Unusual Animals:
ALLIGATORS
See ya later, Alligator! Take a look at some of these interesting facts about this member of the order Crocodylia. • Early Spanish explorers and settlers in Florida gave the alligator its name. This scaly reptile takes its name from the Spanish word largarto, meaning “the lizard.” • Alligators are native only to the United States and China. In the U.S., Louisiana has the most alligators, but large populations also live in Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. Although an American alligator can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to half a ton, on average, males grow to about 11 feet and females to about 8 feet. The Chinese alligator is much smaller, with males averaging a length of 5 feet and females at about 4.5 feet. The tail accounts for about half of an alligator’s length.
• An alligator’s jaws can clamp shut with enough force to break a person’s arm. But the muscles that open its mouth are very weak, so much so that a man can hold a full-grown alligator’s mouth closed with one hand. And although they move very quickly through water, alligators are slow-moving on land. • A female alligator will lay up to 50 eggs at a time, keeping them warm in a nest of rotting vegetation. The temperature of that nest will determine the gender of her offspring. Oddly enough, if the eggs are incubated over 93 degrees F, the embryos develop into males. Females are the result of temperatures below 86 degrees F, and between 86 and 93 degrees F, an embryo can develop into either gender. About 8 out of 10 baby alligators will be eaten by bobcats, snakes, otters, large fish, raccoons, and other alligators. • One of the main differences between alligators and crocodiles is their environment. Alligators dwell in fresh water, such as ponds, rivers, wetlands, lakes, and swamps, while crocodiles make their home in salt water. An alligator’s nostrils point upward, so they can breathe while the rest of the body is submerged in water.
• An American alligator has a life expectancy in the wild of nearly 50 years. • The menacing-looking mouth of an American alligator holds between 74 and 80 teeth at a time, but it might go through 2,000 to 3,000 teeth over its lifetime. • Although they seem to have a reputation for attacking humans, alligators are actually quite solitary and very rarely do they go after humans, usually only when provoked or when protecting their young. Their diet consists of fish, turtles, snakes, birds, and small mammals. Occasionally they eat other alligators.
• Although there are about five million American alligators in the southeastern United States, they were once nearly extinct. Years of hunters seeking the valuable hides landed alligators on the endangered species list. When the U.S. fish & wildlife Service prohibited the trade of hides, alligators made such a comeback that they were removed from the list in 1987.
Answer
Weekly SUDOKU
Answer
King CROSSWORD
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