Description
- Alligator mefferdi
- Late Miocene Age
- Dixie County, Florida
- Specimen measures 2.91″ wide
- More Alligator Fossils
Alligator mefferdi is an extinct species of alligator described by Charles Craig Mook. They lived in the Miocene period
Inside the scute is a bone that helps protect the alligator from attack. Alligators have numerous special features that have allowed them to stick around for 180 million years. For example, alligators are armor-plated. Bony plates inside the skin, called osteoderms or scutes, make the skin very hard to penetrate.
Osteoderms are bony scutes embedded underneath the dermal layers of the skin acting as a protection of the internal organs and tissues. Additionally, these scutes function as an aid in temperature regulation. The scutes are inter-linked by fibrous connective tissue.
