Can Alligators Run Fast?

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If an alligator were ten feet away from me, i would just call a priest and write my will. People, unless you smoke a mountain dew, there is no way you can pull a sustained five minute mile to outrun an alligator. Alligators are exceptional because they employ almost the full range of quadrupedal footfall patterns gats used by mammals,. including symmetrical gaits such as galloping and bounding.

Alligators, crocodiles and … a shut-down nuclear weapons plant? The excitement never ends when you’re Laura Kojima, an Alligator Ecotoxicologist. A longtime reptile cheerleader, Laura has passion to match some truly bananas stories about field work, tail smacks, gator jaws, mercury levels, swamp boats, and crocodilian evolution, overbites, and locomotion. Her incredible work keeps people -- and the gators -- safer in toxic waters and she recalls her favorite alligator bite and the one animal that sent her to the hospital. Also discussed: jorts & gator crotches.

[Audio note: the connection was a little spotty so please forgive occasional static!]

Follow Laura Kojima Twitter.com/laurakojima and Instagram.com/laura.kojima

A donation went to the WCS wild Siamese Crocodile conservation

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Theme song by Nick Thorburn