Alligator Moms Are Nature's Helicopter Parents | National Geographic

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

[music playing]

NARRATOR: What would you do if you could not chew? Did Dr. Seuss write this script or maybe Roald Dahl?

[singing] What would you do if you could not chew?

Simple. You just thrash your food apart. Alligators go through 2,000 to 3,000 teeth in a lifetime. Seems inefficient, but hey, they haven't evolved in millions of years, so if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Females also keep an obsessive vigil over a mound of decomposing brush and mud. Why? Within lie three dozen eggs, but she needs to be in freshwater to survive. She's dug a small wallow near her nest to rest in the water while keeping an eye on it. Helicopter parent—typical. Here, she can relax and let her heartbeat drop to two beats per minute.

I wish I could get that kind of rest. When her eggs begin to hatch, she digs them up and inspects them, one by one. Her monstrous jaws spell doom for her prey, but a comfy nursery for her babies, as she ferries them to the river. They're like the minivans of the reptilian world.

She'll look after them for up to a year or more, fiercely defending them from all threats, including raccoons and other gators. If I was a raccoon, I would not mess with a baby alligator, just seeing that footage of it killing that deer. Are you kidding? Go eat a frog or something. Come on. Your life is short.

YC Alumni Lightning Round

The Fermi Paradox: Where are all the Aliens?

View All

A Crime Against Childhood

There is no greater human joy than waking up to a winter wonderland that, with its frosty magic, also cancelled school. Well, no more. Because schools are cancelling snow days. Some school systems have decided, “This way when there’s too much snow to phys…

Phases of the moon | Middle school Earth and space science | Khan Academy

Imagine that one day all of the clocks and computers on Earth broke and all the calendars disappeared. How would you keep track of how much time had passed? Well, you could look to the moon. Humans have used the moon to keep track of time for thousands of…

2015 AP Physics 1 free response 1b

All right, let’s tackle part B now. Derive the magnitude of the acceleration of block 2. Express your answer in terms of m1, m2, and g. And like always, try to pause the video and see if you can work through it yourself. We already worked through part on…

Rescuing a 14 Ton Bread Truck | Ice Road Rescue

NARRATOR: In the south, a 14-ton bread truck is impaled on rocks. Thord and Andrzej were attempting to lift it clear until it threatened to crash back down with Thord underneath. [bleep] that bloody left bar right there. [tools clanging] You know, we have…

It’s Mind Blowing That Our Minds Can’t Be Blown

They’re scientifically minded types; it’s astonishing who say, “Perhaps we won’t be able to understand the next set of laws of physics. Perhaps we won’t be able to understand the aliens.” It’s nothing but the appeal to the supernatural. It’s logically equ…

Return from the Okavango in 360 - Ep. 4 | The Okavango Experience

This is a place filled with magic. Everything has to have a reason: the movement of the grass, the core of an animal, the call of a bird. Everything, we’re connected to all of it, and that is the most alive we can ever be. This is a sanctuary for these in…

Alligator Moms Are Nature's Helicopter Parents | National Geographic

More Articles