Talk:American alligator

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the American alligator article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1

American alligator has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 19, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
September 12, 2012	Good article nominee	Listed

Current status: Good article

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Amphibians and Reptiles Mid‑importance

	American alligator is part of WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, an effort to make Wikipedia a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use resource for amphibians and reptiles. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Amphibians and ReptilesWikipedia:WikiProject Amphibians and ReptilesTemplate:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptilesamphibian and reptile articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Distribution

Should be Texas to North Carolina unless someone can furnish a source. Current sources for western and northeastern limits in range are pretty explicit:

"Though they have not returned to Virginia just yet, American Alligators can be found from Florida to North Carolina, just shy of the VA border." (Virginia Living Museum)

"The American alligators were only spotted in the US side of the Rio Grande in old meandric spots called "Resacas" ... The reports of sightings and capture of alligators in the Mexican side of the Rio Grande are possibly due to specimens that were released or that have escaped from private collections, but could also indicate a natural occurring migration of alligators ... We hope to come back to the site and do nocturnal surveys to more precisely detect the range limits of these two crocodilian species."(Sigler 2007)

Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 06:41, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Warm Temperate Climate

I have noticed that an editor has changed the term "warm temperate" to "subtropical", which is fine and doesn't require a revert, as the two terms are interchangeable. However the claim "warm temperate climate doesn't exist" is inaccurate in itself. Indeed the Köppen classification system uses the term subtropical, but there are other major classification systems which often use this term, as indicated in bold letters in the article the editor themselves linked while making these claims. Just wanted to make that clear, despite the edit itself not requiring any further changes. 85.153.200.69 (talk) 12:35, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alligators growing throughout their lives.

I feel like this assumed "fact" about crocodilians and reptiles in general really could use some editing on many wikipedia articles, for the simple fact that despite how often it is repeated as a fact, there is little evidence most reptile species actually grow throughout their lives. Indeed there is substantial evidence most of them don't. I'm new to editing on wikipedia though, so I am unsure how proper it is to remove stated things from an article if the source I include isn't up to snuff. Here's some sources I am considering and I'd like to know if I should just include one or all of them:

https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/natural-world/no-crocodiles-are-not-immortal/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170503110755.htm

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34075719/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perentie Fan (talk • contribs) 01:34, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Statistics

Hello @Adpr99: Do you have a source for this edit? Invasive Spices (talk) 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Age

What is the average lifespan of the American alligator? The article doesn't say. 192.31.105.163 (talk) 01:02, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I added a Lifespan section. It looks like the average age is around 50 years. Cougroyalty (talk) 23:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Cougroyalty: 'Possibly over 70 years'. Well, in the Płock zoo still lives a female American alligator named Marta, officially born in 1930 (purchased in 1960)... BasileusAutokratorPL (talk) 22:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]