ALLIGATOR NEST

Great picture of an Alligator nest.  Alligator nest's are made of mud and vegetation.  This great picture was taken by my good friend Fred Robin an airboat driver at Lake Trafford in Immokalee.

IT'S ALLIGATOR NESTING SEASON!!!

It's nesting time for the alligators. Here is a mama gator guarding her nest. The nest is directly in front of her, it's made up of dirt, twigs, grass, etc.; which is piled up, and made into a mound structure. The eggs are deposited within the mound. The temperature of the nest determines the sex of the baby gators. ( above 93° F (33.8° C) all are male, (below 86° F (30° C) all are female, and temperatures in between will produce both sexes. Mama gator lays between 30 - 40 eggs, older, mature females can produce as many as 90 eggs. In about 65 days the eggs with hatch, about a week before they hatch the little alligators start making a high pitched chirp within the egg. This signals the mother, it's time to remove the top nesting material, from the nest. That way it's easier for the baby alligators to emerge from the nest. Sometimes the Red Bellied Slider; (an aquatic turtle), will deposit their eggs in the alligators nest, (when mama gator isn't looking). Because mama turtle knows; mama alligator is guarding that nest with her life! Hence the turtle eggs will be protected.