Gator Country

Alligators are members of the crocodilian family, which includes crocodiles, caimans, American alligators, and Chinese alligators. These cold-blooded reptiles inhabit wetland areas and can grow from six to 11 feet long.

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American alligators can be found throughout Louisiana and Florida, where they were once nearly extinct. Today, they are no longer endangered and are instead thriving in bayous, lakes, and even on some golf courses.

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Alligators, along with other crocodilians, have undergone very little evolutionary change since the time of the dinosaurs. American alligators appeared about 84 million years ago, and their ancestors evolved more than 200 million years ago.³ The only older reptiles are turtles and tortoises.

Gators are amazing swimmers

Alligators are cold blooded

Alligators love to kiss

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Unlike crocodiles, alligators don’t have the glands to excrete salt from their bodies, so they can’t swim in saltwater habitats like mangrove swamps. Now, they will hunt near saltwater, especially in the spring, experts say, when there’s the greatest difference between high and low water.

But if you ever see a couple of eyes peaking up out of ocean water or any salty lake, it’s certainly a croc, not an alligator.

An alligator walking into the water

An alligator eating

An alligator sun bathing

The largest alligator ever measured was 15 feet, nine inches long, and weighed in at 1,011.5 pounds. This gator was caught in Mill Creek, a tributary of a river in Alabama. Sadly, it was killed by a hunter in 2014, when it was believed to be between 24 and 28 years old. Gator hunting is still legal in the state of Alabama, but there are regulations.

One of the weirder facts about alligators is that the sex of them is determined not by DNA but, rather, by climate. If the temperature in the baby alligator nest is warm, male alligators are born; if the temperature is cool, the babies are females.⁵ Mother alligators lay their eggs on a mound of dirt. When the eggs are ready to hatch, the baby alligators use an “egg tooth” on top of their snouts to break the shell.

An alligators jaw can produce over 20,000 pounds of force

Alligators are built for speed, not endurance. They can run up to 35 miles per hour—faster than most humans—but they are sprinters and can’t keep up that pace for long.⁶ In the water, they can lunge at up to 30 miles per hour.⁷ They can also swim very fast by using their powerful tails to propel them forward.

Alligators’ eyes are on the top of their heads, making it easy for them to lie almost entirely submerged in water and still see their prey. Alligators, like cats, also have a structure in the back of their eyes that reflects light to improve night vision. If you catch an alligator’s eyes with a flashlight, they will glow red. You can also tell how big an alligator is by the distance between its eyes: the greater the distance, the longer the alligator.

Alligators have long been considered carnivores but have more recently been discovered to deliberately eat fruit, vegetables, seeds, and legumes. For years before this was confirmed, the seeds found in their bodies during research were presumed to come from animals they’d eaten. Studies verifying this surprising part of their diets suggest that alligators even help the plants they eat distribute seeds (via the waste they leave… after digestion).⁸

Still, though, meat makes up the bulk of their diets. Younger alligators eat bugs, amphibians, and small fish, while their parents feed on larger fish, snakes, turtles, birds, and mammals.

All alligators live in freshwater; they usually prefer slow-moving rivers, creeks, marshes, swamps, and lakes. Often, they’re found in deep water, especially during the breeding season.

American alligators live in slow waters in the southeastern part of the U.S., from North Carolina to Texas. The Chinese alligator, a close relative, lives almost exclusively in the lower Yangtze River in China.

Alligators have about 75 teeth in their mouths at any one time, but as the teeth wear down or break off, they are replaced. As a result, many can have about 3,000 teeth throughout their lives. According to some sources, alligators can bite with a force of nearly 3,000 pounds per inch, making their bite among the most powerful in the world.⁹ It’s no wonder why they lose so many of their chompers.

For about two years, female reptiles carry and look after their babies, making sure they are safe and well-fed. Though they are seen as ferocious predators, they are known to be very nurturing toward their offspring. Babies grow about a foot per year, so they are good-sized predators by the time they head off on their own.

Alligators don’t hibernate, but they do go through a dormancy period during colder weather. Before going dormant, they use their feet and snouts to dig out what’s known as a “gator hole,” a depression or tunnel in the mud. Gator holes can be up to 65 feet long, and they protect the alligators when it’s too hot or cold for comfort.

During this brumation period, which can last up to five months, their heart rates and metabolism slow way down. They continue to breathe through their snouts, which they stick slightly out of the water. In the coldest areas, the water will freeze around them.

Both males and females emit loud roars when they’re mating—so loud they give alligators the title of “loudest reptiles in the world.”¹⁰ For reference, their calls can reach 90 decibels—about as loud as a lawn mower—while human vocalizations typically max out around 70.¹¹

Males will roar not just to attract mates but also to scare off potential predators.

Though they’re known to care for their young relatively well, alligators will also sometimes eat them. Researchers noted that a large number of baby alligators seem to die off before maturity, and they investigated the cause. They discovered that baby alligator mortality is due, in part, to the fact that about 7% of them are eaten by their parents.¹²

The reason for this is believed to be multiple paternity (baby alligators in a single litter can have different dads). Father alligators are a much bigger threat than mother alligators to their young, and it’s likely because they don’t know which babies belong to them.

A study found that wild alligator blood has both antibiotic and antiviral properties.¹³ In fact, it is active against HIV-1, West Nile Virus, and Herpes simplex virus. These properties also help protect the alligators themselves from infection after injury.

So far, their blood has only been studied in the lab and is so far not being used in human medicine.

While the American alligator is populous throughout its U.S. range, the Chinese alligator isn’t as safe. It is critically endangered due to “habitat fragmentation and degradation, hunting, natural disasters (floods and drought), geographic separation, low productivity, and pollution,” the IUCN says. Until the 1990s, they were hunted profusely.

Currently, there are as many as 86 and as few as 68 mature adults in the species’ native range.