h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't see the gator in the picture, but I'll take your word for it tat it's there.

The gator isn't in the picture. I didn't have a picture of an alligator. (Hint to h2g2 photographers.)

The alligator is in the video. If you aren't in Pliny, you won't see the video unless you *click on the blue text*.

I doapologize. I wwas in such a hurry to show how clever I was that I didn't see the video clickbait. Sorry

I think we should treat alligators with respect. I'm sure they were here first.

I recommend treating alligators with respect. They were here first, unless you live in western Pennsylvania, where their presence at shopping centres is due to their having escaped from somewhere else. In which case, they are repatriated - but first, they become memes in Pittsburgh...

Would they survive Pennsylvania winters?

It is widely assumed not, but I wouldn't bet on it. They can freeze in lakes and ponds with their snouts sticking out, and wait for the spring thaw.

Ah. the old brumation trick.

Oooh...an interesting thread...need to subscribe when Dmitri creates these things...

We had a really big gator but he crawled up on the bank and died...I expect someone with a yappy nasty little furball poisoned it.

The little gator had a triple-gang saltwater lure embedded in its mouth...some wit's sense of humor...

Gators are better people than some people.

If anyone needs pictures of alligators, I have hundreds: Louisiana Bayous, The Everglades. Okefenokee Swamp. the backyard, etc.

Alligator design was very successful...they have been here a long time...I've seen one in the backyard lunge out of the water to pick off a big softshell turtle basking in the sun...

Alligator nuggets taste like chicken...Raw snake chunks taste like raw snake.

http://pogopedia.wordpress.com/albert-alligator/

"We have met the enemy, and he is us"---Pogo wisdom very applicable today.

Its the alligator video! And good to see the Firecloud fellow in the Post again, after the travelogue years. Hey, Firecloud fellow.

Amazing, this brings alligators to the screens of the likes of me, who won't ever meet an alligator. I assume.

Erm, what was an alligator doing in a shopping centre in Pennsylvania?

Ahem.

Pogo is in the Edited Guide, because I put him there: A87897794

We'd love alligator photos for the Post. Send to postteamhg-at-h2g2-dot-com.

The alligator at the shopping mall near where I grew up just showed up one day, to the alarm of shoppers. He was probably let go from someone's house - they shouldn't keep them as pets, but people can be foolish. He went to a nice shelter in New Jersey.

It just caused Pittsburghers to laugh about weird things that happened. They had recently caught one on the other side of the city, and then one showed up in North Park, where it definitely has no business being, threatening to eat the ducks and such.

Every year, when the lake freezes over in North Park, the park rangers have to go and chip the ducks out of the ice. They fall asleep and get stuck. North Park ducks are reputedly amazingly dumb...

Dmitri,

One sheet in my murky archives is of a big gator staring at half of a ham sandwich. The sandwich is located on the broad snout of the gator. The gator might have crossed eyes and appears to be in deep thought. It was about 90 minutes by rented boat into the Okeefenokee Swamp...you can't have any evidence of a misdemeanor, however.

The photo I sent you with the Everglade City airboat ride has an interesting gator...check it after you process my E-mail. I will also dig out some shots of gators on the bank of Myakka River near where I live. They are taken from a canoe perspective...

Hi, CC...in a week or two you can go on an airboat ride through the Everglades...the driver is a former drug smuggler who got his "higher education" in a federal penitentiary.

You can't do that anywhere else but here.

No, indeed, you cannot.

Thanks, Phred! I'll get to the Everglades tomorrow, and it'll be in the 25 May issue (ooh, that's Towel Day, isn't it?). I'm just finishing up next week's issue today.

An airboat ride through the Everglades? Love the driver description. Definitely can't do that anywhere else.

Its been an alligatory few days. Alligatory. Probably not a word. Sounds like allegatory.




Anyway, we are doing life stories on email with a few people, in Cafe Stay Home, at the moment with my brother in law. He got to the time when he moved to Florida, saw his first alligator beside the road, kind of sunning itself. He stopped the car and got out to say hullo! wow! my first alligator! but his wife pulled him back in. She came from around there. He had read that they move quite slowly on land, so he could run away.

Is it true they can only move slowly on land?

I see, about the shopping mall incident. Kept as a pet???? People do keep strange pets. I wonder what's the weirdest pet anyone has ever kept.

Well, a friend of my friend's boyfriend had a pet spider that grew so big it covered the entire ceiling. Its legs were about six foot long and its body was the size of a water melon. Or maybe not really, but that's what it looked like in his dreams, because it brought on really weird dreams.

Really? No, I'm just imagining conversations.

When I was in college, somebody a few doors down form me had a couple of either alligators or crocodiles. Once or twice a day, he would warn the rest of us to close our doors, and he would let his critters race each other down the corridor.

It was a strange world then.