The alligator and its allies

by A. M. Reese

In captivity, when kept in warm water and other favorable conditions, the alligator will grow, according to measurements taken at the New York Zoölogical Park, at the rate of about one foot a year, for about the first ten years. Under unfavorable conditions the growth may be exceedingly slow. Under favorable conditions in nature the rate of growth may exceed that given above.

Instead of requiring twenty-five to thirty years to reach sexual maturity, as quoted above, it is likely that the female may lay eggs at five to ten years, though such a fact is difficult to determine of animals in their native haunts.

Voice.

The alligator, unlike most other members of its class, the Ophidia, Chelonia, and Lacertilia, has a voice, which, in an adult bull, may be heard for a mile or more. This bellowing is difficult to describe; it is something between a moan and a roar, and may be to attract the opposite sex or to serve as a challenge to other large animals. It is usually ascribed to the male, but whether confined to him or not the writer is unable to say.

In younger animals the voice is, of course, less deep and in very young individuals it is a squeak or grunt, easily imitated by hunters for the purpose of luring the animals from their hiding places.

Breeding Habits.

Judging from the statements of native hunters the laying season of the alligator might be thought to be at any time from January to September. As a matter of fact the month of June is the time when most, if not all, of the eggs are laid. S. F. Clarke gives June 9th and June 17th as the limits of the laying season in Florida, but I found at least one nest in which eggs were laid as late as June 26th: no eggs were found before the first date given by Clarke. It seemed quite certain that the laying, during the season in question, had been delayed by an extreme drought that had dried up the smaller swamps and reduced the alligator holes to mere puddles. Nests were found in considerable numbers as early as June 8th, but no eggs were laid in any of them until the end of the dry period which occurred nearly two weeks later. Almost immediately after the occurrence of the rains that filled up the swamps eggs were deposited in all of the nests at about the same time. From the fact that all of these completed nests had stood for so long a time without eggs, and from the fact that all of the eggs from these nests contained embryos in a well-advanced state of development, it seemed evident that the egg-laying had been delayed by the unusually dry weather. Eggs taken directly from the oviducts of an alligator that was killed at this time also contained embryos that had already passed through the earlier stages of development. Thus it was that the earliest stages of development were not obtained during this summer.

It is said that during the mating season, which precedes by some time, of course, the laying season, the males are noisy and quarrelsome, and that they exhibit sexual characteristics of color by which they may be distinguished from the females. Never having been in the alligator country at this season, the writer has made no personal observations along these lines, but from the frequency with which alligators with mutilated or missing members are found it is evident that fierce encounters must sometimes take place, whatever the cause. During June and July, at least, and probably during most of the year, the alligators are very silent, an occasional bellow during the very early morning hours being the only audible evidence that one has that the big reptiles are in the neighborhood. Whatever may be the sexual differences during the mating season, at ordinary times the two sexes are so much alike that I have, on more than one occasion, seen experienced hunters disagree as to the supposed sex of an alligator that had just been killed.

Although I have never seen a nest actually during the process of construction, it is easy to imagine, after the examination of a large number of freshly made nests, what the process must be like.

The alligator, probably the female, as the male, after the mating season, takes no interest whatever in the propagation of his species, selects a slight elevation on or near the bank of the “hole” in which she lives. This elevation is generally, though not always, a sunny spot, and is frequently at the foot of a small tree or clump of bushes. Where the alligator is living in a large swamp she may have to go a considerable distance to find a suitable location for her nest; when her hole is scarcely more than a deep, overgrown puddle, as is often the case in the less swampy regions, she may find a good nesting place within a few feet of her cave. That the female alligator stays in the neighborhood of her nest after she has filled it with eggs seems pretty certain, but that she defends it from the attacks of other animals is extremely doubtful: certainly man is in very little danger when he robs the nest of the alligator, and, according to the statement of reliable hunters, bears are very persistent searchers for and eaters of alligator eggs. Having selected (with how much care it is impossible to say) the location for the nest, the alligator proceeds to collect, probably biting it off with her teeth, a great mass of whatever vegetation happens to be most abundant in that immediate vicinity. This mass of flags or of marsh grass is piled into a conical or rounded heap and is packed down by the builder repeatedly crawling over it.