Amazing Alligator Adaptations Explained: Can Alligators Hear?

Alligators have excellent hearing through both air and the water.

A common misconception that people often have is about identifying alligators from active crocodiles. Well, it is a no-brainer, and you can easily distinguish both apart if you know what makes them different from each other.

Alligators show their uniqueness with their long and armored 13 ft (4 m) body structure with thick scales and bony plates. Those are called osteoderms or scutes. Also, they have short and powerful legs and feet. The American crocodile also has its eyes on top of its head and has long pointing or pointed snouts.

Below you can find more interesting facts about amazing alligator adaptations. To find more, read about how do alligators mate? And how fast can an alligator run?

Can alligators hear out of the water?

Most of the time we see alligators striding on the water surface, with their eyes and ears above the water watching every movement. If it was a human, we can tell that he or she is listening keenly to all the sounds around him or her. But in the case of gators, we question, can alligators hear or not?

Alligators and crocodiles are said to have poor eyesight. They all have something called a nictitating membrane which protects their eyes, giving them sight, it helps them to see underwater.

Just like other animals, they have ears that are located behind the eyes of the alligators and crocodiles. The ears are very sensitive to the vibrations which alligators and crocodiles feel in the water.

Scientists and researchers often find that the ear and brain structures of alligators are perfectly adapted for their airborne hearing of sound. But the confusion comes when we often compare them to water or aquatic animals or reptiles.

To provide evidence, the scientists tested the hearing capacity or sense of eight young alligators, and males as well as female alligators staying above and below the water surface.

Scientists played a tone in a series of pitches of varying ranges from 100 - 8000 Hz to the reptiles. This was done to test the animals' sound responses. Their response was quite good, and it proved that they had a pretty good hearing sense as most air-adapted species of reptiles like crocodiles and alligators.

They had sharp hearing skills on land like their close relative vertebrate family members the birds. The alligator's hearing sense underwater was noted as good as goldfish, which is one of the best listeners among fish and aquatic animal species.

Do loud noises scare alligators?

Did you know alligators have existed for more than 150 million years, surviving beyond dinosaurs and flying reptiles?

Alligators and crocodiles are very sensitive to sound and noise. They have a perfectly matched ear and brain, sensing all the surrounding vibrations and noise. Let it be underwater or above the surface of the water, they are good to go with listening around.

Well for the question of if loud noises could scare away alligators or crocodiles or other reptile species, then the answer might be yes and no.

Sometimes if you are very near to them and make sounds, they could possibly jump out of the water and come for you and drag you to the river or lakes or its water source biting you.

So it is always good if you keep a good distance from the reptile species, as it might attack you any moment if you are near it.

Also sometimes it has been suggested by some people that loud noise could scare alligators away. However, these alligators and crocodiles are terrestrial animals.

Sometimes people take shrill noise whistles whenever camping near wild swamps or rivers or lakes so that whenever they encounter an alligator or crocodile, they whistle it loudly trying to scare the reptile away with the loud noise.

Do alligators have ears?

All alligators are known to have ears beneath their eyes which are said to be highly sensitive to vibrations and noise in the water and their environment.

American alligators from the family of Alligator mississippiensis species are mostly seen in southeastern regions of the United States of America. These alligators are now slowly entering into the list of endangered species. Due to the high resemblance to the American crocodiles, these Alligator mississippiensis or American alligators are threatened in the wild amid nature.

These national reptiles, the American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) normally prey on adult fishes, turtles, birds, frogs, snakes, aquatic invertebrates, small mammals, and even smaller alligators of their own kind. Even we humans can be treated as their prey.

Young alligators and female alligators are seen eating small fishes, wading birds, and aquatic invertebrates. But sometimes even these small alligators turn into food sources for raccoons, crabs, large snakes like pythons, turtles, and even big fishes.

The range and natural habitat of the creatures and species are mostly coastal plains, and swamps near water sources and rivers. They can also be seen on the Atlantic coast of Florida in North America, throughout the regions of coastal North Carolina, along the gulf coast regions of Texas.

These alligators can also be spotted in the central savannah area of Georgia and South Carolina.

These cold-blooded animals and reptiles cannot regulate their own body temperature and skin. But they try to get comfortable with the surrounding temperature of the environment.

How do alligators hear?

The study based on the capacity or range in which alligators can hear underwater and on the surface of water proved that they are pretty good in the case of listening and hearing the surrounding sound and noise.

All from their ancestors, alligators have managed to evolve more successfully overcoming their hearing problems in both the medium or media, that is above and below the wild water. Breeding alligators are often protective about their eggs and hatchling, and you must be careful about them while you go hunting or accompanying someone on a hunt.

Mating alligators are limited to being viewed on the surface.

Alligators have quite a different method of hearing than us humans or any other animals. We don’t see any ears out of their head like for us or the monkeys or dogs.

Yet they are known well for their excellent hearing sense in water and on the land. The ears of alligators are located behind their eyes and are not visible at first look.

The living reptiles show various ways of hearing senses. Well, they mostly utilize the sound waves that travel in the water as vibrations to hear when they are on or in the water.

Also, all reptiles have a thin membrane called the tympanum near the rear of their head, the stapes.

Reptiles like alligators and crocodiles hear when this tympanum in their inner ear vibrates responding to all the sound waves that enter and transmit all the vibrations to stapes. This canal that is situated between the ears of the gator helps it to pinpoint every sound and noise.

Who can hear better: alligators or crocodiles?

The wild American gator is a predator breeding in the freshwater regions. On most of the hot summer days, we can see these alligators lying on the water surface floating above it mid swim.

These wildlife predators play an important role in the ecology by digging holes in their habitat which collect water during the tough times of drought. Although these reptiles are primarily known to be freshwater animals and species, the female crocodiles and juveniles can occasionally be seen and spotted in seasonal wetlands like in Carolina Bay.

An experiment revealed that most reptile species, like crocodiles and alligators, use differences in the interaural of both volume and the arrival time of sounds to detect and determine from where the sound is coming. Of all the reptile families and species, the crocodile holds the position of being most social and vocal.

The hearing sensitivity of crocodiles is generally noted in the range of 100-3000 Hz. Some crocodiles have shown a high detection of frequency such as 8000 Hz. Also, alligators can hear from 100-3000 Hz range as well.

It is known that both alligators and crocodiles can hear pretty much in the same range.

If we look at the major differences between an alligator and a crocodile, we can find out that alligators have shorter and rounder snouts, unlike crocodiles who have a longer and a pointed one.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for can alligators hear? Then why not take a look at how many teeth do alligators have? or Alligator facts.