This particular alligator — at the entrance to the Wooten’s Air Boat Rides site in the Everglades, an ecosystem in South Florida — is far more hospitable than what are thought to be as many as 200,000 of its live cousins that live in the glades. Florida’s Everglades are a unique mixture of estuarine waters, mangroves, freshwater marshes, cypress swamps, flat pine forests, and hardwood “hammocks” (rarely flooded high spots) among vast sawgrass plains. Photo by Carol Highsmith, 2020.