By William White

Published: March 21, 2008

There is one fact Dr. Ray Wilhite wanted vet students at the SAVMA Symposium to know: “Alligators are not dinosaurs.”

A geologist and paleontologist by training, Wilhite covered the basic anatomy of alligators Friday in one of the more than 15 wet labs offered along with lectures, academic competitions, tours and day trips to about 1,200 students from across the United States and Canada attending the Student American Veterinary Medical Association (SAVMA) 2008 Symposium at Tuskegee and Auburn universities.
“SAVMA Symposium 2008: Two Schools-One Dream” is the theme for the four-days of events being hosted by the Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine and the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Wilhite told the students that alligators are indigenous to 10 different states: South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma.
“They are pretty widespread,” he said.

“There are only two species of alligator: alligator mississippiensis, which is the American alligator, and alligator sinensis which is the Chinese alligator. The Chinese alligator lives in mudbanks and only grow to about four feet long.”

“The things that link alligators to birds are the structure of their lungs, structure of their kidneys, structure of their reproductive systems, the general articulation of their bones.”
As part of the lecture,

Wilhite went through the contents found in an alligator’s stomach and noted a crab shell, some plastic, piece of glass, string, bird bones and rocks, which aid with the digestion of things like the bones and shells.

He told them the way to guess the alligator’s length is to measure its lower jaw in inches, divide that in half, then that will be it’s length in feet.

He said that alligator farms in Louisiana supply almost all of the alligator skins to the world market.

“The farms down there (Louisiana) are very important. They supply, I think, 70 to 80 percent of the alligator skins in the world.”

Wilhite said alligators grow about 3 feet during the first year in captivity.

“So they go from hatchling to harvest in a year,” he said. “That’s what makes alligator farming viable.”

He said the vet students do need to know an alligator’s anatomy.

“You are not going to treat them very much, other than in a zoo situation. These students who end up being zoo vets could very well end up working on a crocodilia. It’s good to know the anatomy. It’s good to know where to give them an injection or draw blood, if you need to do blood work.

“I just wanted to make sure they understand I was giving them anatomy.

The vet students took advantage of the Wilhite’s wet lab session, and he said he always has visitors to his lab when people know he is going to have alligators there.

“I’m really excited that everybody likes alligators,” he said. “It makes this real easy to do. Everything is new, so you are not telling them anything they already know.”

For more information about the events, visit http://www.savmasymposium2008.com.