National GeographicNat Geo Wild
https://assets-natgeotv.fnghub.com/Shows/36312.jpg

  • WILD FLORIDA

WILD FLORIDA FACTS

  • Every year, millions of tourists flock to Florida, even though a third of the entire state is underwater.

  • Over the course of a lifetime, an American alligator can wear through 2 to 3,000 teeth.

  • The white tailed deer population in Florida was once believed to be hovering around 20,000, but conservation efforts have boomed populations to over 700,000. 

  • Alligators are over 150 million years old, having avoided extinction when the dinosaurs died off.

  • A cottonmouth snake’s poisonous venom is hemotoxic, destroying tissue and prohibiting blood from clotting. 

  • Only one in ten alligator hatchlings escape death and live to adulthood.

  • The swamps of central Florida get a whopping 70% of their rainfall in the wet season, June through September. 

  • An alligator's bite exhibits nearly 3,000 pounds (1360 KG) of pressure on its prey.

  • A cottonmouth snake coils its body and threatens an intruder with its mouth wide open and its fangs exposed, showing the white lining of its mouth. 

  • The North American bullfrog with its bulging eyes and bulbous figure will eat anything he can shove in his mouth.

  • In the 1500’s, It is believed European settlers brought feral Hogs to Florida, introducing a very destructive new animal species to the swamp.

  • Alligators are ectothermic; they rely on external sources like the sun and warm waters to control their own body temperature. 

  • The cottonmouth is a pit viper, using two heat seeking pits between the eyes and nostrils to hone in on heat signatures, for deadly accurate strikes. 

  • During the mating season, gators will gather in large numbers for “the water dance,” A bellowing chorus to attract a mate.

  • Scientists estimate that as few as 1 out of every 10,000 loggerhead turtle hatchlings will survive to adulthood.

  • The third largest living barrier coral reef in the world is found just off the coast of Florida.

  • The king snake is immune to an eastern diamondback rattlesnake’s deadly venom, in fact, king snakes are even known to eat rattle snakes.

  • The Florida coast stretches nearly 1,200 miles making it one of the top travel destinations in the world.

  • Loggerhead turtles use the earth’s magnetic field to guide them from the nest where they are born to the Gulf Stream current in the Atlantic Ocean.

  • Burmese pythons are carnivores native to the jungles of Southeast Asia. This exotic invader has taken over large sections of the Florida everglades, killing over 90% of some mammal populations in areas where it’s taken a stronghold.

  • Lionfish are carnivorous aliens native to the pacific ocean. Since they’ve been introduced to the waters off of Florida’s coast they’ve devastated local reef populations by eating as much as 90% of the reef fish. 

  • The American crocodile is an endangered species with a small population surviving in south Florida. Illegal hunting and habitat depletion are pushing crocs to the brink of extinction.

  • The eastern diamondback rattlesnake is a pit viper that lives in the woodlands and coastal scrub of Florida. The diamondback’s venom is a potent hemotoxin that kills red blood cells and causes tissue damage.
ADVERTISEMENT

PHOTOS

VIDEOS