Here we watch a mother crocodile, filmed by a spy croc, meeting her babies and picking them up, taking them to the relative safety of the water. It’s ineffably sweet, and she returns several times to get the whole big brood. They are put temporarily in a throat pouch. And listen to the cute noises the croclets make.
Note that there are two spy crocs: a big one that you can see in one shot, and a hatchling, which gets picked up along with the live babies.
Love this! Saw a special on it recently. Those with siblings will recognize the cries of I hit you last, and I get the front seat.🤓
An inspiring follow-up to the cat in a baby sling video a few days ago. Many thanks.
That’s some good TV, that is. I wonder if dinosaurs had similar behaviors.
The sound the baby crocodiles make — there’s an episode of the original Star Trek in which that sound effect is used as the voices of the aliens.
We make that sound at night in canoes in the Amazon to attract big caimans for tourists to look at. Not always a bright idea.
With an Agatha Christie on the gogglebox just now … you do check the tourist’s insurance before “caiman-whispering”?
Carl Gans used this as an example of his concept of “momentarily excessive construction” – a structure might have two very different functions and must be able to handle both. The crocodile generally uses its jaws to disable prey, which doesn’t require fine motor control, but handling hatchlings does require such control. Both functions must be accommodated.
One thing we don’t know is how far back this goes in time. I wouldn’t be astonished to discover that (pseudo-)suschian archosaurs were doing this back in the Triassic.
I’m also trying to think whether any of those sediment marks are sufficiently distinctive to act as trace (ichno-)fossils for this behaviour.
Loved this film. The spy baby croc is very realistic. Amazing gentleness from a ferocious creature.
What a scene into which the baby crocs emerge: a monstrous face with giant teeth! Scary—except to the crock babies.
I wonder if there’s any theory as to why, no matter how menacing the adults, babies of any species are so very endearing!
Perhaps not exactly what you are asking about, but proponents of domestication theory (Richard Wrangham, e.g.) have noted how the young of almost all species have shorter faces, proportionally larger heads and eyes/ears, and that this has the effect of endearing them to adults. There are studies showing the “evolution” of these features in Mickey Mouse as he became more endearing to audiences.
Similar features are preserved to some extent as domestication evolves.
Surely, “any species with parental care“? Which might include all mammals, but definitely doesn’t include all vertebrates.
Those little space lasers!