I Love Dinosaurs

We are three kids and our Mom who love dinosaurs. We like to read about them and learn about them. We will be exploring the internet to find cool dinosaur stuff and we will tell you about it here. We will tell you all about our adventures too!

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Alligator or Crocodile

We have been having lots of fun learning about Alligators and Crocodiles and we wanted to share the answer to the question we hear most adults asking. How can you tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?

In a crocodile the fourth tooth on the lower jaw is visible. But the full answer in colour with lots pictures is here at Alligators vs. Crocodiles. There is a fantastic guide available from Environment Canada here. It is prepared for customs officers who have to help protect all of the endangered species of crocodilians. It shows how to identify all the different species of alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and gharials. We didn't know there were so many.

And we really like this site, Crocodilians: Natural History. It has all sorts of great facts, pictures, and even movies of crocodiles. Their links page is a great resource for learning anything you might want to know about crocs.

Crocodiles are living dinosaurs. They have been around since the Late Triassic (about 225 million years ago). There is a neat site called The Archosauria that has info about the ancient crocodile ancestors.

We got interested in crocodilians again because we got to pet one at a show recently put on by Safari Jeff and Safari Shannon from Great Green Adventures. One of our other favourite Crocodilian shows is with Chris and Martin Kratt and Zoboomafoo.

My Hero (Safari Jeff)