So ya wanna be the croc of the float, do ya? (Chapter one.)

 So ya wanna be the Croc of the float, do ya?
Written by Humidity Dragon.

Alright Gator or Croc, so ya wanna be the Croc of the Float? How can one become the very thing every single bright eyed snaggle snouted   crocodile strides to be? What does "Top Of the Float" mean?  Ya can find it all out right here and now in this article! So, pay attention climbing crocodile This article is written for you!

It's a moment every crocodilian must ask themselves sooner or later, before they shed their egg-tooth, "How long is it before I become the croc of the water?" For some, the journey is linear. Some crocs have gotten to their crown of the float with a few routine bites and scars, while some have had survive firing on all fours, just barley surving the waters rampant with their own kind.For those reading this article who aren't alligator or crocodile, you might be wondering...." who is the croc of the float?" He's any croc who can beat the others by size and bite.

A float, is a group of crocodiles, no matter what species. There are over ten species of crocs, but for this article the attention will be written from the point of view of a saltie, swimming the billabongs. A Salt-water croc, is he, and his joy to being the croc of the float is yet to be seen. This is the classic tale of  determination, and it's the tale of Billabong The Salt-Water Crocodile. 

Like most other salties swimming the water that drains every dry season, Billabong wouldn't even be here there's a fabric's chance in a fashion store without the years of conservational work. Without the scraping by teeth gritting work for those who wanted to see what others were afriad of the saltie numbers would have stayed in tar until eventually slowly being engulfed in the dark umbrealla of extinction.

Billabong Scales was hatched during shortly after he was lain. Only around 78 days after. His hatching  was no swim in the swamp for his mother though. No one knows how to be a mama-bear like a mother croc. It was hard for her to move during the cloudy days when she knew she was with clutch, if not for the warmth of the summer she would have froze trying to build the nest for her soon to be eggs. A mother croc will risk starvation for sitting and guarding her nest.

Billabong's first time mother, did not learn her intesense maternal spark from her grand-mother Eusterine Scales. Billabong's mother, same as the crocs that swam the waters before her mother, and   the crocs that swam the waters prehistoric, all contain the maternal instinct baked into their hides that tells them to build a nest of slimy rotten leaves and to guard those leaves like a century. For there, are over fifty eggs that are more helpless against something as laughable as ants.

One ant can't carry away a nest of crocodile eggs, but ants are famous for working together to get themselves fed. It get's better, but as of now, Billabong's mother scantly has time to sigh to herself, due to the round the clock guarding of these crocs who are at their most impaired stage. Eggs are easy for birds, and mammals to take a bite of. It's a realization that's as bitter as bile how many animals can attest for how tasty croc eggs can be.

It's hot, it's humid, and it's time for Billabong and his brothers and sisters to hatch. The leaves his mother has risked her safety to build will cradle the hatchlings no longer. The crocs that float together, emote together. Billabong wasn't the first to break from his egg, but he was not last either. He springs, making use of his egg tooth, and his encapsulation is over. He watches others do their best to wriggle from the crumbling eggs, some can, and some cannot.

(Just because he's also a saltwater croc doesn't mean Billabong-Scales is exempt from being eaten by other salties.)

It's cliche to the point of stomach pain that crocs and gators are cold and un-maternal. There are species of birds, more elegant to the look that will not help their hatchlings if they so much as can't preform a task to the mother's standards. Yet, Billabong's mother will crunch open an egg, if it means her first ever clutch will get to see the river.

This female croc at the top of the food chain will do anything she can for her clutch because she loves them from the bottom of her heart. If that means helping them hatch, she will. None of this is exzclusive for any species of croc, this is all "tradition" as far as the crocodilian species goes. Alligators build their nests for their clutch, will help bring them to the nearest body of water, as will Caiman, not a species of crocodile, but a species crocodilian.

Our Billabong croc has just hatched, he's not even considered a real member of any float yet. He's lunch. Cannibalism isn't anything scandalous in the crocodilian community.  His mother, still carries her snout to the water on a several year long oath to make sure none of her hatchlings become food for not only the bigger crocs, but birds, and other animals of the australian environment. Had anything happened to her, Billabong might not have been so lucky to survive!

However, nature is nature, and Billabong's siblings have no choice but to be apart of nature. What's cruel to the croc is generous to the starving fish swimming by, or the bird so hungry it can barley fly. Or even another salt-water croc. Billabong's mother hatched over 50 eggs, and less than a year and half later, there are fewer than twenty.

Billabong though has really got this whole "survival" thing. Of his clutch, he's already the fastest swimmer. He's been the first to figure out how to hunt, the right techniques for biting his prey, and he's the greatest of them all at strategizing. Catching food and eating it was one of the first things he learned. No one is born a croc of the float, but with intelligence and a wit as tac like as his still finely ended teeth, it's in the water.

And speaking of teeth, it seems the teeth of the same female croc who risked every osteoderm she had to guide her clutch, has turned against the few remaining. Our Billabong-Scales still remembers when she used her mouth to transport his siblings to the same billabong he was named after, so that they could gain hydration. Now, those same teeth would be coated in drooling anticipation for a bite.

Billabong will adapt to the fact that his mother is now just another croc. And that doesn't just go for his once mother, his siblings, the ones he bonded with the most over the few years have all turned icy. They are family no more, but only crocs who swim the same streams. It's simple and true for Billabong. All he has is himself, and his quest to be croc of the float. 

Thank you for reading this first chapter of Billabong's story. The next chapter will be uploaded sometime in 2024, as of now continue reading other works of this blog, including the comic books and other articles written about nature.
-----Humidity Dragon!

Sources:
nt.gov.au
crocosauruscove.com