On Tuesday April 19, 2011, my herpetology lab class went on a field trip to Donnelly Wildlife Management Area. In all my life living in Charleston, SC I had never heard of the place and was glad to have had the opportunity to explore the area. As a whole, we were lucky to find some pretty cool herps that day, but my favorite part was when we drove by the tidal marsh areas and discovered the "Land of the Gators"! I had never seen so many alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) in one area in my life (seeing it on tv does not count). It was really cool to see them all relaxing peacefully in their beautiful natural environment. It was a pretty hot day so a lot of them had most of their bodies underneath the water. Alligators in general are peaceful in their environment until disturbed. The American Alligators are native to the United States and can be found in South Carolina along with some other southern states in the east coast. They live in freshwater environments of marshes, wetlands, rivers, and lakes (like the environment where we observed all these alligators on this field trip). The exact measurements of these gators were hard to tell due to being a bit far up from where they were and a lot of them had half if not majority of their body length floating underneath the water. However, it didn't seem like there were any large size alligators and since the ones found here all congregated in a group, it would seem relevant that they were on the smaller side, maybe around 4-6 feet (larger alligators like to be alone in its own territorial space). We were unable to determine the sexes of these alligators. (Michelle Hou, SC)
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