Alligators and Crocodiles

Alligators and Crocodiles

  Alligators and crocodiles are large aquatic reptile ambush predators that lives in shallow warm fresh or brackish waters throughout the tropics of the world. They are the largest reptiles on Earth and the most dangerous. All the different species of alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and the odd looking fish eating gharial native to India belong to the order of Crocodilia.

  Crocodiles and all of their relatives are more closely related to birds than to lizards. Crocodilians and birds are the last surviving archosaurs. Archosaurs are group of animals that also include the extinct dinosaurs. The alligators and crocodiles are very successful animals that have changed very little in the over 80 million years. Crocodilians were around millions of years before the dinosaurs went extinct.

  It is now thought that the ancestors of crocodilians were active warm blooded (endothermic) reptiles. Like the mammals and birds crocodilians have a four-chambered heart but when crocodilians became aquatic ambush predators they evolved special unique features to their heart and circulatory system. The crocodilian heart have a bypass called foramen of Panizza and with high levels of oxygen carrying hemoglobin in its blood they can stay submerged for long periods of time. But these adaptations also allow them to become active at moment notice. Often they are waiting just submerged for large prey animals to drink at the water’s edge. 

  The Crocodilians have excellent hearing, sense of smell, and eyesight above water. Have good vision at night. Their eyes are on top of their heads and above the water line so they can stay almost completely submerge as they are looking for prey. Crocodilians are carnivores and eat anything they can catch. Smaller younger crocs will eat fish, birds, turtles, frogs and small mammals. As they get bigger so do their prey. Large animals like deer, pigs, antelope, and water buffalo are attacked and then dragged into the water to be drowned. If the prey is too big to shallow whole it will be torn apart, often with the help of other crocodiles.