Baby Alligators

My favorite thing about baby gators is how they crawl all over the parent gators like they were monkeys, sometimes even going in the parent gators’ mouths. It’s something you wouldn’t expect from reptiles, that they would be so family-oriented, so touchy-feely. It makes sense though because if the tiny hatchlings are not protected there is a good chance other alligators might come by and eat them up. Even as juveniles, alligators are often eaten by other alligators.

The gator family (in the Crocodilian order) includes the American and the Chinese alligators plus the five species of caimans in South and Central America.