DailyCelestialChallenge Tuesday-animalkingdom_The Cayman of the Orinoco.
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Today's theme is dedicated to one of the largest predators in Latin America. The Cayman of Orinoco or llanero caiman, as it is also known.
The species is included in the Official List of Endangered Animals for Hunting (Decree No. 1,485 of the Presidency of the Republic dated 11/09/1996), in the Official List of Animals in Danger of Extinction (Decree No. 1,486 of the Presidency of the Republic dated 11/09/1996) and in Appendix I of CITES.
This reptile, is one of the largest species of crocodiles in the world, belongs to the family Crocodylidae, is an endemic species of the Orinoco basin; that is, it is in a reduced form in this geographical space and we will not find it in a natural way in other parts of the world.
Male alligators can reach a maximum length of seven meters, while females can measure up to 3.5 m. It is characterized by having a snout thinner than other species of crocodiles, a trunk, robust and flattened, wider in the middle than at the ends. The dorsal surface is covered with bony plates except the sides and belly.
It is found in the Colombian Orinoquia and in Venezuela it is distributed in the lower basin of the Orinoco River. The most important populations where they are located are the Cojedes and Capanaparo rivers
The Orinoco crocodile is an opportunistic species that consumes a wide variety of prey, from frogs and snakes to birds and mammals, although it prefers a piscivorous diet.
Its reproduction is associated with the seasons. The females lay their eggs in nests (holes) that dig in the sandbars exposed along the rivers with the arrival of the dry season, an average of 42 eggs, which take almost three months in incubation period for the birth the offspring and is synchronized with the arrival of the rains.
Mothers are very territorial to the point that they nest in the same places every year.
Eggs have the overo lizard as the main predator and newborn pups are often the prey of many species of birds and carnivorous fish.
Between the years 1930 and 1960 the commercial exploitation annihilated the populations of crocodile of the Orinoco in great part of its distribution area. Since the 1970s, they have been breeding in captivity in Colombia and Venezuela in order to reintroduce them into their natural habitat.
Calzadilla-Valdés (1988) reports that the initiators of the Cayman skin industry in Apure were North Americans, who between 1894 and 1895, arrived from the city of Bolívar on the Arauca river to El Yagual. They began to kill them by day with firearms but quickly became the most mischievous and uncouth alligators and so the hunters had to change their tactics and hunt them at night with the aim of surprising those who remained outside on the beaches (Figure 2). They were finished off with an accurate blow with an ax in the nape of the neck or between the eyes, but many badly wounded or newly dead alligators floated down the river, being devoured by Caribs or piranhas (Serrasalmus spp.) And others were alligators attracted by the blood of his mortal wounds. In this way much of the valuable animals were lost to the industry. They accommodated the skins well salted and folded in large metal boxes with capacity for 30 or more skins, they were covered, hermetically welded and lined with wood for export.
Job 41 Translation in current language (TLA)
41 "You can not catch a crocodile with a simple fishhook, nor tie its tongue with a rope.
2 You can not pierce the jaw or tie the muzzle.
3 A crocodile is not going to beg you to have compassion,
4 is not going to serve you as a slave for the rest of his life!
5 Nor can you play with him as you play with birds, and tie a rope to a leg for your daughters to play.
6 A crocodile is not torn to sell in the market;
7 The spears do not pierce his skin or his head!
8 If you want to hold him, you'll end up fighting him, and you'll regret doing it.
9 There is no point in thinking that they would come to dominate it; Just by seeing it, you will fall unconscious!
10 If no one can with him, who is going to be able with me, that I am the almighty God?
11 Mine is all that is under heaven! Who can ask me for accounts?
12-13 »Do not forget that the crocodile has very strong legs an impenetrable skin, and a huge body that no one can dominate.
14 Nobody dares to open his huge snout to see his sharp fangs.
15-17 His body is covered with rows of small shields, which even the air does not let pass.
18 When the crocodile snorts, its eyes shine more than lightning and the sun of the new day;
19 from its snout come sparks of fire and flames of fire;
20-21 throws smoke through the nose and fire through the mouth; It looks like a pot put to the fire!
A breath of his lights the firewood!
22 His neck is so strong that only seeing it makes him afraid;
23 the softer skin of your body is impenetrable;
24 His breast is firm as rock and hard as a millstone.
25 When the crocodile shakes, even the most powerful tremble and run.
26-29 There is no weapon capable of wounding it, for it breaks iron like straw, and bronze like rotten wood; the arrows do not penetrate him, and the stones of the slings only tickle him; hitting him with a hammer is like hitting him with a feather.
30 When it crawls through the mud, it opens furrows like the plow; 31 when it is thrown to the bottom of the lake, the water looks like a pot boiling,
32 and in its wake it leaves a bright white trail.
33 The crocodile fears no one, and no animal resembles it.
34 He despises the powerful, for he is the king of monsters. "
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