Herpetology!

Herpetology: a fun word to say. I've been reading Archie Carr's A Naturalist in Florida: A Celebration of Eden. Archie Carr was one really cool dude, a combination explorer/writer. He also talks about often being torn between discovering animals and eating them.
Archie was REALLY into turtles.


But then again, he was into practically anything that moved, except cuttlefish. Nobody likes a cuttlefish. Even their superior intelligence to other cephalopods doesn't help much. I think they're just seen as sneaky. Perhaps they should be renamed the cuddlefish; the misnomer could help their PR. Get on that, cuddlefish!

Speaking of sneaky, take a gander at this guy, who's been hanging out locally.


If that doesn't give you the heebie jeebies, you're probably a cuddlefish.
Apparently it's not an albino alligator, the coloration is from minerals in the artesian wells that empty into the pond. Note the lack of pink eyes. This alligator weighs about 300 pounds, so it's unlikely that it could have grown so large if it were albino. Albino alligators don't get any breaks; they're more visible to predators, and*gasp* vulnerable to sunburn.

I'm not quite sure if I believe the minerals explanation (all of the other alligators in the area are black) but I'm not going to scrub a ten foot long eating machine just to find out. Where's Archie Carr when you need him?