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American Alligator
Alligator mississippiensi
28.9387, -81.3498
Field Notes
Description:
The American alligator has four short legs, a broad, round snout, a long and powerful tail and a rough hide with scales. Adult males can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to half a ton, though on average, males are about 11 feet (3.4 m) long, while females are about 8 feet (2.6 m).
American alligators have nostrils that face upward, which allows them to breathe when the rest of them is submerged underwater.
Habitat:
St. Johns River.
Notes:
American alligators can live up to 50 years in the wild, according to the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Alligators are generally very solitary animals and, contrary to popular belief, alligators rarely attack humans, unless provoked to do so, particularly when they are protecting their eggs or young.
Alligators feed on fish, turtles, snakes, birds and mammals, and will even engage in the cannibalistic practice of eating other alligators.
80 percent of young alligators fall prey to bobcats, wading birds, raccoons, snakes, otters, large bass and larger alligators. When they exceed four feet in length, their only predators are other alligators.
American alligators have between 74 and 80 teeth in their mouth at any given time, and each gator can go through 2,000 to 3,000 teeth during its lifetime.
The alligator is called a "living fossil" from the Age of Reptiles, as it has existed on Earth for the past 200 million years.
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