GROWTH REGULARITY IN CAPTIVE CHINESE ALLIGATOR, ALLIGATOR SINENSIS

The studies in this paper revealed that Chinese Alligator' s growth has a regularity in captive conditions. In captive population, growth rates of A. sinensis were much higher before 5 years old, and highest before 2 years old, and significately slowed down between 5 and 7 years old. Therewas a positive correlation between body length and body weight of the alligators, which presented linear correlation under50cm in body length, and curve correlation over50cm in body length. Growth of alliga-tors is also different between male and female, which, the body weight between sexes revealed that the male was significantly heavier than the female from beginning of 5 years old, and the growth rate of male was higher than that of female from beginning of 6 years old. After 10 years old, both index in male and female slowed obviously down in body length and body weight, and up to 15 years old bodily form was quite different from the male and female, the male was far larger than the female. According to analysis using von Bertalanffly growth model, both sexes of the alligators would hardly grow in body length after 25 years old of the female and 35 years old of the male, respectively. In overall population, the maximum body length of the female alligators would come to 173cm, of the male alligators come to 219cm. Among artificial overwintering except the first overwintering, the bodily state of A.sinensis didn t change evidently in hibernation inside wintering chamber, a marked consumption of physical energy occurred in the progress of outdoor hibernation. This result will provide theoretical basis for scientific breeding of A. sinensis.