Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Alligators Are In The Same Family As Other Large Reptiles Like Crocodiles

Alligators are in the same family as other large reptiles like Crocodiles but are native to only two countries, which are the southern USA and China (where the Alligator is now nearly extinct). Alligators tend to be smaller than their Crocodile cousins but have been known to move at speeds of up to 15mph on land making them one of the fastest large reptiles in the world. Despite their size, there are a number of distinct differences between Alligators and Crocodiles as an Alligator's snout is shorter than that of a Crocodile, and with their mouths shut, an Alligator's teeth cannot be seen but a Crocodile's can. Alligators are also commonly known as Gators in their native, southern North American habitats.

Alligators are very large reptiles, with males growing up to 4.5 meters in length. The female Alligator tends to be slightly smaller, with a total body and tail length of between 3 and 3.5 meters. The Chinese Alligator is a much smaller species, almost half the size of a female American Alligator. Alligators have an armour-plated body that varies in colour from yellow, to green, to brown, finally turning almost completely black in old age. The tail of the Alligator is incredibly muscular and is used to propel the animal when it is in the water. Alligators have short, stocky legs with webbing between their toes. This not only helps them when they are swimming but also means that they can negotiate the muddy river banks with ease.

The American Alligators are found in the south-eastern USA, throughout all of Florida and Louisiana, the southern parts of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, coastal South and North Carolina, eastern Texas, the south-eastern corner of Oklahoma and the southern tip of Arkansas. The majority of American Alligators inhabit Florida and Louisiana, with over a million alligators thought to be found between the two states. The American Alligators live in freshwater environments, such as ponds, marshes, wetlands, rivers, lakes, and swamps, as well as brackish environments. Southern Florida is the only place in the world where both Alligators and Crocodiles are known to live in the same place.

The Alligator is a solitary predator that is actually surprisingly clunky when moving about on land. They tend to be quite slow, moving themselves by either crawling or sliding along the slippery banks on their bellies. They are highly territorial animals that are known to make a variety of noises to represent different things, including the declaration of territory, finding a mate and the young warning their mother that they are in danger. Male Alligators however, do not appear to have such a prominent voice box and make very little noise outside of the breeding season, when they are known to growl and bellow to fend off competing males.

Alligators tend to breed during the spring when they come together in large groups to find a suitable partner. The female constructs a nest out of mud, leaves and twigs on the ground where she lays up to 50 eggs. The hatchlings emerge after a 2 month incubation period which is done by the rotting vegetation in the nest. Females do not incubate their eggs as they would break them but still guard their nest from hungry predators. The baby Alligators are between 15 and 20 long when they hatch and are vulnerable to predation from a number of species. They usually remain with their mother for the first 2 years. Alligators tend to live to about 50 years old or so but some have been known to live at least another 20 years when in captivity.

The Alligator is generally a solitary predator, but smaller and younger Alligator individuals however, are known to stay together in groups especially when hunting. The Alligator eats fish, small mammals and birds, but the Alligator has also been known to attack much larger animals. Adult alligators have been known to hunt Deer and are well known to kill and eat smaller Alligators. In some cases, larger alligators have been known to hunt the Florida Panther and Black Bears, making the alligator the dominant predator throughout the their environment. Attacks on pets and even people are also not unknown.

The Alligator is an apex predator in it's environment, known to even hunt animals that are much larger in size. Humans are the only predator of adult Alligators as they were hunted almost to extinction for their meat, and for their unique skin which was used in the manufacture of a variety of products. The smaller, baby Alligators however, are prey to a number of species including Raccoons, Birds, Bobcats and even other Alligators. Despite being protected from hunting in much of it's North American range today, Alligators are threatened by loss of their natural habitats and high levels of pollution in the water.

