mr_stubbs

Wendy Cassidy, Phoenix Herpetological Society

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the worldā€™s first bionic alligator. Mr. Stubbs will be that alligator. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster. He is ā€¦ the $6,000 alligator.

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Mr. Stubbs, an 11-year-old American alligator about the size of a medium dog, lost his tail eight years ago when a larger alligator bit it off. After painstaking work with trainers he sort of learned how to dog-paddle, but he was still slow and defenseless:

ā€œWe put him in deep water and he would roll over and capsize like a boat,ā€ said [Phoenix Herpetological Society president Russ] Johnson. ā€œWhen competition for food came, all the other alligators would win. Heā€™d be the last to the chow line.ā€

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So orthopedics R&D group the Core Institute partnered with Midwestern University to build Mr. Stubbs a $6,000 artificial tail. After some tweaking, they think theyā€™ve gotten the rubber-and-nylon-straps contraption to a point where Mr. Stubbs will be able to learn to use it like a natural tail, which could quadruple his projected lifespan ā€” a respectable 80 years, instead of 20 years dogged by spinal cord degradation, awkward movement, and struggling for resources.

Of course, he doesnā€™t know how to swim with it yet:

But go figure, heā€™s been swimming without a tail for half his life. Itā€™ll take him a little while (his trainer estimates three to six months) to remember how to swim when he has one. And while the new tail is light ā€” only nine pounds ā€” itā€™s a heck of a lot heavier than his butt has been in years. That makes it easier for Mr. Stubbs to walk in a straight line, since heā€™s now adequately counterweighted, but it must be kinda weird in the water.

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Once heā€™s re-learned how to move with his substitute tail, it will be time to teach Mr. Stubbs to take full advantage of the thingā€™s bionic potential. Perhaps it can be wired for cable, or used to store snacks.