American Alligator Research Paper
American Alligator
The American alligator has an “armored” body with a long muscular tail. The average size of a female is 8.2 feet, and a male is 11.2 feet. It can reach nearly half a ton in weight. Young alligators have a bright yellow strip down their back, while an adult has a dark one. The alligator is a vertebrate with bony plates on its back called osteoderms or scutes. They have four legs; the front two legs have five toes and the back two have four. For protection against themselves alligators will bite.
American Alligators are carnivores meaning they eat other mammals such as fish, turtles, snakes, small animals and carrion. Most of the alligators hunting are done in the water. It swallows tiny prey whole, and takes other
large animals under water and drowns them. Their prey is many small mammals that they can eat in a single bite.
Every spring the male alligator called out for a mate. A month later after the noisy mating and coupling the female builds a nest of vegetation and lays up to 50 white eggs. Alligators do not sit on their eggs because they would crush them, the vegetation keeps them warm. If the eggs are incubated over 93 degrees Fahrenheit the embryo is a male is bellow 86 degrees its result is a female. Two months after the eggs are laid; they hatch into about a 6 inch baby alligator. The young stays with its mother for about a year, eating insect’s worms and small fish.
The American alligator has an “armored” body with a long muscular tail. The average size of a female is 8.2 feet, and a male is 11.2 feet. It can reach nearly half a ton in weight. Young alligators have a bright yellow strip down their back, while an adult has a dark one. The alligator is a vertebrate with bony plates on its back called osteoderms or scutes. They have four legs; the front two legs have five toes and the back two have four. For protection against themselves alligators will bite.
American Alligators are carnivores meaning they eat other mammals such as fish, turtles, snakes, small animals and carrion. Most of the alligators hunting are done in the water. It swallows tiny prey whole, and takes other
large animals under water and drowns them. Their prey is many small mammals that they can eat in a single bite.
Every spring the male alligator called out for a mate. A month later after the noisy mating and coupling the female builds a nest of vegetation and lays up to 50 white eggs. Alligators do not sit on their eggs because they would crush them, the vegetation keeps them warm. If the eggs are incubated over 93 degrees Fahrenheit the embryo is a male is bellow 86 degrees its result is a female. Two months after the eggs are laid; they hatch into about a 6 inch baby alligator. The young stays with its mother for about a year, eating insect’s worms and small fish.