Brave Child Helps Wrangle an Alligator From a Florida Highway
Talk about a crazy story! ABC7 shared a video clip of a little boy helping to wrangle an alligator that was found on a Florida highway, and the young child appeared to be fearless! The clip was shared on Monday, April 8th and shows a man who was sitting on back of a large alligator's back while holding the alligator's mouth held shut.
The young boy is standing in front of the alligator, wrapping tape around the alligator's mouth. What's so wild about this story is the fact that there is a police officer standing and watching the whole thing unfold. Letting a child be a part of this doesn't seem like a very safe thing to do!
If I had to guess, I'd guess that the man sitting on top of the big gator was the boy's dad or relative, but there was no additional information provided about the scene. I did a little digging and found out a bit more about the story. According to News4Jax, the boy and man come from a family of alligator trappers. This was just par for the course for the two of them! ABC7 commenter @Chris James pointed out, "Very cool, this kid knows what he is doing! Most likely he grew around alligators in Florida. Give this Kiddo Credit! Outstanding Job!!" The alligator was then placed in the back of the man's vehicle; no word on what they were going to do with the beast.
Related: Huge Alligator Crossing South Carolina Street Stops Tourists in Their Tracks
Alligator Facts Worth Hearing About
This story came just days after a huge alligator in South Carolina meandered across a busy street lined with tourists, stopping them all in their tracks. Just like in this video everybody was so calm about it, but I would've been freaking out!
Alligators are scary animals to most people, and for good reason. National Geographic calls them apex predators and had this to say about their feeding habits, "They feed mainly on fish, turtles, snakes, and small mammals. However, they are opportunists, and a hungry gator will eat just about anything, including carrion, our pets and, in rare instances, humans."
But there are some interesting facts about these creatures worth mentioning, like this fact from TreeHugger; alligators are one of the oldest animals around. "American alligators appeared about 84 million years ago, and their ancestors evolved more than 200 million years ago. The only older reptiles are turtles and tortoises."
They also shared this cool and mostly unknown fact about gators, "One of the weirder facts about alligators is that the sex of them is determined not by DNA but, rather, by climate. If the temperature in the baby alligator nest is warm, male alligators are born; if the temperature is cool, the babies are females." Unlike most reptiles, mothers also care for their offspring after birth instead of letting them fend for themselves.
Fortunately, here in Northern Georgia, we don't worry about running into alligators throughout our day, and that's something that I can say that I'm not sad about!
Looking for more PetHelpful updates? Follow us on YouTube for more entertaining videos. Or, share your own adorable pet by submitting a video, and sign up for our newsletter for the latest pet updates and tips.
