Bizarre Looking Alligator on show at American Tourist Attraction

A white alligator is the star turn at a Florida crocodile farm and tourist attraction Gatorland.

The Alligator is a member of the Order Crocodylia.  There are just two species of alligator on the planet, the well-known and often viewed at zoos and American tourist attractions such as Gatorland, American alligator (Alligator mississipiensis) and the much rarer Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis).  Alligators are therefore found in only two, widely separated regions of the world, in the south-eastern USA and China.  To be precise, the critically endangered Chinese alligator is found mainly in the upper reaches of the Yangtse river valley.

A Replica of a Chinese Alligator (Alligator sinensis)

Family Zoo Siamese crocodile model.

Tourist attractions like Gatorland in Florida, play a vital role in helping to preserve crocodiles, caimans and alligators.  As well as providing curious tourists with information and permitting them to get up close and personal with some of the most dangerous animals on Earth, Gatorland and other attractions carry out  conservation programmes and captive breeding schemes to help support the dwindling wild populations.

White Alligator

The latest residents of Gatorland to benefit from their protection is an exceptionally rare, white alligator, believed to one of only twelve such animals in the world.  This animal, a 200 kilogramme male called Bouya Blan (the name means white fog in the local Indian dialect) was collected from a Louisiana swamp and transferred from Audubon zoo in New Orleans to Gatorland.

This particular male alligator, with its ivory skin and deep blue eyes was part of a clutch of seventeen young alligators collected by workers from the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company who were surveying the swamp land in 1986.  The group was taken to the Audubon zoo where they remained until last year, before being transferred to the specialists at Gatorland.  Unfortunately, only a few of the original seventeen survived in the twenty years of so they spent in captivity, but now under the supervision of the Gatorland experts they may have a more certain future.

These bizarre looking animals are not examples of albino-ism, the nearly complete absence of any pigment is caused by a genetic disorder.  Animals that lack pigmentation are called leucistic (from the Greek leukos meaning white).  The large male alligator in the picture is one of four leucistic alligators kept at Gatorland.

Mark McHugh, President and Chief Executive of the Floridian tourist attraction commented:

“People are awestruck when they see them, and just one look into those icy, blue eyes will give you chills”.

He went on to state how excited he and the rest of the Gatorland staff were at having these rare alligators at the park.

Mark’s colleague Tim Williams added:

“This is the largest group of giant white gators in the world.  These are not albino animals, they are what we call leucistic, which means they have a little bit of pigmentation around the mouth and a little touch on the tail and they have piercing blue eyes.”

Mr Williams went on to explain that in the wild any animal with this genetic disorder would be unlikely to survive very long.  They have a sensitivity to sunlight and their lack of camouflage would make them easy to spot, bad news with so many hungry predators around in their swamp homes.

As a result of their rare genetic condition, the alligators are housed in special enclosures to protect them from sunlight – and the unwanted attention of other males.

“We have four white alligators here at Gatorland and because they are all males they cannot be in the same enclosure as they are all very big and they would all fight with each other”;

commented Mr Williams, noting the natural aggressive tendency of male alligators.

Creatures with the leucistic condition need extra vitamin D (normally obtained from sunlight), to help the Alligators; their diet is supplemented with food rich in this particular vitamin.  They are fed chicken, fish, red meat and do receive vitamin supplements as well.

Tim and his team are now hoping to breed white alligators with two female American gators who carry the leucistic gene.   They will certainly be quiet a site at the Gatorland park, but we at Everything Dinosaur, are concerned about such a breeding programme.

Perhaps it would be better to focus resources on breeding the critically endangered Chinese alligator, rather than trying to breed a type of alligator that could not survive in the wild.  We can appreciate the need for the attraction to generate visitor numbers by offering them the chance to view such strange creatures but we remain unsure as whether it is “right” to deliberately attempt to prolong this genetic disorder in a captive population of crocodilians.

Crocodile Exhibition to Celebrate Darwin 200

An Australian museum is putting on an exhibition showcasing the evolution of the crocodile as part of their celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.  The exhibit which is on display at the Northern Territories Museum and Art Gallery in Darwin is open until November.

Darwin itself, was named after the famous English scientist, he visited the area when the ship, HMS Beagle docked in September 1839, part way through its surveying expedition.  Australia has two native species of crocodile, the Saltwater or Estuarine and the smaller freshwater crocodile.  The Saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) is the largest living reptile with some specimens reaching lengths in of over 6 metres.

The exhibition is entitled “Supercrocodilians: Darwin’s ultimate survival story” is free to enter and tells the story of the evolution and development of this remarkable reptile group, one that has outlasted the dinosaurs.

Commenting on the events programme, exhibition curator Paul Horner said:

“We wanted to show Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through an icon like the crocodile”.

Animals that were similar to modern crocodiles (phytosaurs) evolved around 240 million years ago.  Crocodiles as a group have been around since the Late Triassic period with the ancestors of the modern species known today (23 species of crocodiles in the world at present, although most are endangered), being traced back to the Cretaceous (neosuchians).  Some of the species of crocodilian around today may have remained largely unchanged for 5 million years or so.  The crocodilian life style of being a heavily armoured, ambush predator of rivers and lakes does seem to be a formula for a sustained run in terms of survival.  However, in their evolutionary history crocodiles have evolved to exploit a variety of environmental niches, from almost entirely marine forms such as Metriorhynchus, to fast running entirely terrestrial types.

The exhibition highlight is the reconstructed skull of a 15 metre long giant crocodile called Sarcosuchus.  This particular crocodile, now fortunately extinct, lived in Africa during the Cretaceous period and although it had a long snout adapted for catching fish, it probably ambushed dinosaurs as they came down to drink.

