A woman from Florida captured a fascinating video showing a male alligator engaged in a mating ritual, often described as “water dance”, to woo his fellow gators in the swampy waters of Lake Apopka.

Sharing the video on Facebook that you can watch here, Evelyn Bell told the station that she had encountered this sight while driving across Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive- which is a nature preserve in Orange County, Florida. The video has been widely appreciated on the internet with many calling the spectacle “amazing”.

It was the low-baritone rumbling of the lovesick gator that first caught her ear as she was driving through the preserve. Curious, she had to know what was brewing in Lake Apopka. She followed the sound and her curiosity was rewarded when she eventually found the dancing alligator, who she filmed from her car.

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In the video, the creature is seen by the banks of the canal with his tail in the air- poking out of the water, as he bellows moving back and forth in the water, before eventually laying to rest. 

This loud, very low-pitched serenading is one of the ways in which male alligators seek to attract prospective female companions during the mating season. Apart from being very loud, and thus commanding the attention of any females searching for their ‘man’, these low-frequency rumbles also produce vibrations that cause the water around the alligator to shoot up above the surface like a 100 little fountains, which is why this phenomenon is called the “water dance”!

One netizen joked that it was very possible that the Gator had found Miss Bell ‘cute’. However, she informed in follow-up comments that there were in fact plenty of other alligators in the vicinity that our amorous protagonist might have been trying to attract. 

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“Wow!! How magnificent is that creature!!! The sounds, the vibration, and ripples on the water… absolutely amazing!” exclaimed one commentator. 

In other, less wholesome alligator news, a Florida resident was bitten by an alligator last week as he was walking across a motel, after mistaking the reptile for a dog, and in May, another Florida man who was reportedly searching for a lost frisbee was killed by a lurking alligator.

It is safe to thus conclude that these magnificent reptiles are best appreciated from the safety of our phone and tablet screens!

Also read: Police: Man who died in lake with gators missing 3 limbs