Alligator Growth can Correlate to Age

by Jordan Hughes

Submitted : Fall 2016

The American Alligator was listed as an endangered species in 1967 and biologist needed a way to find if alligators were reaching sexual maturity to breed and increase the population growth rate. Using Schnutes’ general growth equation and inverting it, it was able to find the predicted age of an alligator from a given total length. After substituting the variables with actual data, it predicted the alligator age to be 48.8 years old.

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