Readers’ wildlife photos

I didn’t bring any wildlife photos with me, but Greg Mayer volunteered the following contribution.

by Greg Mayer

While we’re likely to get to enjoy even more photos of Hili, Szaron, and Kulka while Jerry’s in Poland, there might be more need for wildlife photos, so I prevailed upon my correspondent in Miami, Christopher Hudspeth, to send some photos of crocodiles from “The 305“.

Christopher easily spotted four at a brackish lagoon in Palmetto Bay, Florida, right next to Biscayne Bay. They were all adults, but not maximum-sized: in South Florida, crocodiles are known to get up to about 16 feet in length.

Everyone is familiar with the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), the broad-headed, black-when-full-grown denizen of swamps and marshes throughout the American South. As its name (derived from the Spanish el lagarto = ‘the lizard’) indicates, it’s been known since the Spanish discovery of Florida in the 16th century. That there’s a second native crocodilian in Florida was not made known till the 19th century. The American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), unlike the alligator, is restricted to coastal areas of southernmost Florida. The crocodile’s preference for salt and brackish water keeps the two species of crocodilians largely ecologically segregated by habitat.

Hunted for their skins, by the late 1970s the American Crocodile was endangered in Florida, with the range much restricted, the population down to the low hundreds, and only 20 breeding females. State and Federal protection has led to the population bouncing back, with there now being a few thousand adults and over 100 nests per year. They have also returned to vacated parts of their range, such as Coral Gables and Palmetto Bay along northern Biscayne Bay, areas which are quite developed.

In the above Google Earth view, note the man-made lagoon in the center, next to office buildings, at the edge of an extensive conurbation– this is where Christopher found the crocs!

In 1971, Wilfred Neill published a photo of a croc on the beach at Key West taken in 1935, describing it as a “sight that can no longer be seen”; but the crocs are back there, too: another Florida correspondent sent me a photo of a croc on the beach there taken last December.

Behler, J.L. 1978. Feasibility of the Establishment of a Captive-Breeding Population of the
American Crocodile. Everglades National Park South Florid Research Center, Homestead, FL. pdf

Moler, P.E. 2019. American Crocodile. pp. 308-312 in K.L. Krysko, K.M. Enge, and P.E.Moler, Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. publisher

Neill, W.T. 1971. Last of the Ruling Reptiles: Alligators, Crocodiles and Their Kin. Columbia University Press, New York. Abebooks