The Alligator Rivers is the name of a region in the Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory of Australia, containing three rivers the East, West and South Alligator River. It is regarded as one of the richest biological regions in Australia with part of the region in the Kakadu National Park, and is an Important Bird Area (IBA) lying to the east of the Adelaide and Mary River Floodplains IBA. It also contains mineral deposits especially uranium with the Ranger Uranium Mine located there. The area is also rich in Australian Aboriginal art with 1500 sites. The Kakadu National Park is one of the few World Heritage sites on the list because of both its natural and human heritage values. They were explored by Lieutenant Phillip Parker King in 1820 who named them in the mistaken belief that the crocodiles in the estuaries were alligators.
Read more about Alligator Rivers: Rivers, Climate, Wildlife, Aboriginal Heritage
Famous quotes containing the words alligator and/or rivers:
“‘Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one’s bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)