Can alligators climb trees? (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Can alligators climb trees? (2021)

wildlifeinformer.com

40 pointsthunderbong39 comments

Here is the pic linked to, it’s quite high up!

https://twitter.com/MattDevittWINK/status/750689348526432257...

HOLY SHIT! THERE HE IS!

> assuming that the particular alligators in question aren’t too heavy, they are definitely capable of climbing trees, and they actually do this pretty frequently.

That's terrifying

Here in Florida, I've seen larger alligators trying to climb and scale things, and I'd say it becomes pretty unlikely way before they're at a size to be a threat to an adult human.

They also need a pretty generous ramp, so the idea of one climbing up an oak tree after you is likely impossible.

The linked image shows a gator in a felled branch, which happens frequently in rivers and marshes when they're sunning. That's not the kind of "tree" you'd use to, say, escape from an alligator.

Here's a 7 footer climbing a chainlink fence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7DMjQJD7vM

A 5 or so footer doing the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbq3ymZkfVc

And another massive gator that just bends a metal fence like it's Play-doh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67hsRXcLjA

That being said, a fit human being is definitely going to be a much better climber than a gator. And it's extremely rare they ever go after full size adults (kids are more at risk).

I've seen some fail pretty hard on the fences, but I also think they're good climbing options for gators.

I was walking one night and saw ~8-9ft one about 20 ft up the road so I obviously stopped walking that way. It was going for a 3-4 ft concrete wall and just kept flopping and falling over repeatedly. I hung out for a while to see if it ever beat the tiny little wall, but nope. Just kept hitting the concrete.

>>Gator breaks through a brand new iron fence!

Yup, he's just trying to go along his regular path from one watering hole to another, and somebody puts up a damn fence! What's a gator to do? Over, under, or through!

IIRC there’s fossil evidence that Australia used to have small—ish terrestrial and tree-dwelling crocs.

There is an actual tree climbing kangaroo that most Australians don't even know about. I wonder if thats why the crocs started climbing trees ;)

Oh what about the infamous drop bears?

There's Nimbadon. Though it's a Diprotodontidae (a "giant wombat").

To eat the kangaroo or escape from it? :-)

Probably bit of both ;)

Entire Article: "Can alligators X? Yes. Yes they can."

TREE GATORS! TERROR OF THE FLORIDA SKIES!

I've seen aligators catching monkeys on trees in India. It's rare but it does happen.

It was likely a crocodile. There are no alligators in India.

From the article: "There are only two species of alligator that still exist today: the American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, and the Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis. Given these names, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that these species can be found in either the United States (particularly in the southern states) or Eastern China."

I've seen narrow mouth, light weight aligators.

I've identified crocodile have bigger and wider jawa.

Alligator mostly eat fishes in river.

That sounds more like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caiman

Caimans don't live in India. If it was India with a thin snout, it was likely:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gharial

But yeah, alligators live in North America and China.

From what I can tell, gharials mostly eat fish. The narrow jaw is likely adapted for catching fish underwater, says 'The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus): A review.' (1982) p535. While they have been observed to eat frogs, they did not eat a peacock nor rats, p536. "[V]ery large individuals are reported to eat other prey" besides fish [2].

"It is predominantly a fish eater, but occasionally takes turtle, birds and small mammals and is said to feed on corpses (Was it a someone’s observation or just a hearsay, if this declaration is based on some literature, please do cite it here)." [3]

I'm not saying they don't eat monkeys, only that catching monkeys on trees seems rare enough that it would likely be of scientific interest.

There's also only a few hundred adult gharials.

They share a habitat with mugger crocodiles. The latter have 'a broader prey base than the gharial including snakes, turtles, birds, mammals and dead animals' says the Gharial Wikipedia entry. However, it "has the broadest snout of any living member of the genus Crocodylus"[2] so doesn't match faangguyindia's description.

Though the only other Crocodilia in India is the saltwater crocodile, which is 5x heavier, making muggers light-weight by comparison.

Finding information about gharials is complicated because there are "false gharials" in Malaysia, Borneo, Sumatra and Java, which definitely eat monkeys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_gharial

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Romulus-Whitaker/public...

[2] https://www.iucncsg.org/365_docs/attachments/protarea/17_C-f...

[3] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Prasanta-Saikia/publica... . See [1] where p537 cites Smith (1931) for the corpse eating comment, though the bibliography only has Smith (1935).

TIL about caimans

BR Portuguese uses the same word for caimans and alligators: Jacaré

"Crocodilo", in contrast, generally refers to true crocodiles.

Contrary to what the article says about habitats, some crocodiles live in fresh water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_crocodile

AFAIK most do. A few prefer brackish waters (like the American croc), but crocs in the saltie ranges tend to avoid them (as they’re full of salties), and crocs like the Nile, the Slender-Snouted, the Mugger, the Orinoco or the Dwarfs range way too far inlands for brackish waters to be their main habitat.

Brings to mind the children's book "Flap Your Wings" by P. D. Eastman. Didn't climb a tree, but was raised by birds in a tree!

[0] https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/Flap_Your_Wings

[1] https://www.parentsoffostercare.com/pd-eastman-how-to-explai...

So? What're they gonna do up there?

Stand under them, yell insults and taunts at them as they struggle to get turned around or get down without killing themselves.

Or they fall on you from behind and snap your neck.

Or break their own neck hitting the ground.

Protection against being killed by bigger alligators probably plays a role also

Refreshing to see a counterexample to betteridges law of headlines[0]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...

Ngl, article made my day. Hilarious and adorable.

of course, they're just big lezards

Alligators are more closely related to chickens than lizards.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_reptiles :

> ... the diapsid reptiles split into two main lineages, the archosaurs (ancestors of crocodiles and dinosaurs) and the lepidosaurs (predecessors of modern tuataras, lizards, and snakes).

Alligators are archosaurs.

All birds, including chickens, are feathered theropod dinosaurs, which are a type of archosaur.

So it's more correct to say that alligators hang out in trees because they are just big four-legged chickens.

But chickens don't hang out in trees...

They definitely do. My mom raised chickens free range for a while. They spent large parts of the day roosted in her cedar tree. They can't fly very high, but they can get enough lift to catch low hanging branches and climb up from there.

Oh but they do. Well, in bushes, anyway. (Or in the case of domestic chicken, artificial roosts.)

If alligators can hang out in trees then so can chickens.

images of chickens in a tree - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=chickens+in+a+tree&iax=imag...

images of alligators in a tree - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alligator+in+a+tree&t=ffab&iar=ima...

Domestic fowl do not, wild fowl certainly do.

Can confirm that they taste quite similar to chicken.

I hope not.

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