Ding Darling Baby Gators
By
Photo by Suzi Carroll
A mama ALLIGATOR with her 16 babies was photographed at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge last week by my friend Suzie Carroll. Let me repeat…. this was at Ding Darling NOT anywhere near the beach.
Alligator with babies photo by Suzi Carroll
This really has nothing to do with shelling but I could not help but share this since it was so wild… literally. Thank you Suzi for showing your amazing photos with us! We all love to see babies of any kind but this one is really kinda cute with a little creepiness around the edges.
photo by Suzi Carroll
Do you see the mother giving piggy back rides to the kids? Crazy! That doesn’t seem so cold blooded to me but these reptiles are nothing to mess with. Always stay as far a possible from these creatures and NEVER EVER feed them. Hmmmm, maybe this is why I like to hang out on the beach… no ALLIGATORS!
Alligator babies photo by Suzi Carroll
UPDATE: 11-13-11 We’ve had such interesting comments about these alligators and their habitat- I love it! One of the conversations led to the question of how many of these babies will survive since we all know in nature, all things have predators. I had remembered seeing another cool picture with an alligator that yall might like to see to0. I found it! This photo was taken on September 24 at 9am on the Ding Darling trail camera. Now we know for sure what keeps the alligator population in check……. A BOBCAT eats gator bites for breakfast!
ahhhhhhhhhh they are soooo cute!!
Wow, amazing! Thanks for sharing! I will have fun sharing this with my students tomorrow!!
16 babies!!!!!! Wow, that’s a lot of babies! They are cute!
OMG!! 16 babies!! Is she competing with the Duggards??? Really, though, they are so cute! They are babies after all! So glad they like the undergrowth, bogs and mires of Ding Darling and not the beaches!!
thank you very much, I really appreciate your blog. It is a pleasure to each publication
Baby gators are DARLING, but I wouldn’t get too close, especially with momma around. I photographed a momma gator and her babies from our boat on the Silver River, and I shot some video, too! It was an awesome experience, but I’m glad I was several feet away…and on the boat!
That is so cool. Thanks for posting that!!
Very Cool!! Thanks for sharing!
My husband and I have come across adults while biking at Bailey’s Tract and at Ding Darling, but we’ve never seen babies. I guess by March when we come, they are all grown up. Yes they are cute, but keep your distance!!!
I love this post…..the babies are so cute! Even though it has nothing to do with shelling – it has everything to do with Sanibel and I (and most of your readers) love it as much as shelling!
Hope the pythons don’t get ‘em!
Thanks Pam! That is so interesting to see! So many babies and so cute!
Fabulous – thanks for sharing. My husband spends days on end photographing in Ding but we’ve never seen this before. Great shots!
Thanks for posting – the babies are adorable. Was your friend able to get any video?
I’m so happy yall enjoyed this post! I debated if I should post it….yes, because it has nothing to do with shelling but mostly because I have a bit of a gator-phobia and it makes me cringe thinking of all these guys growing up (but enjoy looking at them as babies). I was just in awe of Suzi’s photos so I had to share it will yall. Doug, I’m almost positive we dont have pythons on the island. They are in the Everglades but not here. So what else is a predator to the alligator?
Yes! Please do post on all things Sanibel! I love all of it! I am in love with all of Sanibel! I wonder how many gators are actually on Sanibel? When you think of all those growing up, wow! I think there are some in that river that you walk over when going to Bowman’s Beach. I wonder if there are a lot and how people kyak there! What if they tipped over? Yikes!
I looked it up, and on Wikipedia it says that the little baby alligators can get eaten by “snapping turtles, large snakes, raccoons, largemouth bass, American black bears, great horned owls and bald eagles”. So I guess they do need Mom to try to keep an eye on them!
Thanks for sharing her photos – they are great. That would have been awesome to see in person! How does she look after so many babies – they are cute at that age.
I didn’t think alligators mothered their offspring– thought they laid the eggs and left them to surviive or not on their own. At this stage I would think anything that could eat a frog or similiar sized fish would be a predator– maybe herons, osprey and large fish???
But I live in Michigan so what do I know!
I looked it up, and apparently the alligator is a pretty good mother. After she lays the eggs she stays in the area and defends the nest from predators. Then when the eggs hatch out (the nest is covered in vegetation) the babies call out and the mother digs up the nest and escorts the babies to the water with some of them riding on her back! Then apparently she will stay in the same area and serve as protection to the young ones for about a year. Pretty amazing!
Although apparently some of the babies do wander further off, and then Mom can’t keep an eye on them all, being that there are so many of them. Perhaps that accounts for the one baby by itself that Sherri saw at Ding.
