Kansas City, MO – There are only a few creatures that can survive a winter on the edge of the Great Plains. An alligator is not one of them.
Recently a Kansas DOT worker discovered the carcass of an American alligator in the Ninnescah River south of Wichita.
A zoologist determined the reptile, which is native to the southeastern U.S., was about 3 years old.
Wildlife officials think it had been kept as a pet and then released to the wild when it got too big. A zoologist determined the gator was about three-years-old.
Alligators are, of course, not native to the far Midwest and the Plains, their natural habitat being the rivers, swamps and bayous of the South. A Midwestern winter is not a season an alligator would enjoy, and not many others either.