Reptilia · Crocodylia
Alligator mississippiensisDaudin, 1801
Gator
Photograph by Kristen Diesburg, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating crocodilian from the Nearctic region, reaching 460 cm nose to tail.
Also called Alligator, American alligator, Florida alligator.
Reptilia › Crocodylia › Alligatoridae › Alligator
- Grows to
- 4600mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 85years
What is known
34 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 150,000, and Body mass (greatest) as 62,000 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- Increasing
The animal itself
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown, Gray
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 85years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33.5°C92 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 26–36°C79–97 °F
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 4600mm15 ft 1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 203mm8 in
- Body mass at hatching
- 76.6g2.7 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 62,000g137 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 150,000g331 lb
largely converted from length by allometry in the source
AnAge rates this record "high"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Marine Coastal, Wetlands
- Region
- Nearctic
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 70m
Amphibians, birds, fish, reptiles, mammals
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 39.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 20–50eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Egg length
- 76mm3 in
- Egg width
- 71mm2.75 in
- Age at first breeding · female
- 4380days
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Daudin
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1801
Keeping one
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 92 °F (33.5 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
3570kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 62,000 g, the heaviest recorded for Gator — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Still living
- — Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Limbs
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Suborder
- — Infraorder
- — Type locality
- — Active in
- — Mainland or island
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Alligatoridae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Alligator mississippiensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/alligator-mississippiensis
@misc{alligator_mississippiensis_2026,
title = {Alligator mississippiensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/alligator-mississippiensis}
}Sources
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.