14 DAY TRIAL // Courtesy of several wildlife documentaries showing crocodiles and alligators hunt zebras and whatnot, and gulping them down, few would ever suspect that these predators eat anything that isn't meat.
A recent investigation carried out by researchers working with the Wildlife Conservation Society contradicts this assumption.
Thus, the specialists argue that, every once in a while, Nile crocodiles, American alligators and other crocodilian species eat fruit and other healthy treats.
According to Newswise, the researchers reached this conclusion after documenting the feeding behavior of 18 species of crocodiles and alligators inhabiting various regions of the world.
It was discovered that 13 of the 18 different species taken into consideration for this study occasionally snack on fruit such as berries.
What's more, it sometimes happens that they feast on legumes, nuts and grains.
Some might argue that the animals eat these foods not because they want to, but because they accidentally gulp them down together with their prey.
However, the researchers maintain that the evidence they have at their disposal indicates that the alligators and crocodiles purposely ingest fruit and other similar foods in fairly large quantities.
“Although underreported, fruit eating appears widespread among crocodilians,” study lead author Steven Platt argues.
The researchers suspect that, by eating fruit, crocodilian species help spread the seeds and therefore play a very important role in forest regeneration.
As Steven Platt puts it, “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.”
The researchers also believe that, in the case of alligators and crocodiles, the practice of eating said foods yields some nutritional benefits. They hope future research will help shed more light on what these benefits are.
A detailed account of this investigation and its findings is made available to the public in the Journal of Zoology.