hatchling

hatch +‎ -ling

hatchling (plural hatchlings)

1. A newly hatched bird, reptile or other animal that has emerged from an egg.

   The hatchling alligator had just broken out of its shell but was already trying to follow its mother, who hunted hatchling birds.

   • 2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, page 90:

     Hatchling nautiluses emerge, after nearly a year's gestation, as miniature adults and then immediately start swimming around, searching for food in the depths.