Chinese alligator  (Alligator sinensis)

Once widely distributed throughout the eastern Yangtze River system in China, this species is today mostly restricted to a 433 square kilometre reserve in the Anhui province of the lower Yangtze (2). Although reintroduction efforts in three other provinces in eastern China are currently underway (6).

Originally found in slow-moving riverine and swampy areas, low-elevation agricultural communes and tree farm communes up to 100 metres above sea level (4). Now the only remaining wild populations exist in agricultural pools within reserves (6).