Baby alligators: born ready
Okay, so. A lot of you probably already know that baby alligators do this sort of squeak-chirp thing that functions as a Summon Mom spell. Well, as it turns out, it’s actually a Summon Adult call. Mom is just usually the one who’s closest, so she gets there first.
Above: Not mom. Not even an adult.
Alligators hatch out at somewhere between eight and twelve inches. They chirp to coordinate hatching, chirp to let mom know to open the nest, and chirp to let mom know if they somehow wander away from the relatively safe patch of water she’d picked out for them.
Above: And are maybe also being kidnapped by a four-foot-tall bird.
They’re relatively independent in terms of hunting their own food. They’re basically babies on the half-shell in terms of everything else, though, so they stick together in a pod to capitalize on adult care and camouflage. They put on about a foot of length per year until they’re four feet, at which point they start slowing down on the length and speeding up on the filling-in section of their growth patterns.
Above: Random dude wrangles a four-footer.
Cute, right? Of course. It’s a small alligator. In another eight feet, he’ll weigh half a ton and be able to take down a deer like it ain’t no thing.
While they’re clocking in at under three feet, though, they tend to just club together with whatever small alligators are handy. So that two-foot yearling will just fall in if it hears a mom growling to her babies, and tiny babies will happily climb aboard any adult that doesn’t snap at them. Or, as above, any larger alligator that doesn’t snap at them. If they’ve still got those stripes? Not an adult. Those are sub-adult stripes. Gators aren’t sexually mature until they hit about six feet long, by which time they’re generally a pretty solid dull charcoal across their upper bodies.
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