thalasuchus:cry-olophosaurus:bulucimix-aquamega:ecliptic-bite:tyrantisterror:instishoot:silverhawk:t
thalasuchus:cry-olophosaurus:bulucimix-aquamega:ecliptic-bite:tyrantisterror:instishoot:silverhawk:the differences between crocodiles and alligators in case u were not aware@dholesBoth are friends.@rashkahBut how about gharial and caiman?here comes the rest of the familySome extra notes!When an alligator has its mouth closed, you can only see the teeth of its top jaw. The others will show their top and bottom teeth interlocking!There are only two species of alligator: the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). There are only 6 species of caiman, which are in the same family as alligators!Caimans have cute little ridges on top of their eyes!You can tell a gharial from a tomistoma or freshwater crocodile by its stupid googly eyes set waaay on top of its head!Gharials and tomistoma are actually now thought to belong in the same family, making the tomistoma (or “false gharial”) more closely related to gharials than to other crocodiles!Compared to freshwater crocodiles with similarly-shaped slender snouts, the tomistoma often has gnarly teeth and an almost scoop-like upward curve to its snout. However, the best way to tell them apart is to know where the animal is from! Freshies live in Australia, while tomistoma live in parts of southeast Asia.Crocodiles are the most diverse group of crocodilians, so everything that isn’t obviously a gator, caiman, or gharial, is probably a crocodile!Okay, QUIZ TIME. What is this snubnosed friend?If you guessed alligator, you are correct! This is the lesser known (and critically endangered) Chinese alligator. Note its overbite!Next up, can you ID this beady-eyed little friend?Despite its short broad snout, this small friend is a crocodile! A dwarf crocodile, to be exact. It is native to western Africa and is the smallest species of crocodile! You can tell it apart from caimans, which have a very similar head structure, due to its lack of eye ridges.This last one can be tricky! Get a close look at the snout on this one:Very similar to the tomistoma pictured above, but this is an Australian freshwater crocodile! It has nice orderly teeth that don’t jut out at the edges of its mouth, and eyes set deeper into its skull than either the gharial or tomistoma.Hope you enjoyed this foray into crocodilian identification! Just don’t ask me how to ID babies because they’re basically all the same brand of cute and I can’t tell them apart.Image sources: x - x - x -- source link