the.com/alligator
a 37-million-year-old survivor that watched dinosaurs die and decided not to bother evolving.
means A large, armored reptile of the Americas with a broad, rounded snout, found in freshwater rivers, swamps, and marshes.
from From the Spanish 'el lagarto' — literally 'the lizard.' Spanish explorers in the New World pointed at the enormous beasts in the swamps and called them, with admirable understatement, 'the lizard.' English speakers heard 'el lagarto' as one word, swallowed it whole, and over time it reptilized into 'alligator.' So the name still carries its Spanish article fused to its front, like a creature that never bothered to shed an old skin.
- bite force
- crushes bone at 2,900 pounds per square inch
- toothy math
- grows 3,000 teeth across a single lifetime
- jaw twist
- opening muscles weak enough to tape shut
- frozen survival
- sticks snout above ice and waits out winter
- momma duty
- females guard nests and carry babies in mouths
florida everglades — approximately 200,000 american alligators inhabit this 1.5 million acre wetland in southern florida
lake okeechobee — second largest freshwater lake in continental us with over 10,000 alligators, florida
xavier's bayou louisiana — legendary 23-foot 1,250 pound alligator shot in 2016, considered one of largest ever recorded