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Post by Ceratodromeus on Jul 5, 2016 4:23:25 GMT 5
Neat study detailing alligator predation on Terrestrial mammals {1}    {1}Shoop, C. Robert, and Carol A. Ruckdeschel. “Alligators as Predators on Terrestrial Mammals.” The American Midland Naturalist, vol. 124, no. 2, 1990, pp. 407–412. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2426191. Accessed 1 Jan. 2021. |
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Aug 2, 2016 9:30:59 GMT 5
3-foot alligator found sunning itself on Minnesota trail "BRAINERD, Minn., July 14 (UPI) -- A man biking outside a Minnesota town came upon an unexpected sight in the middle of the trail: a 3-foot-long alligator sunning itself. Dan Fundingsland said he was riding his bicycle on the Paul Bunyan Trail Saturday afternoon about 5 miles southwest of Brainerd when he came across the non-native reptile. Fundingsland told Lakeland Public Television he was "hoping to see some deer or some turkey" or possibly a bear, but he "didn't see anything really" until his return trip from Crow Wing State Park. "I saw this thing in the middle of the trail, and I didn't know what it was. I thought it was a stick, and then I thought, 'OK, somebody put a doll or something out here,'" Fundingsland said. However, he soon realized the object wasn't a doll, it was a live alligator measuring about 3 feet long. "I didn't expect to see an alligator at all in Minnesota," he said. The cyclist contacted the Crow Wing County Sheriff's Office, which dispatched deputies to the scene. "This is the first time we've received a call about an alligator," Lt. Joe Meyer with the Crow Wing County Sheriff's Office told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "It created some anxiety with the deputies. Nobody was volunteering to grab it, that's for sure." The owner of the nearby Safari North Wildlife Park was summoned to capture the gator, which appeared to be in good health. Meyer said the alligator is believed to be a pet that either escaped or was released illegally." www.upi.com/Odd_News/2016/07/14/3-foot-alligator-found-sunning-itself-on-Minnesota-trail/2061468509484/
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Aug 17, 2016 8:28:25 GMT 5
Unusual Offshore Occurrence of an American Alligator
AbstractAn American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis Daudin) was observed and photographed in the Gulf of Mexico on 4 May 2004, some 56 km south of Marsh Island, LA (approximately 63 km from the nearest point on mainland Louisiana). Alligators generally avoid saltwater and we are unaware of prior documentation of an alligator occurring this distance offshore.
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Post by Venomous Dragon on Aug 17, 2016 8:40:31 GMT 5
From Minnesota to Mexico the gators are spreading
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Aug 26, 2016 5:03:20 GMT 5
Big male recently taken in Alabama 684 pound alligator comes to the scales, biggest of the year This year, the biggest alligator captured by Alabama hunters was a monster, 684 pounds. It was killed by Lee Wright, Phillip Brooks, Jackson Woodson, Alvin Nelson, and James Nelson on the Alabama River north of Holly Creek. This year's largest alligator measured 12 feet, 10 inches. It had a 68-inch girth around its belly, and was 46 inches around the base of the tail. An animal one inch shorter was weighed in on the Causeway in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. It weighed two pounds less. Even with dimensions like those, this year's two largest gators were still a lot smaller than the world record gator caught in 2014, which was three feet longer and more than 300 pounds heavier. While there were a lot of alligators larger than 12 feet brought in this year, the bulk of those killed were less than eight feet long. The first weekend of the two week hunt featured fairly light turnout, but some large animals came to the scale. State officials said that 88 alligators were brought to the weigh station on the Causeway. Of those, 71 were males, and 14 were females. They ranged from 4 feet six inches to 12 feet nine inches. The average was nine feet long. The largest alligator brought in on the Causeway was one inch shorter and two pounds lighter than the alligator weighed in by Lee Wright. Big Daddy Lawler, of the Gettin' Outdoors radio show on ESPN 1049 on Saturday morning from 7 to 9, collected the results from the West Central zone. [/i]: 1- Nick Cochran (Alpine) - 8' 8", 191 lbs., F 2 - Tyler Johnson (Scottsboro) - 7' 5", 105 lbs., F 3 - Gator Mike Gifford - (Eufaua) - 7' 6", 141.5 lbs, M 4 - James Lee Coe (Columbiana) - 7' 9", 130 lbs., M Night number 2 results: 5- Jake Rosser (Stevenson) - 7' 2", 85 lbs., M 6- Wesley Ann Terry (Camden)- 12' 4 1/2", 547 lbs. M 7- Karl Breland (Huntsville) - 7' 9", 149.5 lbs., M 8- Larry Hatchett (Shelby) - 11' 3", 449 lbs., M 9- Neal Posey (Selma) - 11' 4", 420.5 lbs., M 10- Jacob Walker (Pike Road) - 6' 8", 75 