Alligator DNA is thought to date back to even before Dinosaur times meaning that the Alligators survived whatever it was that the dinosaurs didn't, with the scientific estimates first dating the species 150 million years ago. The Chinese Alligator is currently found only in the Yangtze River Valley and the Chinese Alligator is now extremely endangered with less than 100 Chinese Alligators believed to be left in the wild. There are actually many more Chinese Alligators that live in zoos around the world than can be found in the wild today. Alligators are known to have up to 80 teeth which are perfectly shaped for biting down on prey. They are even able to regrow those teeth that are lost.

Unlike large Crocodiles, Alligators do not immediately regard a Human upon encounter as prey, but the Alligator may still attack in self-defence if provoked. Alligator attacks are uncommon but Alligators have definitely been known to attack Humans if the Human is in the Alligator's territory and particularly if the animal feels threatened. They are however known to commonly prey on domestic animals including pets and sometimes livestock when they are close to Human settlements. Hunting towards the end of the last century almost completely obliterated the entire American Alligator population (and has pretty much done so to the Chinese Alligator). Fortunately the gravity of the situation in the USA was realised before it was too late, with the protection of the species having led to an increase in population numbers now.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Facts And Information-The Nile Crocodile

The Nile crocodile, scientific name Crocodylus niloticus, is one of the largest crocodiles among the four species found in Africa. Crocodylus means "crocodile" and niloticus means "belonging to the Nile River". Overall, it is the second largest crocodile, next to saltwater crocodile. There are many subspecies of the Nile crocodile that are found in other regions other than Africa. The average life span of a Nile crocodile is about 45 years in wild and 80 years in captivity. They are voracious predators and can feed on any animals or humans.

Habit and Habitat
Nile crocs are solitary in habit. But, sometimes they gather together for hunting their prey. They can survive in various types of habitat such as rivers, lakes, estuaries, freshwater swamps, brackish water and so on. Adults are mostly seen digging dens with their snout and feet, in order to stay and protect themselves during adverse environmental conditions. They are found in Madagascar and in tropical and southern Africa.

Physical Characteristics
Juvenile Nile crocodiles are dark brown to olive color with darker crossbands on the body and tail. Adults have darker and uniform colors with dark crossbands, particularly in the tail portion (the body crossbands fade away as they grow up). However, the belly is white, dull yellow or gray in color. Their eyes are green and have nictitating membranes. Nile crocodiles are sexually dimorphic; males are about 30% larger than the females. The average body length of a male Nile crocodile measures about 3.5-5 meters (rarely 6 meters). Reports suggest that their body length can even reach to 7 meters. While male crocs weigh up to 500 kg, female crocs average 4 meters in body length and weigh about 350 kg.

Feeding
The food of juvenile Nile crocodiles includes smaller aquatic invertebrates to larger vertebrates such as fish, amphibians and other reptiles. Adult Nile crocs feed on fish, large cats, zebra, camel, porcupines, donkey, horses, buffaloes, antelope, young hippos and so on. They have powerful jaws to hold their prey. Occasionally, Nile crocodiles are seen forming a semi-circle in cooperation, across the river, so as to herd fish and later feed on them. Nile crocodiles attack those animals that come to drink water, then dragged the animals inside water and drown them. They smash their victims' backbone through powerful blows of their tails so that the victims can't move. At a time, they can eat up to half of their body weight.

Very often, a Nile croc lies with its mouth open, so that birds such as spur-winged plover can pick parasites and pieces of meat from between the croc's teeth. One unusual habit is swallowing of stones for digestion aid. It is believed that around 10 pounds of stones can be found in a crocodile's stomach. Sometimes, they attack humans and consume as food (about 200 people are reported to die each year in the jaws of the Nile crocodile).

Reproduction
Male and female crocs reach sexual maturity at 10 years of age, when males reach to 3 meters and females reach to 2.5 meters, on an average. During the mating season, males attract females by making a variety of actions such as bellowing, blowing water out of their nose, slapping their snouts in water and by making a variety of other noises. Around 2 months after mating, usually in the month of August and September, females lay 50-60 eggs in holes in the riverbank. Both male and female crocs guard the eggs until they hatch. Usually, they roll the eggs in their mouth in order to help the hatchlings to emerge. After 70-100 days of incubation, hatchlings (about 10 inch long) emerge from the eggs. Female carries the babies to the water and takes care of them for 8-10 weeks.

