Dentist pulls 3 teeth from alligator’s mouth in Florida — so it can eat bigger prey
Alligators have about 80 teeth, so it’s not ridiculous to think one might occasionally need a dentist.
However, try finding someone crazy enough to pull a tooth.
That need arose in May at St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida, and the patient was an 8.5-foot albino alligator with the intimidating name of Mr. Bones.
“Calling an available alligator dentist!” the farm wrote May 24 on Facebook.
“The albino American Alligators are special and need extra care than the other American alligators. Mr. Bones has a chronic jaw malformation that doesn’t allow him to open his mouth very wide, so he has some difficulty eating. With some teeth extracted, he will be better able to eat.”
Not surprisingly, Florida has an alligator dentist because ... well, it’s Florida, and gators are found in all 67 of the state’s counties.
Her name is Dr. Bridget Walker and she tends to “exotic and non-domestic animals” at the University of Florida’s Zoological Medicine Service.
The date of her house call was not revealed, but photos show Mr. Bones was belted to a board and had a towel placed over his head — presumably to keep him from seeing Walker welding a large syringe.
“Dr. Walker first gave Mr. Bones some mild sedation and then numbed parts of his jaw with a nerve block before extracting three front teeth,” UF Zoological Medicine wrote in a May 18 Facebook post.
“He received an antibiotic injection as well as a longer lasting pain medication to help keep him comfortable post procedure.”
Walker pulled the teeth with a large pair of pliers, and it took both hands, photos show.
Removing them should help Mr. Bones open his mouth wider — “to fit larger prey items,” the university said. (That’s the last thing their prey wants to see happen.)
The procedure was a success, the farm reports.
“His dental procedure and recovery went flawlessly and he is once again enjoying meals of rats, larger mice, and Mazuri croc pellet,” curator Gen Anderson said in an email.
The pellets are an alligator version of dog food, except they float in water and is are specially “designed to maintain good health without excess fat and energy” for reptiles.
Mr. Bones is believed to have hatched around 1999, which makes him about 23 years old. He came to the farm in March 2020, officials say.
St. Augustine Alligator Farm is about 40 miles south of Jacksonville on Florida’s east coast. It functions as a zoo and research facility accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, and is home to “about 750 crocodilians of 25 species.”
This story was originally published June 1, 2023 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Dentist pulls 3 teeth from alligator’s mouth in Florida — so it can eat bigger prey."