This is scientific American's 60 second science.

I'm Christopher Intalyata.

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Florida's Everglades are home to lots of large waiting birds, like egrets and herons.

But the glades also have lots of raccoons and possums.

And for the mammals, the birds nests are in all you can eat buffet.

And when an invasion occurs,

sometimes thousands of birds will abandon their nests and just leave.

There's just littered remains of dead chicks and eggs that have been eaten.

Lucas Nell, an ecologist at the University of Georgia.

Nell says that in order to seek protection from their furry foes, birds actually prefer to build

their nests in plots of swamp with a resident alligator.

In fact, in one study, a graduate student planted fake alligators, and the birds

seem to prefer to build nests close to them.

Where there is a water source or alligator, so it's kind of this moat of protection around these colonies.

Nell and his colleagues took to the Everglades at night, hunting for gators near and far from nests.

You have to use the spotlight and you see the little demon eyes shining out of the marsh.

They lassowed the gators, pulled them into the airboat, and took blood samples and body measurements.

Turns out, the gators near bird colonies were 13% fatter, which means this unusual arrangement

may be mutually beneficial.

The birds get protection, and the gators they feast on any chicks that get kicked out of the nest, as well as on the rest of the extra productive swamp life, fertilized by all that guano.

The findings are in the journal Ploss 1.

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