10 Notable Differences Between Crocodile And Alligator
Difference between crocodile and alligator: Alligators and crocodiles are among the largest and fierce living reptiles in the world. The two reptile groups are close relatives, so their physical similarities are expected. Alligators and crocodiles are commonly confused with one another.
The major distinction between a crocodile and an alligator lies in their physics appearance. The snout of the crocodiles is long narrow and V-shaped while the snout of the alligator is wide and U shaped.
Alligator
Alligator are omnivores that belong to the Alligatoridae family. The alligator feasts on the same as crocodile does. But they also can eat snakes, mollusks, small fish, turtles and preys on animals that they can gulp in one go.
They eat plants and other vegetation near freshwater. The alligator usually preys on food that they can easily gulp down and they don’t chew their food.
Alligator likes the digestive juices to do all the hard work. Alligators are reptiles just like the crocodile, but distinctly different. The alligator is not completely carnivorous like the crocodile.
Alligators do get vegetables and need fresh waters to breed. Their life span may or may not have much to do with their length or habitat and it has more to do with their own internal vertebrate systems that underplay.
Crocodile
Crocodiles are the largest family in the crocodilian order with 14 living species that live throughout most of the tropics. Four species live in Central and South America; three species inhabit Africa; and another seven species are endemic to Asia and Oceania.
The largest species, the saltwater crocodile of Southeast Asia, can go up to 16 feet (4.9 meters) long and weighs up to 1,151 pounds (about 522 kilograms);
the smallest species, the dwarf crocodile, ranges between 4.9 to 6.2 feet (1.5 to 1.9 meters) long and weighs between 39.7 and 70.5 pounds (about 18 and 32 kilograms). Crocodiles have pointed V-shaped snouts.
Crocodiles have functional salt glands and these glands are completely missing in the alligator. This makes the crocodile tolerant of saltwater. The alligators are always found in the freshwater and never will one find them in saltwater.
Crocodiles hunt larger prey, such as sharks and large mammals such as buffaloes, apes, and even humans.
Notable Distinction Between Crocodile And Alligator
1. Crocodiles have functional salt glands and these glands are completely missing in the alligator.
2. The crocodile is usually brownish or olive green whereas the alligators are grayish-black in their external appearance.
3. A crocodile can lay 40 to 90 eggs at once.
4. Crocodiles move a little slower than the alligator.
5. The Alligatoridae with their lizard-like features has powerful and muscular tails.
6. Female alligators can lay 10 to 50 eggs in a given time.
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