Okay, if I remember correctly, alligators have shorter and broader snouts than crocodiles. I know that the gharial has a long and slender snout because it needs to feed on fish, but what evolutionary pressures drove the alligator to have a shorter and broader jaw structure?
In: Biology
The alligators mouth shape makes them significantly better at cracking the shells of turtles and crustaceans (which is aided by their more conical teeth, specialized for crunching and crushing). While turtles are mostly found in the diet of large crocodiles, even a relatively small alligator can snack on a turtle.
Crocodiles on the other hand are very multi-purpose predators, although if you were to say that they have a specialty it’s grabbing prey (jn order to pull it down under water). A lot of crocodile teeth have ~~serrated~~sharp edges that helps them tear through prey.
It used to be thought that alligators’ jaws had a stronger bite, which was necessary for preying on turtles. Recent biomechanical studies found no correlation, though.
You wouldn’t think it, but alligators and crocodiles are only very distantly related. Their last common ancestor lived about 80 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous. To put that in perspective, the last common ancestor between humans and elephants lived around 60-70 million years ago. Modern crocodiles and alligators have converged on the same basic body plan and lifestyle because it’s so successful, but they’ve been evolving independently for an extraordinarily long time. It’s possible the differences in jaw shape are not reflective of significant differences in evolutionary pressures (or at least, not anymore) unlike, say, the famous Darwin finches.
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Hmm, interesting question. One possible explanation is that alligators evolved to have a stronger bite force for crushing hard-shelled prey like turtles and snails, while crocodiles evolved to have a more versatile bite for catching and holding a wider range of prey, including fish, birds, mammals, and other reptiles. This divergence may have been influenced by differences in habitat, diet, competition, and other factors that selected for different traits. However, this is just a simplified hypothesis and there may be more complexities involved in the evolution of these fascinating creatures.
The width of the snout in alligators is likely an adaptation for eating turtles, and other slow armored prey like armadillos.
A wider snout can hold a larger target without it slipping away. Think trying to pick up a turtle with chopsticks vs BBQ tongs. But as a consequence of this, an alligator’s strike is significantly slower than a crocodile’s. Its jaws are not as aerodynamic.
In pure RPG terms, you can say that Alligators sacrificed speed for dexterity.
There are also crocodiles with very broad snouts, such as the Mugger and Dwarf Crocodile. And very large male crocodiles of many species develop broad snouts as they reach skeletal maturity (around age 35-40).
As a final neat bit of trivia, crocodiles and alligators may seem similar, but they haven’t shared a common ancestor in over 100 million years. For comparison, our ancestors at this time looked like a squirrel.
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