Reptiles are cold-blooded, scaly creatures. They have developed four major groupings, turtles, crocodileans, snakes and lizards, all of which live in the United States and around the world. Although most reptiles are small, some are large in The States, including snapping turtles, alligator snapping turtles, American alligators, American crocodiles, spectacled caimans, Burmese pythons and common iguanas. Because of their sizes and potential to be dangerous, these reptiles are exciting to many people.
Snapping turtles live in rivers, creeks and human-made impoundments throughout the eastern half of the United States. Like all turtles, they have bony upper and lower shells covered by hard skin made of the same material as our finger and toe nails, and scaly legs. Their top shells can be as much as two feet long and over a foot across. As their name implies, this type of turtle will snap at any creature to defend itself. They can be dangerous to us because of their sharp jaws and tendency to bite first "and ask questions later".
Snapping turtles are carnivorous, preying on fish, frogs, land animals floundering in the water and other creatures they can subdue. Each female snapper, like most species of water turtles in the northern hemisphere, leave the water in June to lay a clutch of eggs in loose soil. Walking ponderously on land or across roads, these big turtles look like remnants of dinosaur days.
Alligator snapping turtles are much like snappers, except the present species is even bigger, restricted to the southcentral part of the States, particularly in the Mississippi River basin, and wiggles a worm-like appendage on its tongue in its open mouth to attract fish to its mouth. Seeing that moving appendage peeks the curiosity of fish that think it is possible food. When they come closer for a better look, the turtle, which is quite still and half-submerged in bottom mud, slams its mouth shut on the fish. Alligator snappers, like all aquatic reptiles, must regularly come to the surface for air.
American alligators are common today from eastern North Carolina south and west to Florida, the Gulf Coast and southern Texas. They are aquatic reptiles, grow up to twelve feet long, or more, and are carnivorous. They attempt to eat any animals they can subdue. And they are devout scavengers.
Females each lay a few dozen eggs in a pile or nest of rotting vegetation. The decaying plants produce heat that causes the development of the alligator embryos. Young alligators produce squeaky sounds when they hatch, which prompts their mothers to remove the vegetation and carry the young in their mouths to water where they are released to be on their own.
Raccoons, opossums, skunks and other kinds of creatures dig out and eat alligator eggs from some clutches. And herons, mink, large fish and other aquatic critters catch and consume many young alligators while they are small.
American crocodiles and spectacled caimans resemble and have similar life histories as alligators. But both these kinds of crocodileans, in the United States, are mostly restricted to the southern tip of Florida. Crocodiles also live in Central and South America. Spectacled caimans were introduced to Florida from Central and South America. American alligators seem to be faring well in their increasing populations, but crocodiles and caimans have uncertain futures.
Burmese pythons are large, beautifully patterned snakes that were introduced to Florida as pets from southeast Asia. Because they can grow to several feet long and are constrictors (snakes that squeeze animals to death) of larger animals, they, too, are dangerous to people. Constrictor snakes throw a loop of their muscular bodies around a victim and squeeze ever tighter every time they feel the animal exhale. Soon the victim can't inhale and smothers to death.
Some people buy cute, little baby Burmese pythons. But when those beige and chestnut-colored snakes get large and demand ever larger animals to ingest, some of those people release the snakes into the wild where some of those reptiles grow up.
The Florida everglades are warm the year around and full of wildlife, a good habitat for this species of large snake. Today tens of thousands of these pythons live in the Everglades, and, apparently, reproduce there. They probably are there to stay. And they might spread north if they adapt to colder weather and other conditions.
Common iguanas are larger lizards from Central and northern South America. Adults are green and over six feet long, making them the largest lizard in the wild in the United States. Again, some people bought them when they were small and cute. But some of those people released their lizard pets into the wild when those critters got too large to handle or feed. Common iguanas now live wild around Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
These are some of the larger, more exciting species of reptiles in the United States. Some are attractive, some are dangerous, but all of them are interesting in the wild.
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