Alligators

Finally moved from Alligator. *Alligator* is the genus and common name. But maybe one day I should move this page to gators anyways.

## Living dinosaurs

Gators are often remarked upon as "living dinos" and this is why I decided to make this article. Because I was a little triggered. They aren't, mostly. The most modern line separated a little after the dinosaurs went extinct. Meaning that they have changed since the Cretaceous period. I have seen various television and books throughout my childhood stating that they have "barely" changed at all since the Jurassic period. This is untrue. While there have been minor changes, there are also drastic enough changes that they now have a more modern genetic line then their ancestors. These "scientific" shows like to educate people about how little they've changed despite the actual changes that have occurred. They are undermining the distinctions. I can't wait until scientists start saying that birds have barely changed at all since the Cretaceous. Now that we know there were geese and penguins from ancient times, I am so ready to watch this unfold in our history.

Alligators are archosaurs, of which both crocodilians and birds are a part of. All dinosaurs (in the scientific sense of the word) were archosaurs. All birds are dinosaurs, but alligators aren't necessarily. The modern line of Crocodylamorpha descends from Pseudosuchia, which was split from Ornithosuchia, which is the one that contains all of the dinosaurs. From there we can eventually get to the clade Neosuchia, which contains all of our modern and near-modern crocodiles, caimens, and alligators. The earliest possible Neosuchian is Calsoyasuchus, which was from the early Jurassic. However, scientists argue about whether it belonged to Neosuchia or not. What happened around this time was that this group of archosaurs started descending into the water and becoming semiaquatic. When people say they've barely changed since the Jurassic era what we think is that alligators and crocodiles have been the same since the Jurassic period and longer. But actually they were undergoing a lot of changes around this point to become what we know today. There were other archosaurs living on land at the time, continuing their own evolutionary line in the dirt. Sometime after that we get to the earliest member of Alligatoridea, a superfamily that started in the Late Cretaceous. Leidyosuchus became its own line, and many others continued to make others. With Alligatoridae and Alligatorinae, the earliest of the alligators we have are from the Eocene.

## Aggression

On the first day that I was triggered to write this it was due to The United States Of Animals on Disneyplus saying this thing, along with other suggestions like you should stay away from alligators because they're intimidating, not dangerous. This is completely untrue. Florida children learn about how to run away from an alligator in school. You learn about how high up they can jump. You learn that you shouldn't tease them, because they might eat you. Floridians are taught this because alligators will literally eat people. Don't always believe the "experts". They play with gators all day, they don't have to be a normal kid getting eaten for sticking to close to a canal. They literally show people just walking next to alligators, like they don't care at all. Listen, I did not spend my days carefully staring into brackish canal waters checking for gators before getting too close to the edge just for some TV show to show tourists invading a gators space and telling people that it's okay, because sometimes gators are chill and don't feel like eating you. Do not do this. Do not get near a wild alligator. Obviously you can survive the experience, and obviously gators don't always spend their time looking to eat people like some rabid animal in a horror movie. But gators can bite really hard and they are difficult to defend from, like many hardy predators. They also kill really fast because they can freaking snap you in half. Do not tempt gators. Do not let media convince you that gators are friendly. They can be, but don't approach them. I am still so triggered after however long it took me to decide to work on this article again. Why does Disney want alligators to eat kids? Is this TV show they showed the reason why some stupid parents got their toddler eaten by one of the 200+ gators at Disney World Park?

## Fiction

Alligators are featured in a lot of media, and they are one of the many animals that young American children learn about early on. A part of this is because they start with the letter "A", and sound like "alley" and "Alley", but that's not the whole reason. They are not in almost every animal show like dogs or cats, but they are still well represented. Sometimes it is ambiguous as to whether they are an alligator or a crocodile. In All Dogs Go to Heaven, an alligator sings a song to a scared dog, and Tvtropes took it up and named a trope after it, called "Big Lipped Alligator Moment". Basically, it's an unusual sequence that appears to have no effect on the characters development or plot, and was quite weird when it occurred. Another singing alligator referencing this one occurs in Disney's Princess and the Frog. Louis tags along with the Tiana and the Prince to help them get back home, and he likes playing the trumpet and eating human food.

## Domestication

Alligators used to be pets, to the point that a law was made in \_\_\_\_ to keep people safe from pet gators. However, baby gators grew too big for some owners to keep, and like fish, they flushed them down into the toilet, or released them directly into canals. This led to the "New York sewer gator" rumor. It's said that gators do or did live in New York's sewers. However, it seems that winter was always too cold for them to survive, so no population survived their (or perhaps, they all went extinct). Batman's Killer Croc is a reference to this. Pokemon's Sandile, Krokorok, and Krookadile are also likely references to this as they introduced into the series by way of Unova, which itself is based on New York. However, they are not found in sewers, but in a desert instead.

Alligators are fenced in in huge part-water areas. They are farmed for their meat. There are a few farms like this in America, including those meant for tourism, but a majority of alligator farms are in Asia. There people can buy live young alligators and presumably older alligator meat. Sometimes in pet vs prey Youtube videos a hatchling alligator is pitted against another small, carnivorous pet, like a large frog. This is traumatizing for me considering all of the heart I put into loving little baby gators on TV documentaries. For people in Asia it's a common food source, but over here they're a cute threat that could bite you or lead their mother straight towards you if you grab them or get too close.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.livescience.com/103-dinosaurs-mingled-cousins-ducks-chickens.html
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neosuchia&oldid=1183372340
3. ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6346023/
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alligatoridae&oldid=1186564522
5. ↑ https://www.disneyplus.com/video/09c3fe75-c374-4cea-9884-e18215cef98a