# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How do you tell an alligator and crocodile apart? Kids learn about these dangerous and scaly animals.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The 8 Main Differences Between Alligators and Crocodiles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many people struggle to tell these two reptiles apart, but it isn't that difficult when you know what to look for. What is the difference between alligators and crocodiles? Well, there are essentially 8 main ways to tell them apart...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alligators are large lizardlike animals with long, rounded snouts and powerful tails. They spend most of their time in the water, but they also travel on land. Alligators...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alligator is a genus in the order Crocodilia. There are two living species: the American alligator and the smaller Chinese alligator. Together with the caimans, the gharials, and the crocodiles, they make up the order Crocodilia.

The first alligators existed about 37 million years ago. However, older species of alligators have become extinct. Alligators are native only to the United States and China.

Description

An average adult American alligator weighs 360 kg (790 lb) and is 4.0 m (13.1 ft) long. However, they can grow to 4.4 m (14 ft) long and weigh over 450 kg (990 lb).

The largest alligator ever recorded, found in Louisiana, was 5.84 m (19.2 ft) long.

There are two kinds of white alligators which are albino and leucistic. These alligators are practically impossible to find in the wild. They could survive only in captivity and are few in number. The Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans has leucistic alligators found in a Louisiana swamp in 1987.

Nobody knows how long alligators live, on average. An 80-year-old alligator named Muja, living in the Belgrade Zoo in Serbia, is thought to be the oldest alligator living in captivity.

Differences between alligators and crocodiles

Alligators and crocodiles are different in many ways. For example, in general:

Crocodiles have salt glands, so they can live in saltwater habitats. Alligators usually live in freshwater habitats.

Most alligators have wide snouts that are shaped like a U. Usually, crocodiles' snouts are longer, narrower, and are shaped like a V. However, some crocodiles do have wide snouts.

When its mouth is closed, you can see the fourth tooth on a crocodile's jaw. You cannot see that tooth when an alligator's mouth is closed.

Although the alligator often moves slowly, it can run very fast for short times, especially in very short lunges. Usually, alligators' main prey are smaller animals they can kill and eat with a single bite. If the prey is not big enough to eat in one bite, they may drag the animal into the water to drown. They may also bite they prey and then spin or wildly until bite-sized chunks are torn off. This is called a "death roll".

Alligators are generally timid towards humans and tend to walk or swim away if a human comes near them. However, they will attack humans to protect their nests. In Florida, feeding wild alligators at any time is illegal. If fed, the alligators will eventually lose their fear of humans and will learn to associate humans with food, thereby becoming both a greater danger to people, and at greater risk from them.

American alligators

American alligators live mostly in the southeast United States. According to the 2012 Scholastic Book of World Records, Louisiana has the largest alligator population, with about two million. Most American alligators live in Louisiana or Florida, which is home to about 1.3 million alligators. Southern Florida is the only place where both alligators and crocodiles live side by side.

American alligators cannot live in saltwater very long because they do not have salt glands. Because of this, they live in freshwater environments, such as ponds, marshes, wetlands, rivers, lakes, and swamps, as well as in brackish environments.

Chinese alligators

The Chinese alligator is smaller. It is rarely longer than 2.1 m (6.9 ft). In addition, it weighs considerably less than the American alligator. Male Chinese alligators rarely weigh over 45 kg (99 lb).The Chinese alligator currently is found only in Eastern China, in a small area in the Yangtze River basin (along the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Chinese alligator is extremely endangered. Scientists believe that only a few dozen Chinese alligators are left in the wild. Indeed, far more Chinese alligators live in zoos around the world than in the wild. Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in southern Louisiana has several in captivity in an attempt to preserve the species. Miami MetroZoo in Florida also has a breeding pair of Chinese alligators.

Large male alligators are solitary (individual) territorial animals. Smaller alligators can often be found in large numbers close to each other. The largest of the species (both males and females) defend prime territory; smaller alligators have a higher tolerance for other alligators within a similar size class.

Alligators move on land by two forms of locomotion referred to as "sprawl" and "high walk". The sprawl is a forward movement with the belly making contact with the ground and is used to transition to "high walk" or to slither over wet substrate into water. The high walk is an up on four limbs forward motion used for overland travel with the belly well up from the ground. Alligators have also been observed to rise up and balance on their hind legs and semi step forward as part of a forward or upward lunge. However they can not walk on their hind legs for long distances.