lbs., F 11- Ethan Tyree - 10' 10", 318 lbs., M Night number 3 results: 12- Joseph Gann (Trussville) - 7' 7", 100 lbs., M 13- Dudley Oglesby (Ozark) - 8' 3", 156 lbs., F 14- Jarrod Pettie (Andulusia) - 11' 2", 380 lbs., M 15- Brian Robertson (Vinemont) - 6' 2", 61 lbs., F 16- Jessica Guy (Dickerson) - 12' 6", 562 lbs., M 17- Louie Wallace (Thomasville) - 5' 11", 39 lbs., F Night number 4 results: 18- Dustin Colquitt (Wetumpka) - 7', 77.5 lbs., M 19- Michael Buntin (Marion) - 8', 111 lbs., F 20- Cody Mixon (Repton) - 11' 2 1/2", 347.5 lbs., M 21-Todd Green (Northport) - 9' 2", 199.5 lbs., M Night number 5 results: 22- John McGee (Eutaw) - 6' 10", 76 lbs., M 23- Jeremiah Case (Northport) - 6' 10 1/2", 70 lbs., F 24- Tyler Brown (Moundville) - 7' 11", 119 lbs., M 25- J. T. Dailey (Camden) - 10' 9 1/2", 333, M 26- David Hayes (Calera0 - 8', 123 lbs., M 27- Robert Brown (Troy) - 5' 5", 32 lbs., M 28- Adam Anderson (Dickinson) - 12' 5", 482.5 lbs., M 29- Laura Browder (Camden) - 8' 11", 195 lbs., M Night number 6 results: 30- Michael Davis (Warrior) - 6' 1", 42 lbs., F 31- Glen Brown (Moundville ) - 8' 9", 178 lbs., F 32- Brandon Wailes (Anniston) - 12' 3", 421 lbs., M 33- Nathan Herring (Saraland) - 11' 6", 406 lbs. M [/ul] www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/08/684_pound_alligator_comes_to_t.html |
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Sept 20, 2016 21:47:52 GMT 5
American Alligator’s Lineage is More Ancient than Previously Thought “If we could step back in time 8 million years, you’d basically see the same animal crawling around then as you would see today in the Southeast,” said lead researcher Dr. Evan Whiting, from the University of Minnesota. “Even 30 million years ago, they didn’t look much different,” he added. “We were surprised to find fossil alligators from this deep in time that actually belong to the living species, rather than an extinct one.” He and his colleagues describe the alligator as a survivor, withstanding sea-level fluctuations and extreme changes in climate that would have caused some less-adaptive animals to rapidly change or go extinct. The scientists began re-thinking the alligator’s evolutionary history after Dr. Whiting examined an ancient alligator skull, originally thought to be an extinct species, unearthed in Marion County, Florida, and found it to be virtually identical to the iconic modern species. They compared the ancient skull with dozens of other fossils and modern skeletons to look at the whole genus and trace major changes, or the lack thereof, in alligator morphology. The authors also studied the carbon and oxygen compositions of the teeth of both ancient alligators and the 20- to 25-foot extinct crocodile Gavialosuchus americanus that once dominated the Florida coastline and died out about 5 million years ago for unknown reasons. “The presence of alligator and Gavialosuchus fossils at several localities in north Florida suggest the two species may have coexisted in places near the coast,” Dr. Whiting said. Analysis of the teeth suggests, however, that Gavialosuchus americanus was a marine reptile, which sought its prey in ocean waters, while alligators tended to hunt in freshwater and on land. That doesn’t mean alligators weren’t occasionally eaten by the marine crocs, though. “The gators we see today do not really compete with anything, but millions of years ago it was not only competing with another type of crocodilian, it was competing with a much larger one,” said co-author Dr. David Steadman, from the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida (UF). “The presence of the ancient crocodile in Florida may have helped keep the alligators in freshwater habitats, though it appears alligators have always been most comfortable in freshwater.” “While modern alligators do look prehistoric as they bake on sandbars along the Suwannee River or stroll down sidewalks on the UF campus, they are not somehow immune to evolution,” the researchers said. “On the contrary, they are the result of an incredibly ancient evolutionary line.” “The group they belong to, Crocodylia, has been around for at least 84 million years and has diverse ancestors dating as far back as the Triassic, more than 200 million years ago.” The scientists reported their results in a pair of papers in the Journal of Herpetology and the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. www.sci-news.com/biology/american-alligators-lineage-04204.html
