WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Taylor Pitcock, a NASA biologist, hand-carries a baby alligator to the nest where it and its siblings were first collected as eggs. The reptiles hatched in captivity inside an incubator at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Kennedy’s Ecological Program studies several facets of alligator health, including nesting. The center shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which encompasses 140,000 acres that provide a habitat for more than 330 species of birds, 31 mammals, 117 fishes, and 65 amphibians and reptiles.