does A 15 Foot Alligator Weigh?
Males average 10 to 15 feet in length and can weigh 1,000 pounds. Females grow to a maximum of about 9.8 feet.[10]
Why The American Alligator Is Most Related To Birds
Alligators and birds are part of the same larger group, called archosaurs, which has existed for 250 million years and which has given rise not only to birds and crocodilians, but also to dinosaurs.Nov 4, 2010[11]
Are Alligators More Closely Related To Birds?
(Crocodilians are actually more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to other reptiles, i.e., lizards, snakes, and turtles.)Dec 11, 2014[12]
What Do Alligators And Birds Have In Common?
Birds, crocodiles and dinosaurs have much in common – including, it turns out, their breath. The hyper-efficient breathing system of birds is shared with alligators, and probably evolved in archosaurs, the common ancestor of crocodilians, birds and dinosaurs.Jan 15, 2010[13]
Why Are Birds Closely Related To Crocodiles?
And they are most closely related to crocodiles, which also came from archosaurs. This is what most people mean when they say that birds are reptiles, although technically, according to the phylogenetic system, birds, reptiles, and mammals all share a reptile-like ancestor.[14]
What Are Alligators Most Closely Related To?
Turtles, not birds, have been found to be the closest relatives of crocodiles and alligators, according to an analysis of the largest available collection of reptile genes.[15]
How Long Does It Take For An American Alligator To Mature
Both males and females reach sexual maturity when they are about 6 feet (1.8 meters) long, a length attained at about 10 to 12 years. Breeding takes place during the night in shallow waters.[16]
How Fast Does An American Alligator Grow?
Size and Growth Rates. Alligators are about 8′-9′ in length when they are hatched from eggs. Growth rates may vary from 2′ per year to 12′ per year, depending on the type of habitat the alligator is living in and the sex, size and age of the alligator. Growth rates slow down as the alligators become older.[17]
How Old Is A 13 Foot American Alligator?
According to Brent Howze, a wildlife biologist with the GDNA, the animal was 13 feet and four inches long, 57 inches in circumference of its chest, and weighs an estimated 700 to 750 pounds. The department said the alligator might be around 50 years old, but researchers are working to find its exact age.[18]
How Do You Age An American Alligator?
Chinese alligators live up to 50 years in the wild; American alligators live between 35-50 years. Scientists use the process of skeletochronology to tell the age of an alligator. It allows them to estimate the alligator’s age by examining the growth rate based on its bone structure.[19]
How Old Is A 2 Ft Alligator?
A two-foot alligator is probably 2 to 3 years old, Mr. Kacprzyk said. The chilly 48-degree temperature on Tuesday night would not hurt the alligator, he said, but they do tend to slow down when temperatures drop.[20]
Why Is The American Alligator A Keystone Species
Alligators are considered “keystone species”, a species that helps to fashion its environment and influence the types of species that live there. Alligators perform necessary services like providing fresh water for other wildlife to drink during droughts by digging “gator holes” that bring groundwater to the surface.[21]
Is The American Alligator A Keystone Species?
Alligators are an important part of the Everglades ecosystem and are considered a keystone species of the park.Oct 14, 2020[22]
Why Are American Alligators Important?
Alligators play an important role in maintaining ecosystem balance. Sitting at the top of the food chain, alligators are apex predators and help keep other animal populations in balance. By digging holes and leaving trails throughout marshes, they create habitats for fish and marine invertebrates.[23]
How Is A Crocodile Keystone Species?
Crocodilians are seen as keystone species in freshwater ecosystems. American alligators in Florida for example create and maintain deep ponds that provide a refuge for many species of fish, frogs and snakes during dry periods (Mazzotti et al.[24]
What Would Happen If The American Alligator Was Removed?
If alligators are removed from their native ecosystem, it would affect countless other species. As an American alligator’s teeth wear down or fall out, new ones come in. An alligator can go through 3,000 teeth in a lifetime.[25]
What The American Alligator Eats
They can only tolerate salt water for brief periods because they do not have salt glands. Alligators are carnivorous. They have very strong jaws that can crack a turtle shell. They eat fish, snails and other invertebrates, birds, frogs and mammals that come to the water’s edge.[26]
What Is Alligator Favorite Food?
They eat whatever is the easiest prey, based on size and availability. Their diet consists primarily of fish, birds, turtles, snakes, frogs, mammals and crème brûlée (we may have made that last one up).[27]
Does Anything Eat An American Alligator?
