Counting Alligators: teacher key

American Alligators, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. Read about how scientists have counted alligators, why the counts are hard to read, and what genomes and bite studies show.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Since 1988, what has Florida surveyed on areas called alligator management units?
   • Alligators (answer)
   • Lakes
   • Nests of herons
2. What do nightlight counts do?
   • Count every animal
   • Keep animals asleep
   • Miss some animals (answer)
3. What did scientists measure in adults of all 23 living crocodilian species?
   • Nest sizes
   • Bite forces (answer)
   • Swimming speeds
4. How slowly do crocodilian genomes change compared with mammal genomes?
   • An order of magnitude more slowly (answer)
   • Twice as fast
   • At the same rate
5. What does sequenced mean here?
   • Hidden
   • Dug up
   • Read in order (answer)
6. Why is it hard to read population trends from uncorrected nightlight counts?
   • Alligators have no nests
   • The counts miss some animals (answer)
   • Alligators hunt in the day

Words

• genomes: full gene sets
• crocodilians: alligators and kin
• hertz: vibrations per second
• invertebrates: animals without backbones
• sequenced: read in order