Nile crocodiles, American alligators and other crocodilians enjoy fruits along with their normal meat-heavy diets of mammals, birds, and fish, according to a team of biologists led by Prof Frank Mazzotti from the University of Florida.
Nile crocodiles. Image credit: University of Minnesota.
Their study, reported in the Journal of Zoology, looked at 18 crocodilian species ranging from the American alligator to the Nile crocodile.
The results show that 13 of the species consumed some form of fruit including a variety of berries, legumes, nuts, and grains.
While the team says some of the fruit ingestion may have been incidental to prey capture, evidence shows that other fruit is consumed deliberately and in large quantities.
Much remains to be learned about how crocodilians process carbohydrates and other plant-based nutrients, though studies suggest that fruit eating is likely to yield nutritional rewards for crocodilians.
“Although underreported, fruit eating appears widespread among crocodilians,” said study first author Steven Platt from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
“Given the biomass of crocodiles in many subtropical and tropical wetlands and their capacity for ingesting large numbers of fruits, we consider it likely that crocodilians function as significant seed dispersal agents in many freshwater ecosystems.”
______
Bibliographic information: Platt SG et al. Frugivory and seed dispersal by crocodilians: an overlooked form of saurochory? Journal of Zoology, published online July 16, 2013; doi: 10.1111/jzo.12052
