The alligator, a very old species, has been around for about 2- million years. Gators are
egg-layers, and the temperature of the nest determines the sex as well as whether the
eggs survive at all. In this book, Lockwood observes and photographs the habitat of
alligators though their life span. At birth, only a few inches long, they still look ready
to go after food, and they do. We learn, among other things, that they are solitary, they
 will eat almost anything, and they are virtually unbothered by mosquitoes. The largest
 gator recorded was 19 feet long.

Although Louisiana has the largest gator population, estimated at about 1.5-million, many
 of the photos in the book were taken in Florida in places like the Ding Darling nature
preserve near Fort Myers and Gatorland, between Orlando and Kissimmee.

Lockwood says he saw his first alligator when he was 3 and on a family vacation in the
Okefenokee Swamp (see next book) and has been fascinated by them ever since. He won
the Ansel Adams Award for conservation photography in 1978 and was named a Louisiana
Legend by Louisiana Public Broadcasting. He is author of nine other books.