Cranial Polymorphism and Systematics of Miocene and Living Alligator in North AmericaAbstract We examined the osteology of Neogene Alligator, with a focus on fossils from the late Miocene (~8–7 million years ago [Ma]) Moss Acres Racetrack locality in Marion County, Florida, USA. These fossils have been referred previously to Alligator cf. A. mefferdi (early late Miocene, ~12–10 Ma, Nebraska), an extinct species that we and others have found to be lacking autapomorphic characters. Furthermore, numerous cranial polymorphisms, previously regarded as diagnostic autapomorphies or synapomorphies, exist in several species of Alligator, particularly in Alligator prenasalis (late Eocene–early Oligocene, ~36–33 Ma, South Dakota and possibly Nebraska), Alligator olseni (early Miocene, ~18–17 Ma, Florida), and the extant American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis; southeastern United States). Except for minute differences in two scapular characters, the fossil Alligator from Moss Acres Racetrack is virtually indistinguishable from the A. mississippiensis morphotype, suggesting its referral to that lineage rather than to an extinct species. Cladistic analysis upholds this notion, with A. mississippiensis and the Moss Acres Racetrack Alligator being sister taxa in a unified clade isolated from A. mefferdi. This implies that the A. mississippiensis morphological lineage has existed in North America with very little change for the past 7–8 million years. www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1670/15-023
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Oct 4, 2016 21:26:11 GMT 5
Another large male, this one taken from South Carolina  "Gavin McDowell, 16, stands next to a 13-foot, 5-inch alligator he helped his father and crew catch late Friday night in the Waccamaw River. On an alligator hunting trip late Friday night 2 miles south of Wacca Wache Marina in the Waccamaw River, Landon McDowell thought he was hooked up with a stump. Pulling with all his might, McDowell soon noticed some movement below. The next thing he knew, he – and his crew members, his son Gavin, and friend Jim Arnette and his son, James – were in a more than two-hour wrestling match with what proved to be a 13-foot, 5-inch alligator. “I was having trouble casting on him. He actually surfaced and he went back down. When I saw him go back down, I threw in the area where he was at and I didn’t know I had him. Normally when you hook a gator, he will run. But when I hooked up, it didn’t run. I said ‘I’m hung on a stump,’ and I started pulling as hard as I could to break it loose from the stump and then it started moving,” said McDowell, a captain who runs charters for Wallace Lee’s Fishing Guides in Murrells Inlet. “I think just because of his size it took a little more to get him off the bottom. But when he ran, it was on. On an alligator hunting trip late Friday night 2 miles south of Wacca Wache Marina in the Waccamaw River, Landon McDowell thought he was hooked up with a stump. Pulling with all his might, McDowell soon noticed some movement below. The next thing he knew, he – and his crew members, his son Gavin, and friend Jim Arnette and his son, James – were in a more than two-hour wrestling match with what proved to be a 13-foot, 5-inch alligator. “I was having trouble casting on him. He actually surfaced and he went back down. When I saw him go back down, I threw in the area where he was at and I didn’t know I had him. Normally when you hook a gator, he will run. But when I hooked up, it didn’t run. I said ‘I’m hung on a stump,’ and I started pulling as hard as I could to break it loose from the stump and then it started moving,” said McDowell, a captain who runs charters for Wallace Lee’s Fishing Guides in Murrells Inlet. “I think just because of his size it took a little more to get him off the bottom. But when he ran, it was on. Soon, the crew won the battle. “After about two hours, he tired out and surfaced enough to get a harpoon in him and shortly after the harpoon we were able to get a good shot on him,” McDowell said. After hauling the gator home early Saturday morning, McDowell took the gator to a processor in Hemingway for it to be measured and weighed. The initial weight he was told was 655 pounds, but they “couldn’t get whole gator off ground” at the time and on Monday he was told a weight of 816 pounds. That was “a whole lot more accurate,” McDowell said. “I have seen some fishing in Georgetown that I thought were close to this size, but I’ve never been on a hunt and actually seen one this big while I was hunting,” said McDowell, who’s been hunting alligators for five or six years. “So it was exciting.” McDowell said he tried to research the state record so he could find out where his catch stood. He didn’t have much luck finding concrete numbers, but said “It’s got to be close.” The gator was so big that McDowell – who was hunting on a 17-foot boat – needed his brother, Robbie, to bring his boat, a 20-footer, so they could bring him in. McDowell had some family members meet them at the ramp, and they were speechless when they saw the animal. “Their jaw just dropped when they saw it,” McDowell said. “They had no clue that something like that was swimming in the river there where they’ve swam and tubed and everything.” Despite making the kill in close proximity to Wacca Wache Marina, McDowell doesn’t believe folks should be concerned. “It’s definitely an area where a lot of people ski and swim, but once you hunt these gators you respect them. But they do