ALLIGATORS AND CROCODILES 



THE CHINESE ALLIGATOR 



Until the year 1870 alligators were believed to be 

 purely New World Crocodilia, though crocodiles were 

 known to extend their range from East to West, indeed 

 from China to Peru. In 1870 this view was partly 

 proved to be inaccurate, and entirely so in 1879, wh en 

 the Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis, was definitely 

 described from the Yang-tse-Kiang. To the visitor 

 to the Reptile House there will appear to be no great 

 facility for distinguishing Crocodiles from alligators. 

 And yet there are several points in which these two 

 divisions of the existing crocodilia can be observed to 

 differ from each other. The true alligators have the 

 fourth tooth on each side of the lower jaw fitted into 

 a pit in the upper jaw when both are closed, while in 

 the crocodiles this same tooth fits into a notch at the 

 corresponding spot in the upper jaw. Judged by this 

 standard the Chinese crocodilian is unquestionably 

 not a crocodile, but an alligator. The differences 

 which mark this Flowery Land alligator from others 

 of America are but slight, and both crocodiles and 

 alligators are linked so closely together that anatomy 

 is somewhat hard put to it to separate them by any 

 than the most trivial characters ; so that the general 

 features of the crocodile tribe can be as well illustrated 

 by the type we have selected as by any other. Other- 

 wise it might have seemed a little perverse to select for 

 the type of this group a creature which is not certainly 

 to be seen by vis'tors to the Zoo. It has, however, 

 been on view, and very possibly will be again. 



The crocodile tribe can hardly be mistaken for any 

 other Saurians. And yet the very name alligator, a 

 corruption of the Spanish Una Lagarta, testifies to the 

 confusion which may spring in the non-zoological 

 mind. That the crocodiles and alligators are con- 

 fined to water only, leaving their streams and pools 



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