Alligator Ecotoxicology (GATOR POISONS) with Laura Kojima

Alligator Ecotoxicologist Laura Kojima wears a black baseball cap and green tank top and is smiling down at the small alligator in her hands.

Alligators, crocodiles and … a shut-down nuclear weapons plant? The excitement never ends when you’re Laura Kojima, an Alligator Ecotoxicologist. A longtime reptile cheerleader, Laura has passion to match some truly bananas stories about field work, tail smacks, gator jaws, mercury levels, swamp boats, and crocodylian evolution, overbites, and locomotion. Her incredible work keeps people -- and the gators -- safer in toxic waters and she recalls her favorite alligator bite and the one animal that sent her to the hospital. Also discussed: jorts & gator crotches.   

[Audio note: the connection was a little spotty so please forgive occasional static!]

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Follow Laura Kojima on Twitter and Instagram and

A donation went to Wildlife Conservation Society


Additional links you may enjoy:

Post-doc in the Parrott Lab

Savannah River Site

Alligator farming data

How to alligator farm, should you want to

Penile Anatomy and Hypotheses of Erectile Function in the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis): Muscular Eversion and Elastic Retraction aka GATOR DONGS

Rubbing gator bellies

NOPE BOAT

Picaridin brands: a blog from REI

How fast can Michael Phelps swim?

Laura’s YEET TWEET

Let this Milly Rock your world

Mercury and alligator aging

Weird stuff in animal bellies

Alligators? OK! That is… Oklahoma

Savannah River site Mercury

How did the mercury get into the Savannah River Site

Mercury in the Augusta, GA waters

Boiler slag?

Savannah River Site’s history

Winter gator brumation

Spinning in crocodilians: the DEATH ROLL

Monitoring the Savannah Nuclear Site

Crocodile tears!

Divergent evolution of terrestrial locomotor abilities in extant Crocodylia

Savannah River Site risk

Radiocesium and tritium in the Savannah River Site canals

2015 report on substance fishing on the Savannah River Sites

Legacy Contaminants in Aquatic Biota in a Stream Associated with Nuclear Weapons Material Production on the Savannah River Site

2015 report on Threats to the Savannah River Site

Are crocs dinos? NOPE. 

The Lacoste croc is really an alligator, FYI

Baby alligator distress call 


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Sound editing by Steven Ray Morris & Jarrett Sleeper

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

AnimalsAlie Ward