not act very aggressive most of the time,” McDowell said. “There’s very few times I’ve seen them act aggressive. It wouldn’t deter me from going back on the water as far as swimming and things like that because, for the most part, from what I’ve seen if you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone.” McDowell said his father and brother have both killed alligators over 12 feet long. But this one will certainly stick with him. He plans to receive the head back from the Hemingway processor so he can mount it. “I’ve decided that I’m going to get the head mounted because I don’t know if I’ll ever get an opportunity to shoot one this size,” McDowell said. www.myrtlebeachonline.com/sports/outdoors/article105784171.html#storylink=cpy |
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Oct 15, 2016 2:22:14 GMT 5
They grow 'em in Texas Record breaking gator caught in Liberty County "BEAUMONT - A Texas state record breaking alligator was caught Wednesday morning in Liberty County. Gary Saurage and his crew from Gator Country, in Beaumont, TX, were called in to capture the huge gator from Champion Lake north of Wallisville and Interstate Ten in South Liberty County. Saurage announced Thursday he would name it "Big Tex." The record breaking reptile, which measured 13 feet, eight inches long and more than 900 pounds, was brought back to Gator Country where it will be given a new home. Saurage confirmed with Texas Parks and Wildlife that the gator is the largest ever caught in Texas. "And they let me know by record they don't see anything that's even been within 5 inches of this as for as being caught live. And uh that makes me feel proud. I've been looking for this gator for a really long time. This is without a doubt the highlight of my career," Saurage told 12News. After 6 hours out on champion lake in Liberty County, the gator country crew hauled in this gigantic monster. The gator is a state record length of 13 feet and 8 and a half inches, weighing in at 900 pounds.Gary Saurage is overwhelmed that gator country is the beast's new home. "There's no question this is the highlight of my career, this is a really big alligator," Saurage said about his team’s accomplishment. The alligator has not always been this calm. Stuart Marcus with the National Wildlife Refuge says the gator has been a nuisance in the lake. He believes it's a reminder that grappling with alligators is a job for professionals. “We would much rather have him back in the wild but because of safety issues we had to move him, but if anything, don't ever feed alligators, if you see one, stay at least 50 or 75 feet away from them," Marcus noted. This record size gator for the state of Texas got too used to humans. But now that he has a new home in Gator Country, Saurage believes he'll be a lot better off. "He's not going to be a dead alligator he's going to be a live alligator here so we can educate people and show people what they're like. And this is a magnificent beast, now people from all over the world will come and see even one that's bigger than Big Al, finally," Saurage said. Two apex alligators, the two largest in the state are now swimming calmly right here in Southeast Texas. Saurage says he plans to build a new pond for the alligator so he won’t invade Big Al’s space. Saurage will offer four lifetime passes to Gator Country to the family of who picks the alligator’s name." www.wfaa.com/news/local/record-breaking-gator-caught-in-liberty-county/334970639 |
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Dec 23, 2016 5:54:23 GMT 5
Neat video of the large captive alligator named Chester
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Jan 27, 2017 23:25:19 GMT 5
Meet 'Pearl,' the rare albino alligator at Gatorland
 ""ORLANDO, Fla. - There are only just over a dozen albino alligators in the world and one of them, a rare albino alligator named "Pearl," lives at Gatorland in Orlando. Pearl is about 10-years-old, 7 1/2 feet long and 105 pounds. The complete absence of pigmentation gives her the pearly white skin and white eyes. She arrived at the park when she was about three-years-old. Video posted on Instagram shows her eagerly waiting for food from the trainers who have worked with her for years Pearl is the only albino alligator at the theme park. Gatorland has been around since 1949 and is a 100-acre park where visitors can not only visit Pearl, they can ride a train, see thousands of alligators and crocodiles, catch Gator Wrestlin' shows, have Up-Close Encounters, and ride the zip line." www.fox2detroit.com/news/whats-hot/231927768-story
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Jan 27, 2017 23:26:18 GMT 5
Large florida alligator walks in front of tourists
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Post by Ceratodromeus on Feb 21, 2017 23:53:09 GMT 5
Two instances of orange alligators have cropped up lately, likely the result of foraging and laying in sediments. Orange hued alligator spotted in South Carolina
