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 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.
Latest Answers