Alligator Sunning
by Charlene Adler
Title
Alligator Sunning
Artist
Charlene Adler
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Photograph of alligator taken at the World Birding Center on South Padre Island, Texas. This guy was sunning himself on the rocks for the morning.
An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the Oligocene epoch about 37 million years ago.
An 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).[10] The largest ever recorded, found in Louisiana, measured 5.84 m (19.2 ft).[11] The Chinese alligator is smaller, rarely exceeding 2.1 m (7 ft) in length. Additionally, it weighs considerably less, with males rarely over 45 kg (100 lb).
Adult 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.[12]
No average lifespan for an alligator has been measured.[13] One of the oldest recorded alligator lives was that of Saturn, an American alligator who was born 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 22 May 2020.[14][15] 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. 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.
Alligators are native to only the United States, Mexico, and China.[18][19]
American 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. Louisiana has the largest alligator population.[20] The majority of American alligators inhabit Florida and Louisiana, with over a million alligators in each state. Southern Florida is the only place where both alligators and crocodiles' live side by side.[21][22] A small population is also found in Tamaulipas, in Mexico.
American alligators live in freshwater environments, such as ponds, marshes, wetlands, rivers, lakes, and swamps, as well as in brackish water.[23] When they construct alligator holes in the wetlands, they increase plant diversity and provide habitat for other animals during droughts.[24] They are, therefore, considered an important species for maintaining ecological diversity in wetlands.[25] Farther west, in Louisiana, heavy grazing by coypu and muskrat are causing severe damage to coastal wetlands. Large alligators feed extensively on coypu, and provide a vital ecological service by reducing coypu numbers.[26]
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April 21st, 2022
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