User talk:Neilofsteel63

Alligator

Size: The average size for an adult female American alligator is 8.2 feet, and the average size for a male is 11.2 feet. Exceptionally large males can reach a weight of nearly half a ton or 1,000 pounds.

Appearance: Both males and females have an "armored" body with a muscular flat tail. The skin on the back is armored with embedded bony plates called osteoderms or scutes. They have four short legs; the front legs have five toes while the back legs have four toes.

Range & Habitat: The American alligator is found from North Carolina to the Rio Grande in Texas. Alligators are usually found in freshwater, in slow-moving rivers. They are also found in swamps, marshes, and lakes. They can tolerate salt water for only brief periods because they do not have salt glands.

Diet: Crocodilians are carnivorous. They have very strong jaws that can crack a turtle shell. They eat fish, snails and other invertebrates, birds, frogs, and mammals that come to the water's edge.

Characteristics and adaptations that help it survive: They use their sharp teeth to seize and hold prey. Small prey is swallowed whole. If the prey is large, crocodilians shake it apart into smaller, manageable pieces. If it is very large, crocodilians bite it, then spin on the long axis of their bodies to tear off easily swallowed pieces.

Relationship to people: Because alligators will feed on almost anything, they pose a mild threat to humans. In Florida, where there is the greatest alligator population, there were five deaths to alligator attacks from 1973 to 1990. Dogs and other pets are also sometimes killed.

Status in the world: Once on the verge of extinction, the American alligator has made a remarkable recovery. Due to strict conservation measures and extensive research, it is no longer endangered except in scattered areas of its range. However, the American alligator is listed as threatened on the U.S. Endangered Species List because it is very similar in appearance to the American crocodile, which is endangered, and hunters are likely to

Salmon Salmon is the common name for several species of fish of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout. Salmon live in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Great Lakes and other land locked lakes.

Typically, salmon are born in fresh water, migrate to the ocean, then return to fresh water to reproduce. Folklore has it that the fish return to the exact spot where they were born to spawn, and modern research shows that usually at least 90% of the fish that spawn in a particular stream were born there. In Alaska, the crossing over to other streams allows salmon to populate new streams, such as those that emerge as a glacier retreats. The precise method salmon use to navigate has not been entirely established, though their keen sense of smell is certainly involved. In all species of Pacific salmon, the mature individuals die within a few days or weeks of spawning, a trait known as semelparity. However, even in those species of salmon that may survive to spawn more than once, post-spawning mortality is quite high (perhaps as high as 40 to 50%.) Those species average about two or, perhaps, three spawning events per individual.

Salmon is a popular food. Consuming salmon is considered to be reasonably healthy due to the fish's high protein and low fat levels and to its high Omega-3 fatty acids content. Salmon is also a source of cholesterol, ranging 23 - 214 mg/100g depending on the species. According to reports in the journal Science, however, farmed salmon may contain high levels of dioxins. PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) levels may be up to eight times higher in farmed salmon than in wild salmon, and Omega-3 content may also be lower than in wild caught individuals. According to a 2006 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, however, the benefits of eating even farmed salmon still outweigh any risks imposed by contaminants. It is also noteworthy that salmon generally has among the lowest methylmercury contamination levels of all fish.[citation needed]

A simple rule of thumb is that the vast majority of Atlantic salmon available on the world market are farmed (greater than 99%), whereas the majority of Pacific salmon are wild-caught (greater than 80%). Farmed salmon outnumber wild salmon 85 to 1.

confuse the two species. Hunting is allowed in some states, but it is heavily controlled. The greatest threat is currently destruction of habitat.