Kayak Jack said:
You guys fartin' around with one of the world's oldest predators .
Jack
There is a fellow down here you need to spend a day with, only if you want to have some fun.
He takes pictures of the lizards but he does it in a different way .... He has a waterproof camera and swims with them. So far he has all of his arms and legs and has not been bitten by any of them but has taken some really nice pictures and close up's.
Since man has walked on this planet he has always called the Crocodilian family dragons and made stories up about how nasty they are when in reality they are not that bad. Anyway the ones we have, not those suckers in Australia..... they do like folks for supper.
I am talking about the Alligator mississippiensis species
(longest word Chuckie ever writ - Jack cutting in)
Some interesting information from the Book "Alligators and other Crocodilia" by Dick Bothwell.... I had to recheck sections of his book to make sure I had the names and places correct.
When the Spanish Explorers landed and saw then they called them "The Terrible Lizard" or "el largato " which later was shortened to alligator or gator.
Back in the dark ages the el largato was not short by any count, in 1940 in the Big Bend section of Texas they uncovered a prehistoric Gator skull. Broken sections of the skull were painstakingly dug from the rock and pieced together. Result , "Phobosuchus" who , when he roamed the earth must have been a truly terrifying sight. Picture a crocodile over 45 feet long with jaws three feet in length, studded with six inch teeth. In the same rocks were dinosaur bones, fellow countrymen of this great-great-great grandfather of Crocodilia.
The crocodiles saw the dinosaurs rise, decline and vanish. These survivors of the Mesozoic era, the oldest of all living reptiles, saw mammals develop and then man come on the scene.
In ancient times, crocodiles are 1st mentioned by the Historian Pliny. The old Roman recorded that 36 of the reptiles were slautered by Coliseum gladiators in the days of Agustus -- or perhaps it was the other way around.
Some of the Egyptians considered the crocodile sacred while others hunted him as an enemy.
The inhabitants of Thebes and the shores of Lake Moreris regarded him with veneration. Each person has a tame one and feed then a daily ration of food.
One was kept in a tank in the city of Crocodinopolis , carefully tended by priests and fed an unnatural diet of roasted meats, small cakes and mulled wine.
The crocodile is even mentioned in the Bible ... "In Job 41.1 and Psalms 74:14.
"Canst thou draw out
leviathan with an hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou letest down? Canst thou put a hook into his nose? Or bore his jaw through with a thorn? . . . Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?. . . None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?
" Who can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terrable round about. His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that no air can come between them . . . his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning
"Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out ... the sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. Darts are counted as stubble, he laugheth at the shaking of a spear... Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
Back to almost modern times........
The Timiquan Indians ( who inhabiated Florida some six centuries ago) liked the Gator , especially when he was smoked for there supper.
The early French Explorers recorded this action . The Indians would hold a large log which they had sharpened to a point at one end, wait till the gator had opened wide "the doors to his face" then rammed the log down the large gator throat.
Chuck.......