Large alligators feed extensively on nutrias, and provide a vital ecological service by reducing nutria numbers. Farther west, in Louisiana, heavy grazing by nutrias and muskrats is causing severe damage to coastal wetlands. They are, therefore, considered an important species for maintaining ecological diversity in wetlands. When they construct alligator holes in the wetlands, they increase plant diversity and provide habitat for other animals during droughts. Īmerican alligators live in freshwater environments, such as ponds, marshes, wetlands, rivers, lakes, and swamps, as well as in brackish water.
A small population is also found in Tamaulipas, in Mexico. Southern Florida is the only place where both alligators and crocodiles live side by side. The majority of American alligators inhabit Florida and Louisiana, with over a million alligators in each state. Louisiana has the largest alligator population. Īmerican alligators are found in the southeast United States: all of Florida and Louisiana the southern parts of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi coastal South and North Carolina East Texas, the southeast corner of Oklahoma, and the southern tip of Arkansas. HabitatĪlligators are native to only the United States, Mexico, and China. Although no valid records exist about its date of birth, as of 2012, it was in its 80s and possibly the oldest alligator living in captivity. Another one of the oldest lives on record is that of Muja, an American alligator who was brought as an adult specimen to the Belgrade Zoo in Serbia from Germany in 1937. One of the oldest recorded alligator lives was that of Saturn, an American alligator who was hatched in 1936 in Mississippi and spent nearly a decade in Germany before spending the majority of its life at the Moscow Zoo, where it died at the age of 83 or 84 on. No average lifespan for an alligator has been measured. Additionally, it weighs considerably less, with males rarely over 45 kg (100 lb).Īdult alligators are black or dark olive-brown with white undersides, while juveniles have bright yellow or whitish stripes which sharply contrast against their dark hides, providing them additional camouflage amongst reeds and wetland grasses. The Chinese alligator is smaller, rarely exceeding 2.1 m (7 ft) in length. The largest ever recorded, found in Louisiana, measured 5.84 m (19.2 ft). The Southeastern United States and Tamaulipas, MexicoĪn 1854 watercolor painting of an alligator from the Cayman Islands by Jacques Burkhardt.Īn average adult American alligator's weight and length is 360 kg (790 lb) and 4 m (13 ft), but they sometimes grow to 4.4 m (14 ft) long and weigh over 450 kg (990 lb). AlligatoridaeĪlligator mississippiensis American alligator The below cladogram shows the phylogeny of alligators. Together, these two subfamilies form the family Alligatoridae. The genus Alligator belongs to the subfamily Alligatorinae, which is the sister taxon to Caimaninae (the caimans).
#Alligator fish full
The full genome, published in 2014, suggests that the alligator evolved much more slowly than mammals and birds. The alligator's full mitochondrial genome was sequenced in the 1990s. The modern American alligator is well represented in the fossil record of the Pleistocene.
The Chinese alligator split from the American alligator about 33 million years ago and probably descended from a lineage that crossed the Bering land bridge during the Neogene. EvolutionĪlligators and caimans split in North America during the early Tertiary or late Cretaceous (about 53 million to about 65 million years ago).
Early English spellings of the name included allagarta and alagarto. The name "alligator" is probably an anglicized form of el lagarto, the Spanish term for "the lizard", which early Spanish explorers and settlers in Florida called the alligator. Alligators first appeared during the Oligocene epoch about 37 million years ago. Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator ( A. The two extant species are the American alligator ( A. An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae.
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