Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: boglebam here. Much like the cheetah, the alligator is an
Speaker 1: incredibly fast runner. You've probably seen one rise up on
Speaker 1: its long, muscular legs and sprint the length of a
Speaker 1: football field in pursuit a fleeing prey. No, you've never
Speaker 1: seen that. What you've probably seen is more like this.
Speaker 1: You're standing by a pond checking out some kind of
Speaker 1: heron when you notice two small bumps protruding from the water.
Speaker 1: After you take note of the nearby don't feed the
Speaker 1: alligator's sign, you put two and two together. Those bumps
Speaker 1: are the eyes of a gator lazily floating in the pond.
Speaker 1: You might be frightened for a moment, but then you
Speaker 1: remember the classic adage. You can escape an alligator if
Speaker 1: you run in a zigzag, and this brings you comfort.
Speaker 1: But should it. This saying, which is so old and
Speaker 1: so widespread that it's virtually impossible to determine where or
Speaker 1: why it started, implies first that an alligator is likely
Speaker 1: to chase you across land, and second that alligators can
Speaker 1: run faster than humans, at least when they're running in
Speaker 1: a straight line. Neither of these are exactly true. Oh
Speaker 1: what's true for sure is that you should avoid encouraging
Speaker 1: an alligator to chase you under any circumstances. But they
Speaker 1: don't really conduct chases on dry land because that's not
Speaker 1: what they're built for, and if one did, you could
Speaker 1: almost certainly outsprint it. Today, let's talk a little about
Speaker 1: alligator's safety, including how alligators do and don't attack. The
Speaker 1: American alligator is an apex predator and keystone species in
Speaker 1: its native environment, which is the mostly freshwater systems of
Speaker 1: the American South, ranging from eastern Texas up into Arkansas
Speaker 1: and across the warm southeast up to the coastal Carolinas.
Speaker 1: They are large, cold blooded reptiles, which means they do
Speaker 1: a lot of work to work as little as possible
Speaker 1: in order to conserve energy. They'll eat pretty much anything
Speaker 1: they can get a hold of, and they actually create
Speaker 1: environments for their food sources by digging or wallowing in
Speaker 1: the mud or silt of a water bed, making pockets
Speaker 1: that won't dry out during the dry season. But gator's
Speaker 1: entire mode of cuisine is based on energy conservation. They
Speaker 1: prefer to sneak up on their prey in the water,
Speaker 1: they can float motionless and swim silently, their eyes set
Speaker 1: on the top of their head like a periscope. They're
Speaker 1: patient hunters and will wait in the water for hours
Speaker 1: before lunging at an opportune snack. Once they attack, if
Speaker 1: the prey does fight back, a gator will typically abandon it,
Speaker 1: and they don't tend to attack anything that they can't
Speaker 1: swim in a single gulp. Even large alligators choose prey
Speaker 1: that's relatively small, which is good news for adult humans.
Speaker 1: This has to do with an alligator's jaw and throat structure.
Speaker 1: A gater kills by latching onto its prey with its
Speaker 1: strong jaws and teeth designed to crush shells and bones.
Speaker 1: It'll then perform the death roll, rolling over and over
Speaker 1: in the water until its prey drowns or bleeds out.
Speaker 1: The alligator then juggles the prey around in its mouth
Speaker 1: so that it can toss it down its throat in
Speaker 1: one bite. That massive jaw that allows it to hang
Speaker 1: on to prey so securely also prevents it from chewing
Speaker 1: and swallowing, and its teeth aren't particularly sharp. If a
Speaker 1: gater does take down prey, too large to swallow a hole,
Speaker 1: it'll store it until it rots enough to tear chunks
Speaker 1: out of which, even for a gator, is not the
Speaker 1: most delicious prospect. Small alligators make up the majority of
Speaker 1: the population. An alligator that's less than five feet or
Speaker 1: one and a half meters long will typically eat crawfish,
Speaker 1: small snakes, and turtles. They don't even present a threat
Speaker 1: to small dogs, let alone people. Large alligators are less common,
Speaker 1: but they can be big enough to size us up
Speaker 1: as a legitimate meal. A full grown gator can be
Speaker 1: some eight to eleven feet long that's two and a
Speaker 1: half to three and a half meters and weigh up
Speaker 1: to one thousand pounds or four hundred and fifty kilos.
Speaker 1: They are a threat, but they're still wary of us.
Speaker 1: We're big and noisy, and they tend to avoid interactions
Speaker 1: with people all together. When an alligator snaps its jaws
Speaker 1: and bellows at people, it may look like it's rearing
Speaker 1: for an attack, but this is really just defensive posturing.
Speaker 1: It's hoping that you will leave it alone. An alligator
Speaker 1: is most likely to attack humans when it's protecting its
Speaker 1: territory or nest, or otherwise sees the person as a threat.
