The moment we have all been waiting for has finally arrived. As of this entry, Mama Karen has been busy getting her baby hatchlings from the nest to the water for over five hours. Starting about 3:00 this afternoon, likely in response to hearing her hatchlings calling from inside the nest, the mom carefully begins to dig away the soil from the top of the nest cavity. You can clearly see from the video footage, Mama Karen gently picking up each hatchling into her mouth along with large amounts of soil and bringing them down to the water where she then shakes them loose and they swim into the shallows. With nearly 60 eggs in the nest, the female will have to make dozens of trips between the nest and water. Also listen carefully for the chirping sounds of the neonates as they communicate with their mother.
These hatchlings will stay with their mother for several weeks to months after hatching and will probably be visible sitting on the bank and in the shallows over the coming days. Mama Karen's job isn't over quite yet, as these hatchlings are still very vulnerable to predation. Birds like egrets, mammals like raccoons, opossums, and pigs, and even other juvenile and adult alligators all would love to make these little six inch hatchlings into a meal.
In the next week, my lab will head out to this site to capture, weigh, and measure the babies to assess hatching success and offspring size. I will post photos and videos of the hatchlings during this process, so stay tuned!!
Below are a few clips from this afternoon.
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