> assuming that the particular alligators in question aren’t too heavy, they are definitely capable of climbing trees, and they actually do this pretty frequently.
Here in Florida, I've seen larger alligators trying to climb and scale things, and I'd say it becomes pretty unlikely way before they're at a size to be a threat to an adult human.
They also need a pretty generous ramp, so the idea of one climbing up an oak tree after you is likely impossible.
The linked image shows a gator in a felled branch, which happens frequently in rivers and marshes when they're sunning. That's not the kind of "tree" you'd use to, say, escape from an alligator.
That being said, a fit human being is definitely going to be a much better climber than a gator. And it's extremely rare they ever go after full size adults (kids are more at risk).
I've seen some fail pretty hard on the fences, but I also think they're good climbing options for gators.
I was walking one night and saw ~8-9ft one about 20 ft up the road so I obviously stopped walking that way. It was going for a 3-4 ft concrete wall and just kept flopping and falling over repeatedly. I hung out for a while to see if it ever beat the tiny little wall, but nope. Just kept hitting the concrete.
Yup, he's just trying to go along his regular path from one watering hole to another, and somebody puts up a damn fence! What's a gator to do? Over, under, or through!
It was likely a crocodile. There are no alligators in India.
From the article: "There are only two species of alligator that still exist today: the American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, and the Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis. Given these names, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that these species can be found in either the United States (particularly in the southern states) or Eastern China."
From what I can tell, gharials mostly eat fish. The narrow jaw is likely adapted for catching fish underwater, says 'The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus): A review.' (1982) p535. While they have been observed to eat frogs, they did not eat a peacock nor rats, p536. "[V]ery large individuals are reported to eat other prey" besides fish [2].
"It is predominantly a fish eater, but occasionally takes turtle, birds and small mammals and is said to feed on corpses (Was it a someone’s observation or just a hearsay, if this declaration is based on some literature, please do cite it here)." [3]
I'm not saying they don't eat monkeys, only that catching monkeys on trees seems rare enough that it would likely be of scientific interest.
There's also only a few hundred adult gharials.
They share a habitat with mugger crocodiles. The latter have 'a broader prey base than the gharial including snakes, turtles, birds, mammals and dead animals' says the Gharial Wikipedia entry. However, it "has the broadest snout of any living member of
the genus Crocodylus"[2] so doesn't match faangguyindia's description.
Though the only other Crocodilia in India is the saltwater crocodile, which is 5x heavier, making muggers light-weight by comparison.
Finding information about gharials is complicated because there are "false gharials" in Malaysia, Borneo, Sumatra and Java, which definitely eat monkeys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_gharial
AFAIK most do. A few prefer brackish waters (like the American croc), but crocs in the saltie ranges tend to avoid them (as they’re full of salties), and crocs like the Nile, the Slender-Snouted, the Mugger, the Orinoco or the Dwarfs range way too far inlands for brackish waters to be their main habitat.
> ... the diapsid reptiles split into two main lineages, the archosaurs (ancestors of crocodiles and dinosaurs) and the lepidosaurs (predecessors of modern tuataras, lizards, and snakes).
Alligators are archosaurs.
All birds, including chickens, are feathered theropod dinosaurs, which are a type of archosaur.
So it's more correct to say that alligators hang out in trees because they are just big four-legged chickens.
They definitely do. My mom raised chickens free range for a while. They spent large parts of the day roosted in her cedar tree. They can't fly very high, but they can get enough lift to catch low hanging branches and climb up from there.
https://twitter.com/MattDevittWINK/status/750689348526432257...