Quirky nature question: If an alligator can live 3 years without eating, when precisely does it die of hunger?
I love nature. Sometimes I have to share my love for quirky parts of it.
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Did you know alligators can live 3 years without eating? I find it amazing. They’re cold blooded, so don’t need little energy to keep their bodies going. In the water, they need little energy to move. I think they can digest more parts of what they eat than many other animals.
Still, imaging going three years without eating.
Here’s the life or death question: say an alligator dies from going too long without eating:
When did it die?
I would guess its vital signs the day marking three years and the day before weren’t that different. Maybe a month before it was so weak it couldn’t catch or eat food even if some parts of its body and brain were still working. Was it effectively dead then, even if in principle if you put food in its mouth it could have eaten it.
What about the next day? If you forced some food into the corpse, might it revive it?
Can we learn anything about people and what life and death mean to us?
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