Alligators

American Alligators are semi-aquatic reptile characters that are shown or mentioned in Showtime’s series DEXTER.

Season One

 * "Popping Cherry"

When Dexter Morgan returns from stalking Jeremy Downs through heavy brush, he is startled by an alligator. Dexter spins around, stumbles and falls, and ends up getting soaked. He is furious that he allowed it to happen.

Season Two

 * "Waiting to Exhale"

When Dexter borrows a tranquilizer gun and a tranq dart from work, he claims that a gator ate his puppy. In reality, he plans to take down Little Chino.


 * "Left Turn Ahead"

James Doakes has a near miss with an alligator when he escapes from the cabin in the Everglades. When he stops to take a drink of water, he notices it in time and moves away.


 * "Left Turn Ahead"

After Dexter kills Esteban and Teo Famosa at the cabin in the Everglades, he mentions that he and Doakes fed them to alligators.

Season Three

 * "The Damage a Man Can Do"

There is an alligator sculpture on Rita's coffee table.

Season Four

 * "Slack Tide"

An arm of a murder victim is found inside an alligator that was shot by Joe Nix. Joe tells the police that the alligator had tried to eat his dogs, so he decided to kill and eat it. When he cut open the alligator, he discovered the arm and called it in.

Also in this episode, there is an alligator sculpture prominently displayed on a shelf in Rita and Dexter's House.

Season Five

 * "My Bad"

Harrison wears a shirt with an abstract alligator drawing similar to Rita's alligator sculpture and the caption "See you later Alligator.... in a while crocodile".


 * "Practically Perfect"

Dexter calls Dead Animal Pickup to falsely report an alligator near County Road 5, Mile Marker 31. His objective is to lure Boyd Fowler to that location so he can capture him, but things go awry. When Dexter injects Boyd with M99, Boyd quickly shoots him with a trang dart and they both end up in the emergency room.

Season Six

 * "Sin of Omission"

Lisa Marshall is found dead, posed as The Whore of Babylon in a tableau. She's wearing a horned mask and sitting atop seven alligator heads.

Alligator Trivia

 * An estimated five million American Alligators live throughout the southeast United States, with well over a million living in the state of Florida. The U.S. is the only nation on earth where both alligators and crocodiles live together. American crocodiles are much fewer in number, with only about 2,000 living in Florida.
 * American alligators live in freshwater environments, such as ponds, marshes, wetlands, rivers, lakes, and swamps, as well as in brackish habitats. In late spring, they travel looking for mates and may be found in urban areas, such as golf courses, college campuses, drainage systems, or swimming pools.
 * Alligators are carnivorous. They mainly prey on animals they can kill and eat with a single bite, such as fish, waterfowl, insects, snails, crustaceans, worms, turtles, and small mammals. Large alligators may kill deer, Florida panthers, other alligators, black bears, calves, foals, goats, hogs, and full-grown cattle and horses. They frequently take domestic dogs and cats. Prey that cannot be eaten in a single bite is grabbed and dragged into the water to drown. The gator then spins wildly until bite-sized chunks are torn off. This is referred to as a "death roll." Alligators are the apex predator throughout their distribution. In Florida, feeding wild alligators at any time is illegal.
 * Fatal alligator attacks on humans do not happen often, although a dozen or more bites are recorded each year.