American alligator

Alligators are ambush hunters that can wait motionless for hours. Being cold-blooded, they bask to warm up and slow almost to a stop in winter, sheltering in dens dug into banks. In a freeze an alligator can keep its snout above the ice and ride out the cold. Females guard their nests and stay with their young for a year or more, answering their grunts.

In droughts, the holes alligators dig and keep open are often the last water for miles, and fish, turtles, frogs and wading birds survive in them. Their abandoned nest mounds are used by turtles laying their own eggs. Alligators were hunted close to extinction in the last century and have recovered across the Southeast, one of the clearest conservation successes on the continent.

Nest — A mound of vegetation and mud built by the female near water
Eggs — Usually 20 to 50
Incubation — About 60 to 70 days; nest temperature decides whether each egg becomes male or female
Young — About 20 cm long at hatching; they stay near the mother for one to two years
Maturity — At about 10 years
Lifespan — Wild alligators commonly live 35 to 50 years

• Keep well back from any alligator, and further from one guarding a nest or young.
• Never feed an alligator. A fed alligator learns to approach people, and feeding them is illegal in Georgia and Florida.
• Keep dogs on a lead near fresh water in the Coastal Plain; alligators treat them as prey.
• An alligator crossing a road or resting in a pond in spring is usually moving between waters, and it will move on if left alone.

• An alligator on land will chase you. Alligators lunge a short way at prey near the water's edge but do not run people down; walking away is enough.
• Baby alligators on their own have been abandoned. The mother is almost always nearby and will defend them.

• Alligator snapping turtle
• Common snapping turtle