American Alligator

Genus	Alligator
Species	Mississipiensis
Status	Endangered
Habitat	Muddy swamps and Rivers
Distribution	From the Southern Tip of Florida, North to South Carolina and from the east coast - west to Louisiana
Length	With Tail- 13-18 Feet
Weight	450-500 lbs
Behavior	Alligators spend most of their day sunning themselves on the banks. In places where the water fluctuates, alligators will dig hollows in the mud up to 65 feet deep. This fills the water and will stay filled through the driest of seasons. This not only guarantees the alligator with access to water, but they will stay pretty stable with the temperature and they can retreat there in extreme cold, and warm spells. They are also important to other animals that need year round water.
Feeding	Young feed on insects, shrimp, tadpoles, and frogs. As they grow they eat anything they can kill from fish to snakes. Adults eat mainly fish, but will catch anything that comes to the water edge. Swallowing small animals such as raccoons or muskrats whole and drowning larger animals like deer before ripping them into pieces..
Breeding	During April and May, a bull will attract a female late at night into the shallows and scare off other bulls with a low roar. The roar will make water dance on his back. He then grabs her in his jaw, being much larger then her, and then pushes her underneath him. She then builds a mound of rotten leaves and lays 25-65 eggs. She will guard her nest from predators such as raccoons and possums. Though floods and fungus destroy most nests. If all does well 2-3 months later, the babies hatch 8-inch independent perfect replicas of their parents. During the whole time they are in their nests the mom will not eat, but when they hatch her duties are not over. The babies make high pitch cries from inside the nest, which is a signal for her to dig them out and carry them one by one in her powerful jaws to the water. She then takes care of them for the next few months until they leave one by one to safe places. She can do everything but feed them, she will even scoop them up in her mouth when danger is near. The young grow about a foot a year reaching sexual maturity at about six years; males cannot mate until they defend a territory.
Did You Know	- Alligators cannot chew their food and anything they cannot swallow, they must drown and wait till the food begins to decay so they are able to rip up and swallow the pieces whole.
Conservation	Towards the turn if the century alligators were hunted for there skin and were at the brink of extinction. In 1950's a conservation program banned alligator hunting. Alligators were then bred at farms for there skin. This may seem cruel but it helped wild population in two ways. First they were no more in fear of man hunting them. Second, it helped the population because farms have to release a certain percentage into the wild each year. Alligators have since recovered and are no longer endangered. They now have to be controlled with hunting, because they loss there wild habitat and show up in peoples backyards.