Although the alligator has a heavy body and a slow metabolism, it is capable of short bursts of speed, especially in very short lunges. Alligators' main prey are smaller animals they can kill and eat with a single bite. They may kill larger prey by grabbing it and dragging it into the water to drown.

Alligators consume food that can not be eaten in one bite by allowing it to rot, or by biting and then spinning or convulsing wildly until bite-sized chunks are torn off. This is referred to as a "death roll". Critical to the alligator's ability to initiate a death roll, the tail must flex to a significant angle relative to its body. An alligator with an immobilized tail cannot perform a death roll.

Most of the muscle in an alligator's jaw evolved to bite and grip prey. The muscles that close the jaws are exceptionally powerful, but the muscles for opening their jaws are comparatively weak. As a result, an adult human can hold an alligator's jaws shut bare-handed. It is common today to use several wraps of duct tape to prevent an adult alligator from opening its jaws when being handled or transported.

Alligators are generally timid towards humans and tend to walk or swim away if one approaches. This has led some people to the practice of approaching alligators and their nests in a manner that may provoke the animals into attacking. In Florida, feeding wild alligators at any time is illegal. If fed, the alligators will eventually lose their fear of humans and will learn to associate humans with food, thereby becoming both a greater danger to people, and at greater risk from them.

Reproduction

Alligators generally mature at a length of 6 ft (1.8 m). The mating season is in late spring. In April and May, alligators form so-called "bellowing choruses". Large groups of animals bellow together for a few minutes a few times a day, usually one to three hours after sunrise. The bellows of male American alligators are accompanied by powerful blasts of infrasound. Another form of male display is a loud head-slap. Recently, on spring nights alligators were found to gather in large numbers for group courtship, the so-called "alligator dances".

In summer, the female builds a nest of vegetation where the decomposition of the vegetation provides the heat needed to incubate the eggs. The sex of the offspring is determined by the temperature in the nest and is fixed within seven to 21 days of the start of incubation. Incubation temperatures of 86 °F (30 °C) or lower produce a clutch of females; those of 93 °F (34 °C) or higher produce entirely males. Nests constructed on leaves are hotter than those constructed on wet marsh, so the former tend to produce males and the latter, females. The baby alligator's egg tooth helps it get out of its egg during hatching time.

The natural sex ratio at hatching is five females to one male. Females hatched from eggs incubated at 86 °F (30 °C) weigh significantly more than males hatched from eggs incubated at 93 °F (34 °C). The mother defends the nest from predators and assists the hatchlings to water. She will provide protection to the young for about a year if they remain in the area. The largest threat to the young are adult alligators. Predation by adults on young can account for a mortality rate of up to 50% in the first year. In the past, immediately following the outlawing of alligator hunting, populations rebounded quickly due to the suppressed number of adults preying upon juveniles, increasing survival among the young alligators.

Alligators are raised commercially for their meat and skin, which is used for bags and shoes. They also provide economic benefits through the ecotourism industry. Visitors may take swamp tours, in which alligators are a feature. Their most important economic benefit to humans may be the control of coypu and muskrats. Louisiana spends millions of dollars of bounty money to control coypu using alligators.

Alligator meat is also consumed by humans, the flesh of the alligator is characterised as fish.

Protected status

American alligators were once an endangered species in the United States. Today, the American alligator is no longer endangered, but it is still a "protected species." It is protected because the alligator looks like some species of crocodiles and caimans, which are still endangered. Because of this, the Fish and Wildlife Service categorizes the American alligator as "threatened due to similarity of appearance."

Their goal is to prevent people from killing endangered crocodiles and caimans because they have mistaken an alligator for a crocodile or caiman. Because of this, killing alligators, and trading in products made from alligator meat or skin, are all regulated by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Images for kids

An alligator in the swamp at, Lafayette

Baby alligator on the beach. Alligators feed on insects and small fish until they grow large and quick enough to capture larger fish

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alligator is a genus in the order Crocodilia. There are two living species: the American alligator and the smaller Chinese alligator. Together with the caimans, the gharials, and the crocodiles, they make up the order Crocodilia. The first alligators existed about 37 million years ago. However, older species of alligators have become extinct.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cool Facts About Alligators and Crocodiles | Things You Wanna Know

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brought back from the brink of extinction, over a million of these reptiles survive today. Now the main threat to alligators is habitat destruction, caused by such human activities as draining and developing wetlands.

