Rare crocodiles hatch at the Fort Worth Zoo. Here’s what makes them so special.

Rare crocodiles hatch at Fort Worth Zoo

The Fort Worth Zoo is celebrating a groundbreaking moment in conservation history. For the first time, it successfully repeated breeding the gharial crocodile and now there are new hatchlings.

FORT WORTH, Texas - The Fort Worth Zoo is celebrating a major milestone in its conservation efforts.

On Wednesday, the zoo announced the birth of two gharial crocodiles.

The gharial is a type of river crocodile from India with a long, thin snout. They’re also one of the largest crocodile species in the world, growing to about 16 feet long and 1,500 pounds.

The new hatchlings mark the first time the zoo has successfully repeated breeding the critically endangered species.

"The Fort Worth Zoo has been working hard to have baby offspring gharial. This is our second year in a row, which is a huge feat. Having the ones that we had hatch last year was significant in the first place. We had multiple babies at that time, and then now we had it two years back-to-back. So, yah!" said Vicky Poole, the zoo’s associate curator of ectotherms.

Officials said they’ve been working on efforts to increase the gharial population for decades.

Their habitat was specifically designed with conservation efforts in mind.

"It was built specifically to have multiple gharial – a male and a group of females, a harem. And in addition to that, we also adapted the beach so that it's the perfect slope. There's enough sand. It's ideal. And our staff works really hard to track when the gharial start exhibiting their, breeding and nesting behaviors. We pull those eggs off the beach, set them up in incubators, artificially track, incubate those eggs, and track them so that we can have the best chance at success," Poole said.

The Fort Worth Zoo is now the only institution in North America to have repeated the breeding process.

"They are a pretty big deal. We’re very excited to have them," said Zach Foster, the supervisor of ectotherms. "We have two individuals here, and while they are about the same size, they are pretty unique, like us, with individual fingerprints. The patterns on their backs are unique to them. So that’s one way we’re able to identify these guys."

The public will get the chance to see the hatchlings at the zoo for the first time this weekend.

For more information, visit www.fortworthzoo.org/gharial-hatchings.