This book covers curricular information?life cycle, appearance, habitat?about the American alligator. Each chapter discusses a different aspect of the American alligator's life, and then compares the alligator to a similar reptile and later to a different reptile. This title includes helpful sidebars that support the main text. As a part of the Comparing Animal Traits series, its overall goal is to show what makes this animal a reptile, and how reptiles are alike and different from one another. Readers will become familiar with reptile similarities and differences, learning to compare and contrast as well as grasping how different factors (animal traits and environment, for instance) are related.