American alligators and their cousins, the caiman, and crocodiles are fierce hunters. But despite their size and strength, there are animals that do prey on them. Man appears to be their biggest predator. Big cats like leopards and panthers sometimes kill and eat these big reptiles.[28]
How Do American Alligators Eat Their Food?
Adult alligators eat fish, birds, turtles, other reptiles and mammals. Alligators swallow their prey whole. Their conical teeth are used for catching the prey, not tearing it apart. Alligators have about 80 teeth and when an alligator loses a tooth, it regrows.[29]
What Does The American Alligator In The Everglades Eat?
Juveniles eat a wide variety of small invertebrates, particularly insects, as well as small fish and frogs. The adult diet typically consists of fish, turtles, small mammals, birds, and reptiles, including small alligators.[30]
Resources
[1]https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/reptiles/alligator/
[2]https://www.nps.gov/ever/learn/nature/alligator.htm%23:~:text%3DThe%2520color%2520of%2520adult%2520alligators,trees%2520can%2520produce%2520darker%2520skin.
[3]https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-alligator%23:~:text%3DAlligators%2520have%2520a%2520long%252C%2520rounded,a%2520crocodile%2520by%2520the%2520teeth.
[4]https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/do-alligators-and-crocodiles-exist-together-anywhere-world%23:~:text%3DTo%2520distinguish%2520the%2520two%252C%2520alligators,American%2520alligator%2520(Alligator%2520mississippiensis)
[5]https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Reptiles/American-Alligator%23:~:text%3DAmerican%2520alligators%2520were%2520once%2520threatened,now%2520classified%2520as%2520least%2520concern.
[6]https://a-z-animals.com/blog/baby-alligator-six-facts-and-pictures/
[7]https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-alligator%23:~:text%3DWhen%2520the%2520baby%2520alligator%2520hatches,large%2520bass%2520and%2520larger%2520alligators.
[8]https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/grownewborn.html%23:~:text%3DNewborns%2520come%2520in%2520a%2520range,average%2520baby%2520are%2520usually%2520fine.
[9]http://www.southeasternoutdoors.com/wildlife/reptiles/article/small-alligators-not-problem.html%23:~:text%3DFour%252Dfoot%2520alligators%2520average%2520about,average%2520only%2520about%252022%2520pounds.
[10]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/facts/american-alligator%23:~:text%3DMales%2520average%252010%2520to%252015,maximum%2520of%2520about%25209.8%2520feet.
[11]https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/11/bird-meet-cousin-alligator/
[12]https://news.ucsc.edu/2014/12/crocodile-genomes.html
[13]https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18392-alligators-bird-breath-may-explain-dinosaurs-triumph/
[14]https://askabiologist.asu.edu/questions/birds-dinosaurs-reptiles
[15]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/02/990217075533.htm
[16]https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-alligator
[17]https://www.louisianaalligators.com/alligator-biology-and-behavior.html
[18]https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/13-foot-gator-estimated-to-be-50-years-old-found-in-georgia
[19]https://study.com/academy/lesson/lifespan-of-an-alligator-lesson-for-kids.html
[20]https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2006/09/21/2-foot-long-alligator-caught-in-Frick-Park/stories/200609210434
[21]http://www.shipyardhhi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Alligator-tent-card.pdf
[22]https://www.nps.gov/ever/learn/nature/alligator.htm
[23]https://phys.org/news/2016-06-alligators.html
[24]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1943815X.2011.610804
[25]https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Reptiles/American-Alligator
[26]https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-alligator
[27]https://www.captainjacksairboattours.com/5-what-alligators-eat/%23:~:text%3DThey%2520eat%2520whatever%2520is%2520the,made%2520that%2520last%2520one%2520up).
[28]https://swampfeverairboatadventures.com/do-alligators-have-predators/%23:~:text%3DAmerican%2520alligators%2520and%2520their%2520cousins,and%2520eat%2520these%2520big%2520reptiles.
[29]https://animalcorner.org/animals/alligator/%23:~:text%3DAdult%2520alligators%2520eat%2520fish%252C%2520birds,loses%2520a%2520tooth%252C%2520it%2520regrows.
[30]https://www.nps.gov/ever/learn/nature/alligator.htm%23:~:text%3DJuveniles%2520eat%2520a%2520wide%2520variety,and%2520reptiles%252C%2520including%2520small%2520alligators.