American alligators live in the wild in the southeastern United States. You're most likely to spot them in Florida and Louisiana, where they live in rivers, lakes, ponds, swamps, bayous, and marshes. These reptiles are kind of clumsy on land, but they're built for life in the water. Great swimmers, they are equipped with webbed feet and strong tails that propel them through the water.

An average male American alligator is 10 to 15 feet (three to five meters) long. Half of its length is its massive, strong tail. An alligator can weigh as much as half a ton (1,000 pounds), but an average male weighs between 500 and 600 pounds (227 to 272 kilograms). Females are usually smaller than males.

As big and ferocious as the female alligator may look, she is a gentle mother. A mother alligator makes a nest on shore, where she lays her eggs. Then she guards her eggs until they're ready to hatch. At that point the babies start to make noises, and their mother hears her little ones' peeps as they break out of the eggs. She gently carries them-in her mouth-to the water nearby.

Newly hatched young are only about six to eight inches (15 to 20 centimeters) long, and very vulnerable. Their mother protects them from predators, which include raccoons, bobcats, birds, and even other alligators. The young alligators stay with their mother for up to two years. After that, they're able to fend for themselves.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American alligators once faced extinction. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service placed them on the endangered species list in 1967. Fortunately, the legal protection worked. Just 20 years later, American alligators were taken off the list. Brought back from the brink of extinction, over a million of these reptiles survive today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When you think of an alligator, it is easy for a dinosaur to come to mind.

With their huge jaws, scaly skin, and sharp claws, these creatures look a lot like monsters from a scary movie instead of an animal that lives in ponds and swamps.

Keep reading to find out more facts about alligators!

What are the characteristics of an alligator?

Alligators belong to the reptile family, which means that they are cold-blooded, have a backbone, and are covered in dry skin with scales.

They have been living on Earth for millions of years, and are sometimes called 'living fossils' because they have not changed very much since the times of the dinosaurs.

Alligators are massive animals that can weigh over 800 pounds and be as long as 10 to 13 feet. This is about as long as a car!

Alligators have long, round snouts and are usually very dark green or black in color.

Where do alligators live?

There are two different kinds of alligator: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator. American alligators can be found in the southeastern part of the United States, in places like Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia.

They live in freshwater environments like swamps, ponds, marshes, rivers, and lakes.

Chinese alligators can be found in the Yangtze River valley in China. They are extremely endangered, however, so they are found more often in zoos than in the wild.

Chinese alligators are much smaller than American alligators, and are usually only six feet long and weigh under 100 pounds.

What do alligators like to eat?

Alligators are a top predator in their environment and can eat almost anything they choose. When they are younger, they mainly like to eat smaller things like fish, worms, snails, and insects.

As they get bigger and stronger, they start eating bigger animals like large fish, turtles, muskrats, deer, and even other reptiles.

Alligators have even been seen ambushing big animals like panthers and black bears, making them the biggest threat to animals around the area.

While they don't just jump out at anything they see, they can be mean and aggressive if they feel like they need to protect themselves. So it is important that you never try to go near an alligator if you see one!

How do alligators hunt?

When an alligator is ready to attack its prey, there are a couple of different ways they may hunt. Thanks to their dark color and excellent camouflage, it is fairly easy for them to slowly sneak up on animals before they attack.

For smaller prey like fish or birds, alligators will eat them whole in one bite.

For larger prey, they usually grab it in their strong jaw and drag it into the water to drown it.

Then they do what is called the "death roll". This is when alligators bring their prey on land and then wildly roll around until bite-sized chunks come off for them to chew.

Do alligators live alone or in groups?

Large male alligators live alone and do not like to share their space with anyone or anything. They defend their territory and make sure nothing gets near them.

Smaller alligators, like young alligators and females, often live in groups near to each other. This helps them to defend their young and their territory.

Quick Facts About Alligators:

Alligators belong to the reptile family.

They are cold-blooded and have dry, scaly skin

They have long, round snouts and are dark green or black.

They can be 13 feet long and up to 800 pounds.

The live in freshwater areas like ponds, marshes, rivers, and lakes.

Alligators eat fish, turtles, muskrat, deer, and even bears.

Alligators are strong and fierce animals that have been around for millions of years. They are top predators and rule the animals in their environment.

