I am very pleased to share this guest post with my readers. Mason Nieman is a young man who has a love for alligators and knows quite a lot about them. I am honored that he is willing to share his knowledge with us.
The photo below was recently taken of Mason with some of his gator friends. I understand that one or two took a smack to the nose to insure they kept their distance. Mason is obviously a courageous fellow. I sure wouldn't do it.
Mason is sharing the following with us:
The American alligator is a reptile that belongs to the group of reptiles known as crocodilians.
They eat a variety of things. While they are babies they eat mostly small insects, small fish, and small invertebrates.
As they get bigger they eat larger prey like turtles, birds, deer, snakes, even bears, panthers, and sometimes cows to even the occasional person.
They live in slow moving streams, creeks, wetlands, lakes, ponds, marshes and sometimes in the ocean and in canals and rivers and sometimes even in our backyards.
When they are babies, they are no more than a foot long but they grow bigger with the females reaching about 10 feet long and males anywhere from 14 to 20 feet long.
They rarely attack humans unless provoked or if a female is defending her nest. The everglades is probably the only place you will see alligators and crocodiles living together. They live in many states from Florida and Georgia to the Carolinas, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and sometimes in Mexico and South America. Alligators communicate in many ways. They hiss if they're irritated and bellow in the mating season to attract mates.
If you are to be attacked by an alligator, pray it doesn't have a good grip on you but here are ways to get out of an attack. If your arm is stuck inside its mouth, find the tongue and dislodge it if you can. It will take on water and should let go because it may drown or you can jab it in the eyes as hard as you can and it should let go.
White Alligators
There are two types: albino and leucistic. The obvious way to tell them apart is the eye. The albinos have pink eyes while the leucistics have blue eyes. Another way is the the skin. Albinos have no pigment while leucistics do. Also, the leucistic animal is basically a regular american alligator with white skin and blue eyes and they are stronger than albinos.
The chinese alligator is the american alligator's cousin and as its name implies, although it only lives in china in the yangtze river. It grows only to 6 feet at most. They burrow in caves. American alligators will do this often when it gets too cold and they are also known as keeper of the wetlands because when it gets dry they make gator holes. Other animals benefit from them as well as the alligator. The american alligator can jump for every foot that it is long; so a 12 foot alligator can jump 12 feet out of the water.
Thank you, Mason, for sharing your pictures, knowledge and enthusiasm!
The photo below was recently taken of Mason with some of his gator friends. I understand that one or two took a smack to the nose to insure they kept their distance. Mason is obviously a courageous fellow. I sure wouldn't do it.
The American alligator is a reptile that belongs to the group of reptiles known as crocodilians.
They eat a variety of things. While they are babies they eat mostly small insects, small fish, and small invertebrates.
As they get bigger they eat larger prey like turtles, birds, deer, snakes, even bears, panthers, and sometimes cows to even the occasional person.
They live in slow moving streams, creeks, wetlands, lakes, ponds, marshes and sometimes in the ocean and in canals and rivers and sometimes even in our backyards.
When they are babies, they are no more than a foot long but they grow bigger with the females reaching about 10 feet long and males anywhere from 14 to 20 feet long.
They rarely attack humans unless provoked or if a female is defending her nest. The everglades is probably the only place you will see alligators and crocodiles living together. They live in many states from Florida and Georgia to the Carolinas, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and sometimes in Mexico and South America. Alligators communicate in many ways. They hiss if they're irritated and bellow in the mating season to attract mates.
If you are to be attacked by an alligator, pray it doesn't have a good grip on you but here are ways to get out of an attack. If your arm is stuck inside its mouth, find the tongue and dislodge it if you can. It will take on water and should let go because it may drown or you can jab it in the eyes as hard as you can and it should let go.
White Alligators
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| Albino Gator with pink eyes |
There are two types: albino and leucistic. The obvious way to tell them apart is the eye. The albinos have pink eyes while the leucistics have blue eyes. Another way is the the skin. Albinos have no pigment while leucistics do. Also, the leucistic animal is basically a regular american alligator with white skin and blue eyes and they are stronger than albinos.
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| leucistic white gator with blue eyes |
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| Chinese Gator |
Thank you, Mason, for sharing your pictures, knowledge and enthusiasm!
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