HUNTING

Gator Alligator

Catch You Later Alligator

This story is about a lady and an alligator came from the wonderful book More Hot Illustrations For Youth Talks (edited by Wayne Rice).

Several years ago, newspapers carried a story about an elderly lady who lived in the Big Cypress Swamp in South Florida. Her home was an old shack located by a small pond. Every day the lady went out to the pond to draw water.

In the pond lived an alligator. Despite the danger, the lady allowed this alligator to live in the pond for years. It seemed tame. She didn’t bother the gator and the gator didn’t bother her.

However, one day while she was drawing water from the pond, the gator swam under the water and the plunged up, grabbing the old woman’s hand with his mighty jaws. She tried puling her hand out of his mouth, but the gator ripped it off. Bleeding profusely, the terrified and stunned old woman crawled back to her shack and called for help. Paramedics finally arrived and she received medical attention.

The next day, the park ranger found the alligator in the pond and killed it. When they cut the alligator open, they found the old woman’s hand. The park ranger told reporters, “Alligators are most dangerous when they lose their fear of humans. By allowing the alligator to remain in your pond, you unknowingly give it courage to attack.” The lady still lives in the swamp. But there are no longer any alligators in her pond. She has learned her lesson and the cost of the tuition fee is of course one of her hands.

There are many alligators in the work place. Then there are the gators who give expensive gifts, even nightly amusement in exchange for that precious order. Entertain them and pretty soon you’re gonna lose more than you hand, you’re gonna lose your reputation and job as well.

Scripture clearly teaches that the wages of sin is death. Yet too many times, we think we can keep sin in out lives and not suffer the consequences. Eventually it will take a bite out of us. There are alligators in our midst. We’ve got to get rid of them before they get rid of us.

The writer of Hebrews warned that we must eliminate everything that slows us down, especially sin that distracts us. If we don’t, it will handicap us and damage the cause of Christ. What alligators are living in your pond?

The only time I appreciate alligators is when I wear them as belts and shoes and use them as my briefcase. Apart from that, I would like to see them in the place where they belong, in jungle swamps.

God bless you.

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What is the difference between a gator & a croc?

Alligator & Crocodile?
which 1 would i concider more dangerous?

Ok. Just because I haven't answered this in a while, I'll answer it again... starting at the tip of the nose and working my way back...

Everyone sitting comfortably? Good, we'll begin.

There are 23 species of crocodilian worldwide... since you didn't ask about them, we're mentioning nothing of the one species of gavial or the six species of caiman.

The two species of alligator are the American alligator, which can be found in the southeast U.S. ranging from Florida west to eastern Texas, and north to coastal North Carolina. The Chinese alligator is highly endangered and is only found in a few sections of the Yangtzee River in China.

The 14 species of crocodile can be found in tropical waters worldwide.

(To clear something up... people think of alligators as being strictly freshwater animals... this is not true... they lack the glands that many species of crocodile have in their tongue that expel salt, so they have to retreat to fresh water on a regular basis, but how regular that basis is depends on the alligator... I live next to a very large body of brackish water that has many alligators in it, and have seen alligators out in the ocean on several occasions... I also have a friend who was on his way out deep sea fishing and spotted an alligator nearly three miles out and headed out further like he knew where he was going...)

Southern Florida is the only place in the world that has native populations of both alligators and crocodiles.

Ok, here we go...

Crocodiles do have a narrower, more slender snout than alligators, and on the end of that snout there is a single fleshy nasal disc, with both nostrils sitting nicely on top. Alligators have two nasal discs, one for each nostril.

Crocs have a flatter head than alligators.

When an alligator has it's mouth closed, the teeth on the lower jaw fit into sockets behind the teeth in the upper jaw, giving the animal the appearance of having a slight overbite... crocodile teeth mesh together differently when the mouth is closed, showing more teeth, most notable usually being the fourth tooth of the lower jaw. (Please keep in mind, jaw injuries and deformities can occur... as a matter of fact, I'm looking at an alligator skull right now that has a prominent fourth bottom tooth... this does not make it a croc skull as it came off of an alligator.)

Let's look closer at the mouth... alligator teeth are conical... peg-shaped, crocodiles are a little more laterally compressed... more of a dagger shape. The lining of an alligator's mouth is a creamy almond color, the inside of a crocodile's mouth is more of an orange hue...

Alligators have golden eyes, crocodiles have green eyes.

Body:

Alligators are a charcoal grey to black animal with cream to yellow stripes.

Crocodiles tend to be more of a olive drab to golden khaki with black markings...

Coloration darkens with age on both.

Osteoderms... scutes... (for the complete layman, those bumps down their backs):

On an alligator, the scutes are in even rows, with none "spilling over" onto the sides of the animal. On a crocodile, the scutes generally have a "sharper" appearance and look a little more "scattered" across the animal's back, with some spilling over onto it's sides (some species of crocodile even have osteoderms in their belly skin, making them useless in the leather industry)

As you move further back to the animal's tail, the scutes along the sides start to look finlike... compare these "tailfins" to those of classic Chevrolets:
'55 Chevy: http://www.31stpub.com/photos/staff/55chevy.jpg
Alligator: http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/alligator/SudiaBirdPhoto_001-Alligator.jpg

'57 Chevy: http://www.santiagosc.com/auctions/Auction%20Cars%20Rogers%2008/57chevy.jpg
Crocodile: http://www.hotelloslagos.com/Img/Crocodile-AD0208-01717.jpg

Also, crocodiles have more webbing between the toes on their back feet than alligators... and there's other things as well, but I think for the average person, that's enough to be able to tell the difference.

Which one is more dangerous?
Generally speaking, that would be crocodiles, just because some species get much larger than alligators can ever dream of getting... take for example, the nile crocodile of Africa... eats all kinds of nice things like wildebeest, zebra, all kinds of animals that way several hundred pounds and have horns and hooves to try to defend themselves with... Nile crocs are responsible for an average of 300 human fatalities in Africa every year... an animal with that kind of diet sees a human washing their clothes or collecting water at the riverbank and this is what goes through it's mind: "Hm, kinda puny... no horns or hooves... probably can't run very fast, and I bet it can't swim worth a crap either... I'll try it"
Meanwhile, an American alligator will be lucky to reach half the size of an adult nile croc, and the largest prey it will ever have a chance of taking would be a whitetailed deer... (takes a BIG gator to take a deer)... in the past 50 years in Florida, alligators have been responsible for about 26 human fatalities... DOGS kill more people than this in the state of Florida ~every year~!

But wait... Florida has alligators AND crocodiles, does that mean that our crocs are more dangerous than alligators? NO! There are a few species of crocodile that have no recorded attacks on humans... the American crocodile, sadly isn't one of those... there has been _one_ verified attack on a human by an American croc, and really, you can't blame the croc... early on in the expansion of Florida's expansion, two surveyors were working on what would eventually become US-1 down towards would would eventually become Miami... One of these gentlemen had a camera, the other had a rifle... they came across an impressive croc that was sunning itself directly in the path of where they wanted to go, so the guy with the camera says "Shoot it, and I'll take your picture with it." The crocodile was shot and wounded and knocked out, but not dead... when the guy who had shot it sat down on it's back to have his picture taken, she woke back up and wasn't very happy.

So, if you're specifically talking about Florida, alligators are much more dangerous than crocodiles, but if you're talking worldwide generalizations, crocodiles are much more dangerous than alligators.

Wally Gator: Alligator Liberation (Cartoon Network Short)