The Chinese alligator is very rare. In the wild there are only around 100 to 150 left. They live in slow rivers, ponds and reed-filled wetlands in the Yangtze valley. They are very hard to see because they spend a lot of their time hidden in muddy burrows they dig themselves.
When it gets cold in winter, Chinese alligators do something most reptiles don't - they sleep through it, deep in their underground burrows. They can stay there for months, only coming out when spring warms the air. Most other alligators don't do this.
They eat snails, fish, insects and small water animals. Their teeth at the back of their mouth are flatter than the front, which helps them crunch through hard snail shells, a bit like nutcrackers.
Some scientists think the Chinese alligator may have been the real animal behind ancient Chinese dragon stories. They live in the same rivers, they have a knobbly back, and they sometimes make a roaring sound during their mating season. People who saw them long ago may have imagined them as small water dragons.