Call them hot, hungry … and horny. And if you’re in Florida, make sure to get out of the way of those alligators.
May marks the start of gator mating season, but the reptiles seem to be getting a jump on things, presumably lured by warm temperatures into the most unlikely places.
In their department Facebook page on Friday, Fort Myers police posted about being dispatched to remove an eight-foot gator that tore through a lanai screen to camp out on the homeowner’s back porch.
That same day, another Fort Myers gator was caught casually strolling across a highway in a video that’s since gone viral. “Hey there buddy,” Chelsea Brinson captioned her video of the massive critter.
Elsewhere, a gator was spotted beneath a car in the parking lot of a Buffalo Wings & Rings — a photo the North Port Police Department duly Tweeted. Over in Polk County, one critter lurked outside the fence of a jail and in Palm Beach, a 300-pound gator took a swim in a private pool. A Panama City Beach fisherwoman ended up catching some quality snaps of her competition.
Late last month, a gator was captured in the Southwood neighborhood of Tallahassee. “Southwood residents got quite the show Saturday afternoon when an alligator, approximately 8 feet long, showed up in the neighborhood,” the local police department posted, alongside an image of children smiling and standing around the captured reptile.
The biggest so far was sighted in Jupiter. It clocked in at 12-feet-long and 650 pounds, and that’s without its front leg.
“They have to find some food, so that’s when we’ll find them on sidewalks and people’s pools,” Florida Fish and Wildlife’s Brian Norris told Fox 4. “They’re really just out there browsing around.”