Last night I saw (again) an old David Attenborough
program called "Living with dinosaurs", a dreadful
name since it was about crocs, chelonians and large
lizards, but it did show absolutely unambiguously, a
crocodylian hatching from a soft-shelled egg.
Attenborough even talked in terms of the mother
helping them hatch out of their leathery eggs.

Also, as the croc mother was laying the eggs, they did
seem to be fairly soft, though this was much harder to
be certain of. They were dropped an inch or two onto
each other without causing any damage or even noise.

I've repeatedly seen it claimed that all crocs lay
hard shelled eggs, and every croc egg I've seen (on
TV) away from the nest was hard. Can someone confirm
that they are soft when laid, harden up after that and
then become soft again before hatching, and that this
is what happens with all modern crocodylian eggs?



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