Living with the alligators

 Know thine enemy, right?

 Time to learn about alligators. They are phenomenal. Where to begin?

The babies stay with their mothers for up to two years. That's longer than some of us human Moms, just saying. These animals are named after the Spanish word for lizard, but they take care of their young, which is cool. That is one big lizard momma I don't want to mess with. The sex of the offspring is based on the temperature of the nest. So interesting. Imagine having 20-50 sons or 20-50 daughters all at once. Or maybe the temperature of the nest changes as they are developing? I would love to watch a nature show, but many of them are over dramatized, and show a lot of the violence of them being predatory eaters. I don't want to feel sorry for a deer, I want to learn about the real details of these reptiles.

The senses of all crocodilians are quite powerful in comparison to other reptiles. They have an excellent sense of hearing and a well developed inner ear; mothers can actually hear hatchlings calling while still inside the eggs. They have extra sensory organs inside the snout for a heightened sense of smell and their vision above water can be compared to that of an owl. They also have excellent night vision and are thought to be able to see color.

I like learning about these kinds of things. It helps me to balance my fear of them with a true respect for them. If they have such great sensory perception and take care of their young, are they self aware? Do they have a though process? They have an extra heart chamber, not the usual 3. So alligators have a big heart. I love this.

Alligators are odd creatures. They have no vocal chords but they can roar loud and deep when they blow air out of their lungs.

A crocodile will treat a human as prey, but not alligators. Except for the part where we take away their habitat and bother them and do other things to take away their natural fear of our flesh. Or train them out of their natural fear of us.

The key west aquarium says that Florida has about 20 million people and 1 million alligators. We need to get along better. 

All of this is to get to the part where I can read that the goal is to stay 50 feet away, and to make a lot of noise. If one bites me I'm supposed to work hard to get away while making a lot of noise, and try to poke it in the eye. Staying 50 feet away is due to the fact that nature made them faster than humans! The quote I found is that they can "outrun all human creatures within the first 20-30 feet of exiting the water." But do try. They can run fast only for a short bit, they are more of sprinters trying to intimidate me, not call me lunch. Also worth mentioning: run in a straight line, they say. Note to all: DO NOT try to take selfies with alligators. It is just bad form for many reasons. These regal reptiles were almost extinct once, just like the dinosaurs they descend from. That is terribly terrible to think about. 

We have hunted them to the brink of extinction before we finally mended our ways. Yet there is only 23 reported deaths of humans by alligators in the last fifty years (in Florida). We may be smarter and more capable, but we are not wiser. Alligators can go up to six months a year without eating, so chances are low they want to chomp on my ankle. But the goal is to let them do their thing over there while I do my thing waaaay over here.

We went to the Ritch Grissom memorial park to see them on purpose. It was freaky. Just me, a mostly deserted wetlands, and alligators sunning themselves here and there. I was super nervous the first time, ready to trip my husband if needed. It was so calm out there, which calmed me down. I was almost holding my breath. And that was before I learned  they can have up to 80 teeth in their mouth at a time, and they aren't afraid to lose one in a fight. They say they can lose up to 2,000 teeth and regrow them like a friggin' fingernail or something.

They set up a park where a person can roam with the alligators. I guess it's based on the statistics that being attacked *unprovoked* is 2.4 million to 1.

We saw alligators and they were unnervingly cool. But the birds were the best. So many, big and bigger. I don't think this picture does justice to the height of these 2. And they were just hanging out like other human couples on the trail.