March 27, 2009

Attitude the alligator, pictured above. (Zootoo Pet News Photo by John McQuiston)

Odd Couple: Alligator Falls in Love with a Garbage Truck: "There's no accounting for love," said a Sarasota Jungle Gardens' staff member about Attitude, the alligator, who bellows her mating call bi-weekly when the garbage truck stops by the zoo.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Christine Costanzo went outside when she felt her office walls at Sarasota Jungle Gardens vibrate. She walked through the park, following the sound of the rumble until she found herself at an alligator's enclosure.

"And I watched her do her thing," she said.

Attitude the alligator had raised herself out of the water, head and tail pointing upward. Powerful contractions of her mid-section forced a series of low-pitched bellows resounding through the park.

"It's like a roar," said Costanzo, the attraction's public relations coordinator.

The sound is an alligator's way of communicating with another gator.

"Wild gators will do it more around mating season," said Julie Harter, Jungle Gardens' reptile curator.

The call of the wild could also be mistaken for the machine-made rumble of a large engine, which is fitting because Attitude seems to confuse the two.

Park personnel had noticed for a while that the gator, estimated to be about 30-years-old, did her bellowing on regular basis twice a week.

It wasn't until recently that they realized it happened coincidentally with another regular bi-weekly occurrence -- trash pick-up days.

"The sound that the truck makes that makes them think that it's another alligator," said Harter, adding that Attitude's announcements could be either an invitation to a potential mate or a warning to a perceived invader.

Harter believes it's a mating call. Other alligators and crocodiles in nearby pens could trigger Attitude's reaction if it were a territorial defense.

"There's no accounting for love," Costanzo added.

If it is a mating call, Attitude has never seen the object of her affection. The trash dumpster is not visible from her pool.

The garbage truck's driver, Dwight Trent Gordon, was unaware of the gator's greeting to his truck until Costanzo explained it to him.

"That's amazing," Gordon said. "I would like to see that."

He had not seen it because the gator bellows only when the truck is in gear. Costanzo has since given him a DVD showing Attitude in action.

Gordon drives the same Peterbilt truck on each garbage pick-up route, so it's not known if the gator is reacting to the sounds of this particular machine.

The truck usually makes its pick-up before the park opens, meaning most visitors have never seen Attitude's call. Recent publicity has drawn interest.

"People will ask, 'Is that the gator in love with the garbage truck?' " Costanzo said.

It's not something that an unknowing park patron would look for. When not appearing in the daily "Reptile Encounter" show, Attitude lies almost inert in her pool, only her eyes and nostrils poking out of the water.

Lying still makes a gator in the wild less visible to prey, and the conservation of energy means the gator can last more than a year between meals.

"That's a pretend gator," an elderly park visitor joked to a group of children trailing behind him as they stood outside the enclosure, with Attitude idle inside.

The trash truck was just beginning to rumble in the distance. Had they stayed just a few minutes more, they'd have seen how real the gator is.

John McQuiston is a senior correspondent for Zootoo Pet News. He can be reached at jmcquiston@zootoo.com.

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