![]() A predatory beast with leathery orange skin is gallivanting through social media, sowing fear in its wake. That's because there have been recent sightings of a tangerine-colored alligator in South Carolina. Earlier this week, members of a residential community in Hanahan, South Carolina, spotted an unusual sight near one of the retention ponds — an alligator with skin tinted an orange hue. Estimated to be 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) long, the apricot alligator was nicknamed "Trumpigator" by its human neighbors, local television newscast WCBD News 2 reported. The carrot-colored crocodilian is most likely an American alligator ( Alligator mississippiensis) — the only crocodilian native to South Carolina — which can live to be more than 60 years old and reach lengths of up to 13 feet (4 m), according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). Earlier this week, the gator was photographed basking on the bank near a pond, its bright orange skin standing out in sharp contrast to the patchy brown grass. Several Facebook commenters joked that the alligator must be a fan of the Tigers football team at Clemson University, South Carolina, which has an orange logo and uniforms. But alligators don't paint themselves in pumpkin palettes to show sports allegiances or to look tanned for television cameras. So what might have turned this alligator the unexpected hue? One explanation might be rust, iron oxide, from a steel culvert where the alligator was hiding out during the winter, an SCDNR representative tweeted. An environmental factor like algae or a pollutant in the water could also color a gator's skin, but it's difficult to know for sure, Josh Zalabak, a herpetologist with the South Carolina Aquarium, told WCBD News 2. If the discoloration is only skin-deep, it should disappear in a few weeks, when the alligator sheds its skin, WCBD News 2 reported. While rusty reptiles are rare, this isn't the first time someone has spied an alligator resembling an escapee from a Cheetos factory. In 2011, news of an orange alligator photographed in Venice, Florida, prompted speculation about whether the beast's appearance represented a dramatic dye job or "evolution in action," biologist David Steen wrote in a blog post that year. Steen, an assistant research professor at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History in Alabama, noted that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission weighed in quickly to explain that the peculiar color was probably caused by something in the water. In fact, Steen had observed this phenomenon firsthand, in turtles he captured years earlier in New York State, he said. "I would occasionally visit ponds with water stained from naturally occurring sediment. As you might expect, the turtles I caught in these ponds were colored differently from those I caught elsewhere," Steen wrote. As tempting as it might be to venture closer to a strangely colored gator to snap a photo, wildlife officials warn that people need to exercise caution around these large predators, and maintain a safe distance. About 60 feet (18 m) is recommended by the Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL) at the University of Georgia, in a post about alligator safety. "Please remember that they are wild animals and should be respected as such," J. Whitfield Gibbons, director of outreach for SREL, said in the statement. "A few precautions on our part can help both humans and alligators coexist safely." www.livescience.com/57845-orange-alligator-in-south-carolina.html
![]() " For the second time this month, a rust-colored alligator has turned up in the Carolinas. The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports ( bit.ly/2mhVXP1 ) Tuesday that some residents of a Calabash, North Carolina, neighborhood have named the pumpkin-colored alligator "Donny." Earlier this month, residents joked that an orange alligator that turned up in a pond near Charleston had used too much self-tanning lotion. Jay Butfiloski with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources said the color may have come from where the animal spent the winter, perhaps in a rusty steel culvert pipe." www.witn.com/content/news/2nd-orange-alligator-pops-up-on-the-Carolina-coast-414354233.html |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Jun 1, 2020 20:45:36 GMT 5
This species might actually have existed all the way back in the Neogene and undergone little change for the past 8 or 7 million years. Whiting et al. (2016) |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 24, 2020 18:14:16 GMT 5
Holy shit guys. American alligators can regrow their tails. Anatomical and histological analyses reveal that tail repair is coupled with regrowth in wild-caught, juvenile American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77052-8 |
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Post by Infinity Blade on May 15, 2021 7:54:33 GMT 5
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