Crocodiles v. Alligators

In all honesty, the reason I haven't posted anything on this blog lately (besides it being a kind of assholey premise) is because I've been putting off posting my first real mistake. While on our way to Florida a few months ago, Rae started telling me about the crocodiles there. I corrected her saying that only alligators (infernal beasts) live in America (and in China and nowhere else). It turns out I was very, almost tragically wrong:

Southern Florida is the only place where both alligators and crocodiles live side by side. [1]

And to make matters worse, The Facts:

There's good news for fans of big reptiles: The American crocodile, found in South Florida, has staged a comeback. It has done so well that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to take it off the endangered species list. The biggest surprise is that the crocodile owes much of its comeback to a nuclear power plant . . . [they] live and breed in the extensive canal system south of Miami next to the Turkey Point nuclear power plant . . . in canals that were built to cool the water left over from generating nuclear power . . . When the nuclear plant was built in the early 1970s, the American crocodile was heading toward extinction. At the time, FPL [Florida Power & Light] wasn't thinking about crocodiles, but the crocodiles have made themselves at home. At last count, there were 400 juvenile or adult crocodiles at Turkey Point — nearly one-quarter of the entire U.S. American croc population. The animals love the area . . . because it provides almost perfect crocodile habitat: a mixture of freshwater and saltwater canals, and very few people. [2]

This is NOT A JOKE. Haven't these guys heard of Killer Croc?!

In the process of researching this post I learned that the word alligator is a bastardized spelling of the Spanish el lagarto (the lizard)! I also learned that the largest recorded alligator was 17 feet 5 inches (oh Jesus god). I just want to go on record here and say that if you didn't know that alligators existed and someone told you that 17-foot-long man eating reptiles lived in modern day America you wouldn't believe them. One time I stopped by a bird viewing platform in the Everglades with my mum and while everyone was oohing and aahing at some frosted egret or whatever the simian depths of my brain was staring at the alligators circling the platform waiting for someone to fall in. If I hadn't already believed in evolution, the primal urge I felt to scream, climb up a tree and throw rocks at them would have utterly convinced me.

These guys had the right idea (not that I'm advocating the killing of a potentially endangered species):