Speaker 1: Early to Midsummer is mating season, and adult male gaters
Speaker 1: become territorial. Later in the year, a female gater may
Speaker 1: attack if she perceives a threat to her eggs or hatchlings. Generally,
Speaker 1: just don't try to pet alligators or other wild animals.
Speaker 1: They're not pets. But if you see an adorable young gaiter,
Speaker 1: you must assume its mother is nearby and will not
Speaker 1: take kindly to stranger danger. No matter how small an
Speaker 1: alligator is, don't attempt to feed it. This only encourages
Speaker 1: them to get closer to humans, which could lead to
Speaker 1: attacks later. Innocently trying to give a gator a snack
Speaker 1: could be a death sentence for the animal if it
Speaker 1: begins approaching people, and wildlife services has to be called in.
Speaker 1: Don't throw things at gaiters if one is crossing a
Speaker 1: road or path, don't try to move it along. Like
Speaker 1: all of us, They're just doing their thing, and they've
Speaker 1: got as much right to be here as we do.
Speaker 1: More really, when you consider that they've been around for
Speaker 1: some eighty four million years and we're the three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand year upstarts. Unfortunately, alligator bytes are on a bit
Speaker 1: of an upswing, probably because their populations have been recovering
Speaker 1: from endangerment and human development is increasingly encroaching on their territory.
Speaker 1: In Florida, for example, there was an average of just
Speaker 1: one bite per year from nineteen eighty eight through nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, but that number jumped to seven a year
Speaker 1: between two thousand and twenty sixteen, and in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: twelve bytes were reported. Still, the US as a whole
Speaker 1: averages less than one alligator related fatality per year. From
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight to two thousand and four, the Fish
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Conservation Commission received reports of three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty six alligator attacks on humans. Only twenty five of
Speaker 1: those attacks were fatal, and in nine cases it's believed
Speaker 1: that the victims were deceased before the alligators ate them.
Speaker 1: Don't overturn boats to capture prey or snatch people out
Speaker 1: of boats. If you see an alligator on the water's edge,
Speaker 1: silently glide into the water and head towards your boat,
Speaker 1: it's probably more afraid than you are. Gators are much
Speaker 1: more comfortable in water than on land, so when they're
Speaker 1: startled by a boat while sunning themselves, they instinctively head
Speaker 1: for the water. Just steer clear. The greatest danger from
Speaker 1: alligator attacks is too small children and pets near the
Speaker 1: water's edge, either in the shallows or within striking distance.
Speaker 1: On land, the supervised play and the buddy system, even
Speaker 1: for grown ups, is always the best bet for swimming,
Speaker 1: even minus half ton Carnivorous reptiles, alligators lurk in murky
Speaker 1: water and where banks are overgrown with weeds or brush.
Speaker 1: They're most active at dusk and through the night. If
Speaker 1: you are within alligator's natural range, be aware and stick
Speaker 1: too clearer waters during the day. If you see a gator,
Speaker 1: get out of the water and warn your bank side neighbors.
Speaker 1: In the extremely unlikely yet unpleasant event that an alligator
Speaker 1: does attack you in the water, don't waste time trying
Speaker 1: to pry its jaw open, which is nearly impossible. Do scream, thrash,
Speaker 1: and splash to make the gator reconsider its choice, and
Speaker 1: if you can aim a blow or poke it its eyes,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty solid way to get any animal to
Speaker 1: release you. If you're on land, then you think an
Speaker 1: alligator is approaching you with malicious intent, run away as
Speaker 1: fast as you can a straight line is fine. Gators
Speaker 1: are quick in short bursts. They can dash it up
Speaker 1: to around nine and a half miles per hour or
Speaker 1: fifteen kilometers per hour, which is faster than most humans job.
Speaker 1: But gators can't keep it up for long, and we
Speaker 1: humans are much better sprinters. Athletes average above seventeen miles
Speaker 1: an hour at a sprint. That's twenty seven kilometers per hour,
Speaker 1: or nearly twice as fast as a gator's top speed.
Speaker 1: You say, in Bolt has been clocked at twenty seven
Speaker 1: point eight miles an hour or forty four point seven kilometers.
Speaker 1: Even if you're not him, a brisk run should be fine.
Speaker 1: Alligators have little endurance and don't give chase. If it
Speaker 1: misses its first opportunity to grab its prey, it usually
Speaker 1: gives up and goes back to waiting for something easy.
Speaker 1: So sure, you could probably escape an alligator if you
Speaker 1: ran in a zigzag, but the likelihood that an alligator
Speaker 1: would ever chase you on dry land is so low
Speaker 1: that the old adage is more joke than genuine advice.
Speaker 1: It simply does not apply. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article can you really escape an alligator? If you
Speaker 1: run in a zigzag on how stuffworks dot Com, written
Speaker 1: by A. Leah Hoyt and Amy Hunter. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production by Heart Radio in partnership with how to forks
Speaker 1: dot com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.