Alligators Attack and Eat Sharks, Study Confirms - The American reptiles have a voracious diet, but scientists were still surprised by what they found. American alligators gobble up anything they can get their jaws around. Now, a new study has added new items to their menu: sharks and stingrays. It's particularly surprising, says study leader James Nifong, an ecologist at Kansas State University, because alligators are known as freshwater predators. In fact, when Nifong started asking alligator experts if they’d ever encountered instances of the toothy reptiles preying upon elasmobranchs—a group that includes sharks, rays, and skates—quite a few people thought he was joking.
Persistence paid off, however, and Nifong confirmed four separate instances in which an American alligator ate a lemon shark, a nurse shark, a bonnethead shark, and an Atlantic stingray.
He also uncovered some historical accounts of sharks preying upon American alligators, suggesting that the two carnivores square off more often than thought.
Both "are known for their extreme eating habits, and both are highly opportunistic predators,” says Nifong, whose findings were published in the most recent issue of the peer-reviewed journal Southeastern Naturalist.
“So, when presented with a potential opportunity to feed, they are not likely to pass it up.”
Shark Vs. Gator
There are a few reasons why observations of shark-gator showdowns are scarce.
For starters, both animals are tough to follow and observe in their coastal habitats, says Adam Rosenblatt, an ecologist at the University of North Florida who studies alligators.
What's more, gators consume sharks that are quite a bit smaller than Jaws, and so the fish may look like just any other to the average onlooker.
Still, alligator researchers have a method for examining the stomach contents of live alligators—a sort of cross between a stomach pump and the Heimlich maneuver—so shouldn’t there be more evidence of sharks in gator guts?
Probably not, says Rosenblatt, who is all too familiar with picking through alligator vomit.
“Most prey gators eat turn to mush pretty quickly within their stomachs,” he says. “It all turns into one big pile of indistinguishable stuff, except for certain body parts like hair and shells.”
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alligator Alligators Are Eating Sharks - New Discovery by Scientists | |
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| Pets & Animals | Upload TimePublished on 17 Jul 2019 |
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