American Alligator, close

Alligator mississippiensis

American Alligator · Everglades National Park · 6 February 2026

An American Alligator close up in the Everglades in February, in the sloughs and ponds of the freshwater marsh it lives in across the whole of the American South. There are now well over a million in Florida; the species was on the endangered list in 1967 and taken off it in 1987.

The broad, rounded snout is the quickest way to tell an alligator from a crocodile at a glance. A crocodile's is narrower and more tapered, and shows a lower tooth protruding over the closed jaw, which an alligator's does not. Only the American Alligator and the American Crocodile share range in Florida, and only in the very southern end of the state do the two overlap at all.