Send in your photos, please. This week I’ve put up a post nearly every day, which may have been unwise as we don’t have many submissions left. As my mother might say, “Is it too much to ask those who read your site to send in their good pictures? And why don’t you call me any more?”
Today’s contribution is from Andrew Furness, who sent in a passel of gator photos. he also has a natural history blog and a Flickr site. Andrew’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Lately I have been observing and photographing American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis). Since alligators are cold-blooded, they spend much of the time thermoregulating by basking on shore. However, it is interesting when you are able to catch them engaging in other behaviors such as moving on land, interacting with each other, or hunting. All the following photos were taken this summer at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, in Gainesville, Florida.
A fisheye view of the site where all the following photos were taken – La Chua Trail at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park:
A view in the opposite direction to that of the previous photo. In the foreground is a defunct water control structure. When water levels are low, fish are funneled through this chokepoint and it acts as an ambush point for alligators:
One evening the alligators aligned themselves on shore like buses parked at a terminal, facing the setting sun. There is a scene from the movie Live and Let Die in which James Bond runs atop the backs of several alligators and crocodiles in order to escape a small island where he is trapped. This reminded me of that scene. The alligators were so close together and evenly spaced that if you could avoid being snapped, I think you could run for over 100 yards!:
A closeup of the alligator lineup. A stick is balanced atop the snout of one of the alligators:
An alligator stretching its jaws and showing its gullet. Alligators have one of the strongest bite forces in the animal kingdom:
A snaggle-toothed alligator with several battle scars:
Alligators basking in the early evening. When it is hot, they often rest with their mouths open as a means of cooling down:
An alligator with water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) on its back. The introduced water hyacinth can form dense mats on the water’s surface and often gets stuck on the rough backs of alligators when they swim through it:
An alligator making its way onto land:
A favored hunting technique is for alligators to position themselves where water flows through a narrow chokepoint. They orient into the current with their mouths slightly open, and wait for fish.
An alligator waits patiently for fish to pass by:
When a fish passes nearby or actually touches them, they snap their jaws shut like a steel bear trap:
Here an alligator has caught a Florida Gar (Lepisosteus platyrhincus):
In this site, the alligators primarily eat fish, but not exclusively. Smaller alligators are on the menu. At dusk one evening I came upon a very large alligator with half a smaller alligator in its mouth:
Juvenile alligators tend to avoid this particular area, probably given the high density of adults which could prey upon them. However, on a few occasions I have seen them hiding among the shoreline vegetation:
Thank you Andrew for this unique and scary collection apparenty gathered at some risk to life and limb as I see your unprotected shadow against the grass in the top photo. I will surely have several nights of nightmares from this one!
Never seen so many awesome gator photos at once!
🐊🐊🐊 <-a very very green alligator emoji
Very cool!
And see you later …
Great pictures! On my initial look at the fisheye view I thought those were logs arrayed along the shore. When I realized what they were, mind blown…
I do wonder where all the food comes from to support so many large carnivores.
That lineup of alligators is unbelievable. That is worthy of a nightmare. They are ready to launch. Just the very definition of mean; the eyes, gullet and jaw.
I’m very grateful for the photos because it’s not on my bucket list!
These photos are wild, wild, wild! How the heck can there be so many alligators in one place?! Super photos, thanks so much. I have to ask, though, have you ever had a scary encounter, Andrew?
Fortunately, I haven’t had any close encounters. However, in some parts of the Florida Everglades, canals line the roadway and I have seen alligators swim right up to people who are fishing from the bank on the side of the road. It is not a good situation because they have learned to associate fishing humans with an easy meal.
Wow! I knew in theory about thermoregulation in poikilotherms, but now I see what that entails in practice. It’s mind boggling how much of alligator behavior is tied up in this important matter! It’s amazing that they have time for anything else!
Wow, I’ve seen a lot of gaters – mostly in Florida and SC – but outside of an alligator farm, I’ve never seen such large numbers gathered together like that.
Alligators are kind of fascinating to me because they are (I think) the only potentially deadly predators that humans have elected to live in close proximity to rather than eradicate. Even though they seldom ever attack and kill people, every time I see a big one lolling on a lawn or poking its nose out of a pond I’m walking by, I can’t help wondering if it’s entirely sane to be so casual around animals that could easily kill me.
Fabulous photos and commentary, Andrew. I especially love the picture of a gator stretching its jaws, and the photos of big alligators with prey in their mouths. It’s amazing that you were able to capture such fleeting sights!
Very nice! We lived in Gainesville when my father was a postdoc at the university. This was 70 years ago, and alligators were very rare. Spending lots of time in the woods and around lakes, I only saw two in 4 years. The species has really rebounded!
Great stuff.
Here be Monsters!
So glad I have only bush geckos and skinks to deal with.
Thanks for the fascination.
These are tremendously cool – thank you!
I’m glad I know where this park is so I can stay VERY FAR AWAY!