northern Florida Bay and adjacent coastal 

 swamps and the northern end of Key Largo 

 (Ogden 1978; Kushlan 1980). The species 

 uses a variety of habitats for nesting in 

 the Florida Bay region including open 

 hardwood thickets along creek banks, 

 hardwood-shrub thickets at the heads of 

 sand-shell beaches, and thickets of black 

 mangroves behind marl banks (Ogden 1978). 

 On Key Largo the crocodile locates its 

 nests on creek and canal banks in red and 

 black mangrove swamps (Ogden 1978). Man- 

 grove areas thus appear to be important in 

 the breeding biology of this endangered 

 species. 



Interestingly, only three species of 



amphibians, to our knowledge, have been 

 recorded in Florida mangrove swamps (Ap- 

 pendix C). This is due to two factors: 

 (1) lack of detailed surveys in low sa- 

 linity swamps and (2) the inability of 

 most amphibians to osmoregulate in salt 

 water. No doubt, several additional 

 species occur in the freshwater -dominated 

 hammock and basin mangrove communities 

 inland from the coast. Possible addi- 

 tional species include: the eastern 

 narrow-mouthed toad, Gastrophryne caro- 

 1 in en si s , the eastern spadefoot toad, 

 Scaphiopus holbrooki , the cricket frog, 

 Acris gryllus , the green tree frog, Hyl a 

 cinerea , and the southern leopard frog, 

 Rana utricularia. 



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