American alligator

Alligators eat other animals.

Baby alligators eat bugs, little fish and frogs. Big alligators eat fish, turtles, snakes and birds. They swallow small food in one gulp.

Alligators are carnivores and eat whatever is easy to find. Young alligators mostly catch insects, frogs, snails and small fish. As they grow, they move on to bigger fish, turtles, snakes, birds and small mammals that come to the water's edge.

Their jaws are strong enough to crack a turtle shell. Small food is swallowed whole. Alligators eat only when the water is warm; when it gets chilly, they stop feeding until warmer days return.

American alligators are opportunistic carnivores whose diet tracks what is abundant and accessible. Juveniles take mainly insects, amphibians, small fish and other invertebrates; adults take fish, turtles, snakes, birds and small mammals, and other reptiles, including small alligators.

Feeding depends on temperature. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reports that alligators are most active at about 28 to 33 °C, stop feeding below about 21 °C and become dormant below about 13 °C. Their jaws can crack turtle shells; small prey is swallowed whole, and larger prey is broken into pieces before swallowing.

Alligators lie in the sun to get warm.

When they are too hot, they slide into the cool water. In dry times they dig water holes, and many other animals use them too.

Alligators are ectotherms, which means their body heat comes from their surroundings. They bask in the sun to warm up and slip into water or shade to cool down. In cold winter weather they rest in dens and hardly move at all.

Alligators also change their homes. In the dry season they dig out 'gator holes' that stay full of water. Fish, turtles, birds and other animals gather there. The National Park Service calls the alligator a keystone species of the Everglades.

As ectotherms, alligators regulate body temperature behaviorally: basking, moving between warmer and cooler water or air, and becoming dormant in winter dens, emerging to bask on warm days. In spring, males bellow (roar) to attract females and to warn off other males.

The National Park Service calls the alligator a keystone species of the Everglades. Alligator holes hold water through the dry season, becoming refuges for fish, turtles, wading birds and other wildlife, and abandoned and active nests are used by other reptiles, such as the Florida red-bellied turtle, for their own eggs.

Long ago, there were very few alligators left.

People made laws to protect them, and now there are many again. If you see an alligator, stay far back from the water's edge and never feed it.

By the 1960s alligators had become rare because people hunted them for their skins and their wetland homes were being lost. In 1967 they were listed as endangered, and hunting was stopped. The alligators bounced back, and in 1987 they were taken off the endangered list.

Today they are protected by careful rules, and losing wetlands is their biggest problem. Alligators are wild animals: always stay well back from the water's edge, keep pets close, and never feed them, which is against the law.

Hunting for hides and habitat loss drove the species down until it was listed as endangered in 1967. Hunting bans, controls on the movement of hides and the growth of alligator farming let wild populations rebound, and it was delisted in 1987. The IUCN assessed it as Least Concern in 2018. Federal law still lists it as threatened by 'similarity of appearance' to the endangered American crocodile, so that hunters do not confuse the two.

The Smithsonian names habitat destruction, including water management and mercury and dioxin pollution, as the main threat today. Serious conflicts with people are rare; the National Park Service links most incidents to illegal feeding, which makes alligators lose their wariness.