As long as we protect them, and leave them alone, they will continue to rule for many years to come.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alligator Facts When you think of an alligator, it is easy for a dinosaur to come to mind. With their huge jaws, scaly skin, and sharp claws, these creatures look a lot like monsters from a scary movie instead of an animal that lives in ponds and swamps.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brought back from the brink of extinction, over a million of these reptiles survive today. Now the main threat to alligators is habitat destruction, caused by such human activities as draining and developing wetlands.

American alligators live in the wild in the southeastern United States. You're most likely to spot them in Florida and Louisiana, where they live in rivers, lakes, ponds, swamps, bayous, and marshes. These reptiles are kind of clumsy on land, but they're built for life in the water. Great swimmers, they are equipped with webbed feet and strong tails that propel them through the water.

An average male American alligator is 10 to 15 feet (three to five meters) long. Half of its length is its massive, strong tail. An alligator can weigh as much as half a ton (1,000 pounds), but an average male weighs between 500 and 600 pounds (227 to 272 kilograms). Females are usually smaller than males.

As big and ferocious as the female alligator may look, she is a gentle mother. A mother alligator makes a nest on shore, where she lays her eggs. Then she guards her eggs until they're ready to hatch. At that point the babies start to make noises, and their mother hears her little ones' peeps as they break out of the eggs. She gently carries them-in her mouth-to the water nearby.

Newly hatched young are only about six to eight inches (15 to 20 centimeters) long, and very vulnerable. Their mother protects them from predators, which include raccoons, bobcats, birds, and even other alligators. The young alligators stay with their mother for up to two years. After that, they're able to fend for themselves.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American alligators once faced extinction. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service placed them on the endangered species list in 1967. Fortunately, the legal protection worked. Just 20 years later, American alligators were taken off the list. Brought back from the brink of extinction, over a million of these reptiles survive today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Explore our wide variety of animal facts and learn some fun trivia about our friends in the animal kingdom.

Fun Alligator Facts for Kids

Check out our range of fun alligator facts for kids. Learn about alligator's powerful bite, how much they weigh, what they eat and much more. Read on and enjoy a variety of interesting information about alligators.

Alligators are reptiles.

Alligators have been living on Earth for millions of years and are sometimes described as 'living fossils'.

There are two different species of alligator, the American alligator and the Chinese alligator.

American alligators live in south-eastern areas of the United States such as Florida and Louisiana.

Chinese alligators are found in the Yangtze River but they are critically endangered and only a few remain in the wild.

Like other reptiles, alligators are cold-blooded.

Alligators can weigh over 450 kg (1000 lb).

Alligators have a powerful bite but the muscles that open the jaw are relatively weak. An adult human could hold the jaws of an alligator shut with their bare hands.

Alligators eat a range of different animals such as fish, birds, turtles and even deer.

Alligator eggs become male or female depending on the temperature, male in warmer temperatures and female in cooler temperatures.

Alligators are less likely to attack humans than crocodiles.

Like crocodiles, alligators are part of the order 'Crocodylia'.

Check out some interesting alligator and crocodile differences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fun Alligator Facts for Kids - Interesting Information about Alligators

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore our wide variety of animal facts and learn some fun trivia about our friends in the animal kingdom. Fun Alligator Facts for Kids Check out our range of fun alligator facts for kids. Learn about alligator's powerful bite, how much they weigh, what they eat and much more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
National Geographic | Disney Australia & New Zealand - Disney Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
National Geographic invites you to live curious through movies that will inspire you to find out more about the people, places and events of our world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
National Geographic | Disney Australia & New Zealand - Disney Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
National Geographic invites you to live curious through movies that will inspire you to find out more about the people, places and events of our world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Only two species of these sneaky predators still cruise the rivers, lakes and swamps of the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Physical Description

The critically endangered Chinese alligator differs from its American counterpart in subtle ways. It's smaller, the head is more robust and its snout is slightly upturned. The eyelids of the Chinese alligator have a bony plate that is missing in the American alligator. The American alligator also lacks the bony belly plates, or osteoderms, of the Chinese alligator.

Chinese alligators usually grow to about 5 feet (1.5 meters). The largest Chinese alligator measured in recent times was 7 feet and 1 inch--about half the size of the largest living American alligators. Some may weigh up to 85 pounds (38.5 kilograms); however, most weigh less than 50 pounds (23 kilograms).

