Alright, we're down here in Florida, and it's a weird state. It has giant predatory reptiles, hurricanes, floods, panthers, Miami, and a whole hosts of other threats to humans. However, people around here have a tendency to exaggerate (in line with what one might find in, say, Texas) about things. I got into a surreal argument last week with several of my co-workers who appear reasonable to the untrained eye. It began when one coworker's son asked me what the fastest land animal was. I replied, it was the cheetah. He said no, everyone says that, but the correct answer is the alligator. Since they aren't technically land animals, they are sometimes overlooked, but they can actually outrun cheetahs. Now, this is a twelve year old who's telling me this, so I said no, I think cheetahs are faster. Then it got weird. His mom said, well, they are only faster over a short period of time, maybe 30 seconds. And another coworker of mine said yeah, alligators are faster than cheetahs.

I sat for a second, dumbstruck. What was I to say? That there is no way, biomechanically speaking, that an alligator (an animal that is basically a huge pair of jaws attached to a huge tail) can cover any distance faster than a cheetah, an animal that's basically 4 really powerful legs? Well, I did say that. My coworker insisted that alligators are faster. He said, "have you ever seen one of those things run?" I said no but that I'd be surprised if they went 60 mph. I'd be surprised if they went 30 mph. Finally we dropped it and I said I'd look it up online.

So I did. And who won, the cheetah or the alligator? I'll let you see for yourself. 11 mph seems about right, seeing as they can't really flex their back on the forward/backward axis (it's called dorsal ventral flexion, according to Almea) which is necessary for real galloping.

Incidentally, in the drawing of the galloping croc on the website has its back bending at the neck and the tail, because it has ribs all along its torso.

Concerning the pirate scheme, how did the young one talk the rest of them into this? If I were them I'd just kill him for tricking them, rationality be damned.