Gulf Coast of the United States Pensacola, St. Petersburg, Tampa, and increasingly, Sarasota. All are the centers of their respective metropolitan areas and contain large ports. (Baton Rouge is relatively far from the Gulf of Mexico; its port is on the Mississippi River, as is the port of New Orleans.) The Gulf Coast is made of many inlets, bays, and lagoons. The coast is also intersected by numerous rivers, the largest of which is the Mississippi River. Much of the land along the Gulf Coast is, or was, marshland. Ringing the Gulf Coast is the Gulf Coastal Plain which reaches from Southern Texas to the western
Largest organisms namadicus" may have been the largest land mammal ever, based on extensive research of fragmentary leg bone fossils from one individual, with a maximum estimated size of 22 tonnes. The Permian era "Cotylorhynchus", from what is now the southern United States, probably was the largest of all synapsids (most of which became extinct 250 million years ago), at and 2 tonnes. The largest carnivorous synapsid was "Anteosaurus" from what is now South Africa during Middle Permian era. "Anteosaurus" was long, and weighed about . The largest living reptile, a representative of the order Crocodilia, is the saltwater crocodile ("Crocodylus porosus")