Photo of the Day 215

Hatchling Alligators, Big Cypress Swamp, Florida, 1994

Photograph by Chris Johns

Hatchling alligators break free of their shells in Big Cypress Swamp in the Florida Everglades. Babies who have trouble emerging get a surprisingly delicate assist from the tooth-lined jaws of their mother.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Everglades: Dying for Help," April 1994, National Geographic magazine)