Having survived since the Mesozoic era, alligators teetered on the brink of extinction in the 1960s. Their recovery in the 1970s and 1980s was largely due to legislative intervention, and today populations are closely monitored throughout their range. American Alligator is the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of this resilient relic, a creature with a brain weighing less than half an ounce that has successfully adapted to a changing Earth for more than 200 million years.

         
Kelby Ouchley chronicles the evolution of Alligator mississippiensis from “shieldcroc”—the last common ancestor of modern-day alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and the gharial—to its current role as keystone of the ecological health of America’s southern swamps and marshes. In Florida, the apex predator uses its snout and feet to clear muck from holes in the limestone bedrock. During the dry season, these small ponds or “alligator holes” provide refuge, food, and water for a variety of wildlife. In Louisiana, millions of dollars are spent on the bounty of the non-native nutria that overgraze marsh vegetation, but alligators prey on these coastal rodents free of charge.

Today only twenty-three species of crocodilians remain. That the alligator lineage survives at all, having successfully weathered millions of years of environmental change, speaks to an impressive degree of fitness and adaptability.

The loss of the American alligator would be a blow to biodiversity and an ecosystem disruption affecting all levels of the food chain. While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed it from the endangered species list in 1987 and today regulates the legal trade of the animal and its products, Ouchley cautions us not to forget the lessons learned: human activities, from urban development to energy production, can still threaten the future of the gator and its southern wetland habitat.

Kelby Ouchley is a writer, public speaker, and retired biologist and manager of national wildlife refuges for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  Since 1995 he has written and narrated Bayou-Diversity, an award-winning weekly conservation program on public radio.  He is the author of Flora and Fauna of the Civil War; Bayou-Diversity: Nature and People in the Louisiana Bayou Country; Bayou-Diversity 2; American Alligator: Ancient Predator in the Modern World; and with his wife Amy, Natural Words - A Dictionary for Naturalists.   Kelby and Amy live in Rocky Branch, Louisiana on the edge of the D'Arbonne Swamp.Contact him through his Bayou-Diversity website or Bayou-Diversity Facebook page.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ University Press of Florida (October 1, 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 160 pages black and white
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0813049137
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 0.7 x 9.1 inches