alligators are literally the closest thing we'll ever get to seeing a living dinosaur dude
this isn't just me saying it, this is every goddamn paleontologist in the world saying it
So much wrong I don't even know where to start... Granted, I half suspect that the only "paleontologist" you've heard from is Dr. Alan Grant -- who isn't really a doctor but an actor -- and I think even he might have made the distinction between the two.
dude
the basic crocodylia form has been around for over 180 million years
alligators and crocodiles are the closest thing we have to dinosaurs
actually go and google this, because you're making yourself look stupider than usual
The Crocodilia (or Crocodylia) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 83.5 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage) and are the closest living relatives of birds, as the two groups are the only known survivors of the Archosauria. Members of the order's total group, the clade Pseudosuchia, appeared about 250 million years ago in the Early Triassic period, and diversified during the Mesozoic era. The order Crocodilia includes the true crocodiles (family Crocodylidae), the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), and the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae). Although the term 'crocodiles' is sometimes used to refer to all of these, crocodilians is a less ambiguous vernacular term for members of this group.
ffs dude
Arguing that they were alive in the same period doesn't make them dinosaurs. Again, the Coelacanth exists in an arguably more unchanged state and has often been used as the basis for the erroneous claim that dinosaurs may still be alive somewhere. ---