A five foot alligator feeding on…..one inch poeciliid fishes?

A few weeks ago while biking the 15-mile loop of the Everglades Shark Valley, I came across an alligator in a drying pool engaging in some interesting behavior.

It looked as if the alligator was employing a feeding technique to capture and eat poeciliid fishes (perhaps Gambusia holbrooki). The alligator was in a small muddy pool surrounded by schools of poeciliids which were swimming all around it. This was the only fish that I saw in the pool. The alligator was sitting motionless with its arms sticking out and it would intermittently begin waving them back and forth (as if scaring the poeciliids forward toward its mouth) at the same time that it opened its mouth wide, turned its head to the side, and looked to very carefully take a big mouthful of water. It wasn’t obviously biting or eating anything large. It repeated this several times and there were some dead poeciliids floating in the water after it did this. Admittedly, the alligator did seem rather large to be feeding on such small prey items, but I cannot otherwise make sense of these behaviors.