What Animal...

[TexDanm]

Alligators prey on fish and small animals. Maybe in the far past when they had not been preyed upon to near extinction some may have grown large enough to consider deer and human-sized animals as prey. I have been in the water with some really big gators though and never had a single one offer a problem. I think that part of the difference between gators and crocs is that if allowed, gators tend to not bunch up and will spread out. Their teeth are just pegs and they have no real way to bite off a piece of a large animal where crocs seem to gather and will tear a large prey up pulling it apart as a group. Anything much larger than a medium-large dog is just more than they can swallow so they don't usually go after prey that large until THEY are much larger than is now the average. Gator hunting is legal in a limited sense in Texas and so that keeps their size down and that is a good thing. Their numbers are up and safe from extinction but they are not a real problem to people that understand them...People that don't understand them are NOT going to swim with them or wade around in the dark with them...

 

[Lynne]

Alligators prey on fish and small animals. Maybe in the far past when they had not been preyed upon to near extinction some may have grown large enough to consider deer and human-sized animals as prey. I have been in the water with some really big gators though and never had a single one offer a problem. I think that part of the difference between gators and crocs is that if allowed, gators tend to not bunch up and will spread out. Their teeth are just pegs and they have no real way to bite off a piece of a large animal where crocs seem to gather and will tear a large prey up pulling it apart as a group. Anything much larger than a medium-large dog is just more than they can swallow so they don't usually go after prey that large until THEY are much larger than is now the average. Gator hunting is legal in a limited sense in Texas and so that keeps their size down and that is a good thing. Their numbers are up and safe from extinction but they are not a real problem to people that understand them...People that don't understand them are NOT going to swim with them or wade around in the dark with them...

Thanks for the insight on this Dan.