Pictures show the skull of a Sarcosuchus and museum curator Paul Horner is dwarfed by it.  Even allowing for the change in perspective as Paul is further from the lens than the crocodilian skull, the cast of this fossil skull is very impressive.  Note the hooked tip to the upper jaw and the many sharp, needle-like teeth, believed to be adaptations to help catch slippery fish.  Such a jaw configuration and dentition is seen in baryonychid dinosaurs, which were also believed to be fish-eaters in the main.

A Scale Drawing of a Prehistoric Crocodile – Sarcosuchus

Everything Dinosaur’s scale drawing of Sarcosuchus. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The exhibition has been planned for over a year and is a fitting tribute to Darwin, after whom the city is named and also highlights a need to conserve these remarkable and dangerous creatures.

Team members at Everything Dinosaur have been working on a model of Sarcosuchus that is being introduced later this year. Drawings have just been commissioned so that a fact sheet can be created for this new item.  Scientists remain unsure as to which type of crocodilian was the biggest of them all.  Sarcosuchus is a contender, along with the more heavily built Deinosuchus and the later Purussaurus from South America that lived during the Late Pliocene.  This particular crocodile, believed to be more closely related to modern Alligators could reach lengths in excess of 16 metres.

To view models of a variety of prehistoric crocodilians and other related species: Dinosaur, Crocodilian and Prehistoric Animal Models.

Prehistoric Cheetah Skull found in Asia

A prehistoric cheetah skull found in Asia re-writes the evolution of these big cats. The origins of the big cats of today, the lions, tigers, pumas and cheetahs for example, are shrouded in mystery.  It had been thought that the modern cheetah Acinonyx jubatus had originated from North America (known as the new world), but now fossil evidence unearthed in China indicates that these felines may have evolved in Asia.

Prehistoric Cheetah Skull

The fossil record of large feline predators is extremely sparse.  There are several reasons for this, firstly, as animals at the top of the food chain there are fewer of them compared to the herbivores and omnivores in any habitat, so the chance of any remains becoming fossilised is statistically less likely.  Also, most of the big cats live in areas such as jungle or savannah and these habitats provide very few opportunities for effective fossilisation to take place, so big cat fossils are very rare.  Finding a skull or teeth is a huge prize for palaeontologists when it comes to piecing together the relationships between various extinct species of large cat.  It is the skull morphology and the teeth that can be most helpful in determining the relationships between different genera.

A modern Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)

A model of a cheetah, an extant big cat (PNSO).

A team of Chinese scientists have announced the discovery of the oldest fossil of a new species of cheetah.  This discovery would indicate that cheetahs originated in Asia and not in North America as previously thought.  Researchers found a partial cranium and some teeth in the Gansu Province of north-west China.  It is similar in size and shape to the skulls of modern cheetahs, but the teeth are much more primitive.

In a paper published by scientists from the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, this fossil represents an early stage in the evolution of these big cats.  The new species of cheetah has been named Acinonyx kurteni.  In prehistoric times, the big cat species were much more widespread, with cheetahs roaming Europe, Asia, India and North America.  Fossils of cheetahs found in various parts of the world have intrigued scientists as they try to calculate the site of the earliest fossils and hence the origins of this particular big cat family.

The newly studied fossils were dated to the Late Pliocene, between 2.15 and 2.55 million years ago.   Although, not the oldest cheetah fossils known, this new discovery challenges the accepted theory that the cheetahs originated in the Americas.

Prehistoric Cheetahs of North America

Two prehistoric cheetah-like species of North America are believed by some scientists to be distant cousins of giant cheetahs of ancient Europe.  In North America, up until the end of the Pleistocene period, large cheetahs hunted on the plains (Miracinonyx).

To read more about the mega fauna of North America: The Bison – a Contributor to Mammoth Extinction.

This possible relationship has led some scientists to suggest that the earliest cheetahs may have originated in North America and travelled across the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia, during a period of falling sea levels, when a land bridge between Asia and the Americas was formed.

This new find challenges this theory, the skull and teeth from China indicate a Eurasian/African origin of the cheetah family.  For instance, the primitive dental features would have been more developed in the Chinese fossil if cheetahs had come from North America.  The research paper supports the theory that the big cats originated in the old world and not the new world of the Americas.

Eveything Dinosaur stocks a range of prehistoric mammal models including replicas of big carnivores: Replicas of Prehistoric Mammals.

Critically Endangered Crocodile Species – The Gharial on the Brink of Extinction

In a web log article back in February we reported on the mysterious deaths of a number of adult Gharial crocodiles in their last remaining sanctuaries in northern India.    This long-snouted fish-eating Crocodilian can trace its ancestry back to the dinosaurs but the species is facing extinction.

To read the first article: Time Running Out for the Indian Gharial.

Analysis of the bloated corpses of these crocodiles show high levels of lead, but the fish that they eat don’t show any significant levels of this toxic metal.  The demise of the Gharial in one of the last natural habitats remains a mystery.

In another one of the few places in India where these animals can still be seen in the wild, their last nesting sandbank is under threat from construction companies anxious to commandeer the sand for use in building projects.

The plight of this extremely rare reptile and the work of a remarkable group of conservationists as they attempt to save it is highlighted in a BBC 2 programme this evening – part of the Natural World series.

Herptologist Romulus Whitaker in collaboration with other conservationists has set up a “crocodile bank” (Madras Crocodile Bank Trust), this conservation centre has managed to start a breeding programme for gharials (the first time this has been achieved).  Thanks to efforts of Romulus and his dedicated team this magnificent creature may have a future after all.

The Natural World is broadcast tonight at 8pm GMT on BBC2.

For further information about the work Everything Dinosaur has done to raise the awareness of the plight of endangered animals with schoolchildren and teachers: Email Everything Dinosaur.