Crocodiles will either dig a hole about 30 cms deep or pile up leaves to incubate their eggs. They sometime splash water on the nest to control the temperature. In mugger crocs, females are exclusively produced at constant temperature of 28¡C through 31¡C. At 32.5¡C only males are produced. Both sexes in varying proportion are produced at 31.5 to 33¡C.
The female guards the nest. At the time of hatching the young start croaking so the mother (sometimes even the father) digs open the nest. Then she cracks some of the eggs with her teeth to set free the young and carries them to the water in her mouth. The adult crocodiles continue to guard the young until they are about 5-7 months old.
Crocodiles have many uses in nature's ecosystem. They help keep the environment clean by eating the carcasses that would otherwise rot. They capture the diseased, wounded and weaker prey thus letting only the strongest survive and thus maintaining a healthy population and keeping up the genetic quality of their prey species.
In the dry season, wallows and tunnels dug by crocs provide essential water for other animals, turtles and fish. Many animals depend upon crocs for food for e.g. the sacred Ibis and monitor lizard will eat the eggs of the Nile crocodile. Crocs are also exceptionally resistant to disease and thus may be of great use in medical research.
Chapter 11: Learning to Teach
January brought fresh experience for me and it happened entirely because of Hartman de Souza. I was to return to Goa via Bangalore and since our good friends, Hartman and Ujwala, live in Bangalore and had expressed willingness to accommodate me, should I need a place to stay for a while during my sabbatical, my parents suggested that I spend a few days there before returning home. I was to stay at their place, sight-see Bangalore if I liked and inform my parents as soon as I was ready to return. This then was the general plan.
I reached Bangalore at 1.40 p.m. on the 7th of January. Bing (that's how we all call Hartman) was at the bus-stand to pick me up, with his car. We drove to his house, me chatting away in reply to all his questions. At home there was Ujwala and their kids, Zuri and her younger brother, Zaeer. Also living with them at the time was Mrs Kalai who was Bing's colleague at the India Foundation for the Arts.
After settling down to a good meal and generally relaxing, Bing told me that he had in mind a few people and institutions connected with my interest i.e., wildlife and that I should use my time in Bangalore to meet them. I agreed to his suggestion, little realizing that the people he suggested I meet would make their own suggestions about other people I should meet and when I would report this information to Bing, he would insist that I go and meet them as well. So I spent quite a few days meeting, or writing to, various persons connected with wildlife in Bangalore.
Bing is quite a hard taskmaster and he would not let me off easily; if the people were not in station at that time or, if the names suggested were not from Bangalore, I had to write to them instead. I wrote numerous letters as a result. The general purpose of this activity was that I should get an idea of what options were there for me if I decided to pursue a career in wildlife eventually. Bing also suggested that I should try to find out how and why these people decided to take to environment and wildlife studies, whether they were happy in their choices and so on.
Bing made several copies of an introductory cum reference letter for me which I was to give to the people I was to meet. The letter, which was signed by him, stated that I had taken a one year sabbatical to explore wildlife which I had done for the past eight months and that I would like to have a small interview with the person concerned. I also prepared small questionnaires to help me in the interviews. Bing would most often phone the person in advance and make the appointment for me. Sometimes he even reached me to the place; at other times I went in a rickshaw.