Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
My friend saw something rad and sent me the best Snapchat I’ve ever received
@geekiemire Easy mistake to make if you are not super familiar with crocodilians but I can 100% guarantee you that is an American alligator on top and an American crocodile below. Notice how the one on top has a U shaped snout while the one on bottom is shaped like a V. The croc is also a paler tan color when compared to a gator. Their native ranges actually do overlap in southern Florida!
Lots of people don’t realize we actually have a native crocodile species here in North America and they’re not nearly as common as gators, so they’re much harder for folks to identify. The American crocodile is a very cool species though and worth looking into!
Mud salamander By: Unknown photographer From: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animal Life 1961
Anonymous:
O great goldfish, I have a question. What happens to crocodiles/alligators when their skin dries out? Does it get stiff, or cracked? Do their scales start to peel? Thank you for the animal wisdom
nothin, their skin is pretty impermeable and doesn’t actually dry out all the way unless the animal dies first!
crocodilians live just fine in arid environments as long as there’s a body of water for them drink and hunt in, the hot dry winds don’t hurt them near as badly as the lack of water does out there.
early 2022, historians/researchers slowly and casually rolling out of bed, in their pyjamas, with a cup of tea:
“oh yea, by the way, no big deal, we almost forgot to mention that a previously-undescribed species of bold bizarre strikingly-unique 6-meter-long giant crocodile beast lived alongside sophisticated architecture and densely-populated human settlements in the Bronze Age near Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and the cultural epicenter of the Pearl River Delta, and may have lived for centuries throughout the advent of Chinese civilization all the way until 1630 AD, and naturalists and historians just never really discussed this, ever, have a nice day.”
kinda like: “y’know how so-called Ice Age megafauna like woolly mammoths were still alive on Earth hundreds of years after the construction of Egypt’s great pyramid? yea, also there was a giant crocodile beast.”
skeletal and bodily remains from the Hong Kong area have now been reliably dated, and the large “new” species has been officially described as of March 2022. the creature is now known as Hanyusuchus sinensis.
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previously, it was kinda assumed by historians/ecologists that saltwater crocodiles may have lived farther north along the Chinese coastline, and that these saltwater crocodiles accounted for the mention of larger, more aggressive crocodiles in stories from the Pearl River Delta region (relative to historical mentions of the smaller, much more docile Chinese alligator)
but, these large crocodilians mentioned in stories may have been this new gharial. the researchers describe the remains of some gharials from the Shang and Zhou eras, which were apparently killed by humans with axes.
here’s where remains of the gharial have been found, from the paper:
today, this region is home to tens of millions of people and arguably the largest contiguous urban agglomeration on the planet (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong).
the formal academic paper from 2022 which describes the new species of gharial has many high-resolution photos of skulls/skeletons of the gharial. though the remains can be reliably dated to the Bronze Age, the authors suggest that literature/historical text mentions of large crocodilians might indicate that Hanyusuchus survived until 1630 AD. (again, though, the literature mentions may also possibly refer to saltwater crocodiles, maybe?)
the paper also includes a short list of excerpts from historical texts from the Pearl River Delta region that mention the large crocodilians.
check it out:
Hanyusuchus:
Anonymous:
what are, in your opinion, some truly bizarre creatures? some unusual beasts?
These weird-ass lads are composed of hundreds or thousands of individual animals, each of which are highly specialized to do a specific task (digesting food, capturing prey, etc) much like the cells of our body. However, each of these animals is it’s own Little Guy. Siphonophores can also get up to 130 feet long, making them the longest animal on earth. (The Man O War jellyfish is a siphonophore, btw.)
Sea Elephant
It’s a pelagic sea snail!!! It has complex eyes and is incredibly curious about divers, even following them around! It’s name is Marc! (Not really that’s the photographer’s name)
Turtles
I feel like society is way too normal about turtles. The shell is their ribs and spine! They pull their heads into their torso!
Rough skinned newt
These newts produce an incredibly potent poison called tetrodotoxin. The amount of toxin in a single newt is strong enough to kill about 25,000 mice. Why would a squishy little amphibian need all that poison?? Because they are engaged in an evolutionary arms race with the common garter snake. The garter snake eats the newts, which selects for newts with stronger toxins, which selects for snakes with stronger resistance, and so on and so forth until you get these ridiculously poisonous animals and a predator with an incredible level of immunity.
These are the guys I can think of off the top of my head. But honestly all beasts are bizarre if you look closely enough
Anonymous:
What do baby crocodiles eat? they are very small do the parents catch food for them depending on species?
but they’ll eat anything that fits in those tiny-yet-intimidating jaws, including but not limited to: invertebrates, fish, frogs, salamanders, unwary birds, small mammals, and meddling human fingers (if mamá crocodile doesn’t get them first, anyway)
however, the mom crocolargo will still provide her babies with transport and protection while they hunt!
yeah, you know that whole “don’t get between a mother bear and her cubs” bit of bush wisdom that’s kept an untold number of humans from getting ripped limb from limb over the eons?
that goes DOUBLE for crocodiles. watch your step around tropical rivers during the croc breeding season!
My only interesting/ notable talent is that I can make baby alligators RUN to my feet solely by making this annoying sound
i don’t care if you have fuckall going for you otherwise, please marry me
Because this is getting popular and some have voiced safety concerns in the notes (and because I’d hate for you to think me of me ~your future spouse~ as reckless), I hope you won’t mind me derailing this post to talk a bit about alligator behavior and what I’m doing here! The noise that I am emulating in the video is my attempt at the contact call of the juvenile American alligator. I am NOT trying to make a distress call, which is what a baby alligator would use to call mom for help, and is a different sound entirely. Instead, contact calls are typically used in communication between juvenile gator siblings that live together in groups called crèches. While a mother gator will certainly swim towards a hatchling distress call (up to a certain age) to protect her young, the other babies will typically swim away from the sound, meaning a correctly done contact call shouldn’t cause a hostile reaction in a nearby momma gator. That said, everyone with safety concerns is absolutely correct to consider the possible implications for doing contact calls in the wild, and much like performing bird calls in the wild there are ethical considerations that must be taken into account. I’d love to give my three personal rules for performing this call!
1. If your feet are on dirt, grass, or water, do not attempt a contact call. If you watch till the end of my video you’ll see a shadow that shows I am standing on a raised boardwalk with a rail, which is the optimal situation for safely observing gators. This way even if you somehow do make a sound that attracts an aggressive alligator, you are not at risk of a dangerous encounter.
2. If the alligator is less than 2 feet in length, do not attempt a contact call. While I did say “baby” in the original post, a better word for this animal would be juvenile, as their length and head shape indicates they’ve reached at least a year or two in age. You should absolutely never make any kind of noise to intentionally disturb hatchling gators that are small and highly vulnerable to predators! Once a gator has gotten to about 2 feet in length they’re usually around 2-3 years old and have typically left mom at this age.
3. If you are planning on interacting with the alligator in any way, do not attempt a contact call. It is imperative to both our safety and alligator wellbeing that we do not condition them to seek human behavior by feeding them. I once saw a tour guide call over gators using this method so that he could feed them cocktail shrimp for the delight of tourists. Shouldn’t have to say it but don’t do this! Don’t feed them, don’t touch them, and don’t get within 20 feet of them, for everyone’s safety. Wildlife is wild and should stay that way.
I probably should have spelled all that out in my original post so please forgive me the omission! Keep gatoring on everyone 🐊
(Interested readers may refer to my tags for additional information on the contact calls and alligator behavior described here!)
op this is me standing on a boardwalk watching you ethically and responsibly do contact calls to juvenile 2 foot long alligators
