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active family travel,  Travel

11 Things You Did Not Know About Alligators – The Things You Learn When You Travel

Not so long ago I had the chance to visit The Florida Everglades. I was there for a travel writer tour and conference. After the tour we watched a show inspired by The Gator Boys, one of my kids’s favourite TV shows. Now everybody knows that Florida and alligators just simply go together, but sometimes when you travel you learn the strangest things.

I mean did you know that alligator bites are more powerful than the bite of a great white shark? Yikes! These are 11 Alligator Facts I did not know until I took an airboat tour of the Florida Everglades.

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11 Alligator Facts

Let’s just say it’s better off knowing a few things about alligators in the event you ever come face to face with one. So here are a few things you need to know.

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  1. Alligators are dark and crocodiles are green.
  2. Alligators lay between 40 to 50 eggs. Of the 40 to 50 eggs that alligators lay maybe 2-3 survive to become alligators. Raccoons eat alligator eggs and so very few actually make it. Can you imagine if all the alligators did make it? Yikes.
  3. Alligator breeding season is April and May and the babies hatch in August.
  4. Some people think that if an alligator is chasing you the best way to get away is to run in a zig zag pattern. That’s not accurate at all. In fact if one is chasing you then you are better off tripping the person in front of you. Hey now, listen, I didn’t make that up. That came directly from the captain of our airboat at Holiday Everglades Park outside Fort Lauderdale.
  5. The gender of baby alligators is determined by the temperature of the nest.
  6. Alligator bites are three times more powerful than a great white shark bite!! That’s frightening!
  7. Alligators have a homing ability. At Everglades Holiday Park there is a Gator rescue centre. The Gators that are brought there are actually all alligators that were nuisance alligators. So they might have been hanging out in someone’s backyard, or lounging in their pond, or hanging at the pool. They cannot be released into the wild again because of their natural homing ability which means they would return to the spot again and again.
  8. Never approach or feed an alligator. Some of these alligator facts seem like they should be common sense but really apparently a lot of people don’t know this because every years someone is in the news in Florida for feeding a gator and meeting an untimely death as well.
  9. Alligator wrestling is an ancient technique perfected by Seminole Indians. You can see a display of this at Everglades Holiday Park.
  10. Under the water alligators can seal off their ears and their nose.
  11. Alligators are osteoderms  – that literally means bone skin in Italian.[tweetthis]The Things You Learn When you Travel #Travel[/tweetthis]

Visiting the Florida Everglades

Did you know any of these alligator facts? These are the things I love about traveling. Sometimes you get unexpected lessons on topics you never ever thought you would learn much about at all. I was a guest at Everglades Holiday Park. My opinion is all my own and the things I write about here are matters I believe in, use, or enjoy talking about.

Mom of two beautiful active girls, traveller, fitness junkie, social media consultant, and keeper of the sanity.

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