At first glance, it looks like a log covered in dozens of small branches. Look closer, and each of those branches is a baby. The photo shows a crocodile father carrying more than a hundred of his young on his back, and it has been shared around the world ever since.
In short
- The photo shows a male gharial, a crocodile species from India, carrying more than 100 hatchlings.
- It was taken by Indian photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee in the National Chambal Sanctuary.
- The father had mated with seven or eight different females.
- The species is critically endangered, with an estimated 650 adults left.
The photo
The image was taken by India-based photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee in northern India’s National Chambal Sanctuary, as Live Science reported. On it, more than 100 month-old hatchlings cling to the head and back of a large male gharial. According to Live Science, this father had mated with seven or eight different females, which explains the size of his “family.”
Why he carries them on his back
Gharials look different from other crocodiles: they have a very long, thin snout. Most crocodiles carry their young in their mouths, but the gharial’s unusual snout prevents that. Instead, the young “cling to the head and back for that close connection and protection,” Live Science explained. For the hatchlings, the adult’s back is the safest place in the river.
Fathers that protect their young aren’t what most people expect from a crocodile, yet the image shows exactly that. In the photo, the hatchlings cover their father’s head and back. It’s that density, more than a hundred small bodies on a single adult, that makes the picture so striking, and so hard to forget once you’ve seen it.
A giant on the brink
Adult gharials can reach up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) long. But the species is critically endangered: there are an estimated 650 adults left in the rivers of India and Nepal, according to the Natural History Museum figure cited by Live Science. Each of the babies on this father’s back matters for the species’ future.
Why this picture went viral
The photo combines everything that makes an image travel: a surprising scene, an animal people think they know, and a gesture people recognize as tenderness. It’s the same feeling behind other wildlife moments, like the cheetah that fell asleep against a photographer or the gorilla that carried a little boy to safety in 1996.
The limit
The image is real, but it captures a single moment: the hatchlings don’t spend all their time on their father’s back, and many won’t survive to adulthood, as is often the case in the wild. Calling it “tenderness” is our human reading of the scene. Biologists speak more simply of protection. And the photo has been shared widely since it was first published, so you may have seen versions with different captions online.
That’s the story.
