Where Are Crocodiles Born?
Where Are Crocodiles Born? Crocodile breeding season varies according to the species’ environment, but regardless of these differences, all female crocodiles appear to follow one of two birthing practices: they either build a nest or dig a hole.
The female searches for suitable spots to give birth and may dig a few trial holes or build a partial nest. When she’s ready, she lays her eggs. She does not move her eggs during incubation period.
A newly-hatched crocodile is about eight inches long and can be found on the mud near the water’s edge of marshes, rivers, estuaries and lakes around the tropical regions of the world. For it is here that the female lays her eggs and buries them-30 to 70 at a time in holes-in the warm mud.
Each of the hard-shelled eggs is about the size of a goose’s egg. After being covered by vegetation which, as it rots, supplements the warmth of the sun, the batch is guarded by the female until the eggs are about to hatch. Then the crocodile digs down to free them from the mud.
Adult crocodiles vary in size from the three-feet-long dwarf ones of West Africa to those in the estuaries of tropical Asia and Australia which can attain a length of 20 feet.
There salt-water estuary crocodiles, including those that live in the tidal part of the River Nile in North Africa, are occasionally man-eaters and will attack and eat almost any living creature that comes within their reach.
They were once thought to weep as they snapped up their victim. That is why in popular speech we often describe false display of sorrow as “crocodile tears”.