This is another 17 minute 14 second video about the baby alligator, the grunt. I’m examining more about the anatomy and habitat with Sean Mallee, the Naturalist of DaggerWing Nature in this second video.
The Grunt is very soft at this young age. This one is fed crickets for main protein. It has such tiny teeth that it couldn’t hurt me if it did bite down. But very soon, it’ll be eating the nature center’s frozen mice population located in their freezer. (Peering into the nature center’s freezer could supply a monster movie with props.) In one plastic see-through baggie are the ‘bunch’ of mice-popsicles. Without my glasses, it looked like white icepop fuzzies. One gulp later, the mice-popsicle is swallowed whole. When they are ready for bigger reptile foods (rats, rabbits) is when the grunt is traded back to Busch Wildlife Sanctuary.
My favorite moment in holding this lovey baby grunt is when he used his hind leg to remove the velcro contraption on its snout. It was an unlikely move to make. Like a dog or cat with a facial restriction, it stopped and pulled the snout-wrap off then moved away quickly. This hind action move is not something associated with alligators. Swallowing whole animals is but scratching off a band-aid isn’t. This move was in the first video.
My second favorite action was when it pee’d. Now I can run the line “I have been close enough to an alligator that it pee’d on me.” (y humor runs along 6 year old thinking.) Yes, I washed my hands thoroughly afterwards but I will always feel honored to have been this close enough to a gator and survived. My later year stories on the same topic will be told without the age of the alligator.
The four toes on the back of the gator also surprised me. I was intrigued because usually a creature having a set of 5 hand digits also has 5 foot digits. In my imagination, they have only 4 back toes to be able to use that extra skin for webbing which helps them swim. And since they are tail swimmers, it seems to make sense even if it isn’t factually proven true.
But the love came when cameras were off and so off fell the gator’s snout wrap. Before having to place it back on, it smiled at me. The mouth popped open. The tongue reminds me of Hermit the Frog’s mouth which has no protruding tongue. It’s as if the tongue was sewn to the bottom jaw. Very neat and even looking. It popped its mouth open once more and I saw the tiny tiny teeth. With the frontal image being as adorable as any baby, I can see why the Alligator Mommy is in love.