Native Habitat

The Chinese alligator is the only member of the eight species in the Alligatoridae family to exist outside of the Americas. In historical times, the Chinese alligator was found in the extensive lakes and marshlands of the middle-lower Yangtze River region and along the river from Shanghai to Jianling City in the Hubei Province. Today it is limited to the lower Yangtze, primarily in the Anhui and Zhejiang provinces in eastern China.

Chinese alligators are found in slow-moving freshwater rivers and streams, including lakes, ponds and swamps. Marshlands, ponds, lakes, reservoirs, river backwater canals, rice paddies and irrigation networks provide suitable habitat.

Communication

Young vocalize to bring the group together and maintain its cohesion, while adults respond to juvenile distress calls. Bellowing occurs among males and females during the breeding season.

Food/Eating Habits

The Chinese alligator is an opportunistic feeder. Its diet mostly includes snails, crustaceans, insects and fish, but young waterfowl and rodents will be taken if available. Dentition includes blunt teeth adapted well to crushing shelled animals.

At the Smithsonian's National Zoo, Chinese alligators are fed small rats, mice and fish.

Reproduction and Development

The mating system is polygamous, as a male may breed with more than one female. Both sexes may react very aggressively to one another, especially in first encounter situations. Social life begins before hatching, as nest mates communicate egg to egg and with parents who open the egg chamber when synchronized hatching begins. Nest mates may spend weeks to years together in the protection of the mother.

Females mature at about four to five years. Mating occurs in early summer, with the females building nests about two to three weeks later and laying up to four-dozen eggs; fewer than two-dozen is common. Hatchlings generally emerge in September. Females provide parental care, including assisting the hatching process and carrying the newly hatched young from the nests, which are located on land, to the water.

Sleep Habits

This species digs extensive earthen tunnels with multiple chambers, entrances and pools. Largely nocturnal because of human persecution, they stay in their tunnels much of the day when humans are in the vicinity as well as during cool weather and winter months.

Each year in April, the alligators emerge from their winter burrows and find sunny spots in which to bask. As summer begins, they switch to more nocturnal feeding habits to avoid the heat and humans while they begin their annual mating rituals.

Chinese alligators can live up to 70 years in human care. They can reproduce into their 50s.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The critically endangered Chinese alligator is one of the few alligators outside of the Americas. It is native to slow-moving, freshwater areas of the lower Yangtze River in China where it eats snails, crustaceans, insects, fish, young waterfowl and rodents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Entertain yourself viewing from the really best unique and really easy to understand American Alligator Facts easy science for kids video:
Information about this American Alligator Facts Video

Watch this good video and you'll learn a lot of fun facts about the American alligator. With this video, you will be able to know what the scientific name for an American alligator is, how they are found in South East United States and how a lot of them are found in Florida. You will also be able to learn how there are only 2 species of alligator in the world and how the other one is found in China. The video will share more facts like how long they can get, how the largest alligator recorded was 19 feet 2 inches, and show a real live alligator to point out some of their fascinating features and body parts.

Watch this useful American Alligator facts for kids video and considerably improve your kids' inner interest to learn science facts about American Alligator Facts.

This American Alligator Facts video is fantastic for children, from those kids partaking in early learning programs for pre-Kindergarten kids, to fifth grade, clearly also preschool kids and children who are schooled from home.

Well then, enrich your youngster's understanding with our available totally FREE educational videos for kids, one-by-one recommended by our senior assistant editor. These videos are an immense stack of science for kids videos available to you on our science kids website. See a lot more remarkable and educational yet enjoyable easy facts for kids on our EasySCIENCEforKids website about numerous more subjects of interest, and let your children take pleasure in doing our lots of ABSOLUTELY FREE worksheets, quizzes and kids's games.

Appreciated our selected American Alligator Facts video? Pore over expanded content about American Alligators.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American Alligator Facts Video for Kids -

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Easy Science for Kids American Alligator Facts Video for Kids - learn fun facts about animals, the human body, our planet and much more. Fun free American Alligator Facts Video for Kids activities!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Watch for free your favorite PBS KIDS shows like Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Wild Kratts, Odd Squad, and Sesame Street.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are you in search or cool fun facts about our world, space, bugs, animals, dinosaurs, and much more? Then look no further! Here's a fun and exciting new series about some of the best topics ever! Learn basic facts, discover things you didn't know and find out the answers to your burning questions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
National Geographic | Disney Australia & New Zealand - Disney Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
National Geographic invites you to live curious through movies that will inspire you to find out more about the people, places and events of our world.