A newly hatched alligator rests in a container inside a laboratory 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.