Alligators can display mating loyalty

AIKEN, S.C., Oct. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say alligators can display the same loyalty to mating partners as birds -- a finding that might lead to understanding dinosaur mating habits.

Scientists at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, led by Travis Glenn, Ruth Elsey, Tracey Tuberville and Stacey Lance, said their 10-year study at a Louisiana wildlife refuge showed up to 70 percent of female alligators chose to remain with their partner, often for many years.

"Given how incredibly open and dense the alligator population is (at the refuge) we didn't expect to find fidelity," Lance said. "To actually find that 70 percent of our re-trapped females showed mate fidelity was really incredible.

"I don't think any of us expected that the same pair of alligators that bred together in 1997 would still be breeding together in 2005 and may still be producing nests together to this day."

The discovery, he said, presents new insight into the complex mating system of the alligator. Since crocodilians are the sole surviving reptilian archosaurs -- a group of ancient reptiles that includes dinosaurs and gave rise to birds -- the scientists said their finding might mean crocodilians are in a unique phylogenetic position to provide information about the ancestral mating systems of both birds and many dinosaurs.

The research appears in the journal Molecular Ecology.