An american alligator was seen capturing prey on a camera in Florida waters Live Science reported Wednesday.
Scientists attached the camera as part of a study to observe how alligators behave when finding food to eat Live Science reported.
"We discovered that alligators forage at all times of the day, but increasingly during the night and evening hours, however they were most successful in the morning and while attacking prey below the surface," said the researchers, James Nifong from the University of Florida and colleagues, in a statement Live Science reported.
The study, in the Public Library of Science's PLOS One science journal found the best time for alligators to hunt was in the morning Live Science reported.
"If submerged at the time of prey capture, alligators often surfaced to immobilize, crush, reposition, and swallow captured prey," the scientists said in the study Live Science reported.
Researchers did their work by examining species stomachs in the past Live Science reported. Scientists also performed on the spot analysis on caught animals, or figuring out how much food they need on a regular basis Live Science reported.
"What's really remarkable, they are not only using lures, but they are timing it to just when the birds they want to capture are nesting and looking for sticks to use," Gordon Burghardt, an ethologist or animal behaviorist at University of Tennessee Knoxville told Live Science. "They are making some assessment of the birds themselves." Burghardt is also a comparative psychologist at UT-Knoxville, and had no role in the study.
The alligators grabbed prey 50 percent of the time, Live Science reported. This amounted to 31 out of 59 of the on camera incidents Live Science reported.
"They operate on a different time scale; they do things more slowly," Burghardt told Live Science. "Sometimes we don't have the patience to let them strut their stuff, as it were so this kind of study is important," Burghardt told Live Science.
