Read the full article by Derek Davis (earth.com)
“For more than a century, scientists have borrowed from animals’ senses to detect dangers humans cannot see. Coal miners once carried caged canaries underground, trusting the small birds to collapse from carbon monoxide before the gas reached lethal levels for people.
Today, researchers in North Carolina have turned to a far larger and tougher animal to read the chemistry of a poisoned river.
A predator that rarely gets sick
American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) are built to shrug off injury. They tear at one another during territorial fights, drag prey through bacteria-laden water, and still recover from deep wounds with startling speed. Their blood carries potent antimicrobial properties that help them heal clean.
That resilience is precisely what made one population so alarming. Alligators living in the Cape Fear River carried open lesions and infected wounds that refused to heal. When an animal famous for fighting off infection starts failing to do so, scientists take notice.”…