Exactly….cute from a distance…are they at the beginning, middle or end of Ding Darling?
From Florida Natural Resource wesite:
“The average clutch size of an alligator nest is 35. From this, an estimated 15 live hatchlings will emerge. Only 6 alligator hatchlings will live to one year. Of these yearlings, 5 will become subadults (reach 4 feet in length). The number of subadults that reach maturity (6 feet in length) is approximately 4. These estimates are for a growing alligator population. As an alligator population matures (and has a higher percentage of large animals), the survival rate would be expected to be lower, in part due to a higher rate of cannibalism.
MORTALITY
Eggs: Alligator eggs are susceptible to drowning, being crushed by the female, predation, and other less common calamities. Raccoons are the primary predator, although hogs, otters, and bears have been reported to depredate nests.
Juveniles: Small alligators are eaten by a variety of predators including raccoons, otters, wading birds, and fish; however, larger alligators may be their most significant predator.
Adults: Cannibalism, intraspecific fighting, and hunting by humans are probably the most significant mortality factors.
Uh, guess I’m gonna be the spoiler–we had gator for supper tonight. Yum!
Now before y’all get too upset, ours comes shrink-wrapped in the frozen food dept. of the local supermkt.
We really admire the critters though. I’ve heard a few “gronk, gronks” of the little ones calling Mama several yrs. ago & found their tracks & tail drag leading to a drainage ditch but I didn’t feel a need to find them.
We’ve seen some in our canal at Weeki Wachee and more in the river. One came chugging up from the depth of a spring. We were on the boat, but there were several swimmers & tubers in front of him & coming down river behind him. He paddled away & they never knew how close they were to a 5 footer.
They generally tend to go upriver where it’s not so populated or commercialized. It’s so amazing to see a living dinosaur! Several of the springs here in N. FL are swarming with swimmers during the day but at night the gators appear. The cave divers often talk about surfacing at night and feeling like they’re surrounded by aliens with red, glowing eyes until they realize it’s the gators who have entered the springs.
The divers are careful but respectful of them and I’ve not heard of any incidents like they have farther south where housing tracts have diminished their habitat. Hats off to the D.Darling for providing gator real estate. Sorry, Clark!
Thanks for the wonderful pix & narrative.
Can you tell us where the springs are exactly and the caves? Would love to look that up or come visit them! Very interesting! Thanks! I cannot imagine being in the water with them!!
Hi, Sherri,
Here are a few sites you may find interesting:
http://www.floridacaves.com
http://www.floridasprings.org
http://www.thiswaytothe.net/ (this one has reefs, wrecks, springs and tides)
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/springs/faq.htm
http://underwaterflorida.homestead.com/springs
Some of the springs are big and an awesome blue. Others may be a simply small with a run to the river.A few are saltwater springs and even a few are out in the gulf. How’s that for variety?
Most of the caves listed are underwater and not for anyone who is not certified for cave diving. They have claimed many lives including divers with over 1,000 dives in their logs. Some may be so small that you have to wriggle to get into them, others may have currents so strong that they push you right out. Some may only be a small sinkhole covered with duckweed. Some may have tannic water or even siphon–scary!
There are a few dry caves, but I’m not familiar with them. Some are around Citrus/Hernando. Enjoy & stay safe.
Sorry, Pam, I didn’t mean to hijack your site. Hope Sherri sees the info since I posted it so late.
Happy exploring to all.
~m
I loooove the info! We hear the “gronk, gronks” of alligators in our neighborhood too but never feel the urge to go and find them either- LOL. And Linda, I just remembered I saw a photo from a Ding motion camera of a bobcat with a small alligator in his/her mouth. I should find the photo and add it to this post!
Yes, I would love to see that! I heard some weird honk-like noises while in the Everglades and people said it was the alligators.. Maybe it really was?
I just had to leave another comment.. I love this blog!!!! Thanks for brightening my morning when I woke up with a frozen neck and tons of pain! Love the baby gators with their mom.. We saw just one baby gator in August at the alligator viewing spot at Ding Darling but we did not see Mom around.. I wonder if she was close by or why the baby was all alone? I heard they leave their babies after several months?
FYI- i added a photo to this post so you can see one predator of the alligator taken at Ding Darling. Wow!
baby gators are soooo cute! why do they have to grow into scary gators?:)
Here is an example of a distress call from a baby alligator to it’s mother, just one of many vocalizations alligators can make. It’s a rather delicate and sweet sound I think! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJt1TfcAvlY