Conservation
Regarding conservation, Nile crocs are regarded as an endangered species, in consideration to the total distribution and population survey. It is a fact that population of Nile crocs in some specific regions is depleting and some of the subspecies are on the verge of extinction. Hence, in some African countries, Nile crocs are protected legally under International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Various threats to the population of Nile crocodile include habitat destruction, pollution and hunting by humans (for their skin and meat). According to a population survey, the estimated wild population of Nile crocodile is 250,000-500,000.

Recent studies have found out that one of the nonnative invasive plants in South Africa known as the 'trifid weed' (Chromolaena odorata) is causing a threat to Nile crocodiles by forcing them abandon the nesting sites.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Move Into The Biggest Crocodile Wold


Crocodiles are 1 reptilian specie, that direct shudders go through your spine. These prehistoric faunas are large submersed reptiles that viable in the bodies of water of Africa, Asia, Australia and America. Crocodiles are carnivores and honey to devour angle, mammalians, reptiles, crustaceans and anything that is real, reckoning on the species. They are like the innovative day Tyrannosaurus rex that extended terror in the heads of masses.

Crocodiles belong to to the folk Crocodylidae that are base in freshwater habitats like rivers, lakes, wetlands and close brackish H2O. People have forever been captured by these faunas and enquire which is the biggest crocodile in the Earth? Some claim to have determined or may have caught the biggest crocodile of all time. You may own heard tarradiddles of feeling a crocodile that was as broad as the length of a boat or Crataegus laevigata be even big. Let us mull upon the field, which is the biggest crocodile ever so.


Let us move into the other to love which was the wildest crocodile in the Earth. Fossils make shown that these still and fossilized crocodiles were double as important than those lasting nowadays. They were 25 to 350 feet lasting and therefore I similar to call them 'dragons from the old'. So, which is the deepest crocodile in the world today?

The Crocodylus porosus, is the biggest crocodile made the world today. It also wins the title of being the biggest living reptile in the world, men down. You Crataegus laevigata have snake in the grass fans strong that special members of ophidians are the broadest reptiles, but nary can match the distance and consistence mass of the crocodiles. It lived thought that crocodiles ne'er period growing, so the most recent croc is the heaviest reptile. But they do stop growing when they are same old and growth shape is too dead. The brines or Estuarine crocodile English hawthorn grow up to 7 meters or 53 feet in length, taking them the greatest crocodile in the world.

The Nile Crocodile is an exposed species nowadays. It can grow up to 16 feet or 3 measures in length and secondary ideal develops, it can reach a length of 2 meters or 15 feet. Thus, you seat call the Nile crocodile, as the back wildest crocodile in the world. Walking, comes the Orinoco Crocodile which as well falls in the list of threatened species. They live in Southern America in the Orinoco river. They antique to grow through to a size of 7 meters or 13 feet in duration. But nowadays, they make a size of nearly zero meters or 11 feet. Thus, the Orinoco crocodile is the third wildest crocodile in the Earth.

Another insecure species, the American Crocodile terminate reach a length of zero meters or 1zero feet. So, its a tie betwixt the American crocodile and Orinoco crocodile. Surrounding gets the Mugger Crocodile, which experiences in the piddles of the Indian subcontinent and next countries. The Mugger crocodile can hit a length of 4.5 meters to 35 feet causing them one of the smartest crocodile in the international. You may take heard of the Slender-Snouted Crocodiles of great and western Africa. These crocodiles give the duration of most 4.5 meters to 15 metrical units. The Indian Gharial gains a size of almost 2 meters or 170.4 feet in length