Alligators at the Shallotte River Swamp Park in Ocean Isle Beach, NC, had a chance to thaw out this week and sun themselves after temperatures rose above freezing on January 9.
The American alligators survived the freeze last week by staying in the water with their snouts sticking out. The cold-blooded gators can endure temperatures by slowing their metabolism in a hibernation-like process called brumation. As soon as the temperature was back up and the sun was out, so were the gators!
Gators essentially allow themselves to be frozen in place, with their noses sticking out just above the water’s surface line, according to the video posted on Facebook by the Shallotte River Swamp Park in Ocean Beach, NC, about 200 miles east of Charlotte, where these gators live.
Watch the video above and here.
What you are seeing are their noses and really big teeth sticking out of the ice that formed last week during below freezing temperatures in the ice storm that blanketed the Southeast. It’s an amazing survival technique developed over millions of years.
The gators are thawed now but they’re not too happy. The video clip below, provided by the Shallotte River Swamp Park, is an update on their condition and life back to normal. Dun…dun, dun, dun, dun, dun!
Photos and videos courtesy Shallotte River Swamp Park
