Reveling in reptiles
Description: The average size for an adult female American alligator is 8.2 feet, and the average size for a male is 11.2 feet. Exceptionally large males can reach a weight of nearly half a ton or 1,000 pounds.
Distribution and habitat: The American alligator is found from North Carolina to the Rio Grande in Texas. Alligators are usually found in freshwater, in slow-moving rivers. They are also found in swamps, marshes and lakes.
Diet in the wild: Alligators are carnivorous. They have very strong jaws that can crack a turtle shell. They eat fish, snails and other invertebrates, birds, frogs, and mammals that come to the water's edge. They use their sharp teeth to seize and hold prey.
Life span: American alligators may live to about 50 years in the wild.
Fun fact: The alligator family includes the American and Chinese alligators and all caimans. Spanish sailors visiting the New World thought the unfamiliar alligator was a huge lizard. In Spanish, "el lagarto" means the lizard. English sailors took the name as "allagarter" and in time it has become alligator.
