Venezuela: Los Llanos – Caymans

One of the most defining animals of Los Llanos is the spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), known locally in Venezuela as the baba. You can see them in massive numbers, especially around pools and mini lakes or any other bodies of standing water. At the end of dry season rivers recede and marshes dry up, forcing millions of caimans to move toward the few remaining permanent lagoons cattle ponds, and river channels. Densities can be staggering – hundreds packed shoulder-to-shoulder along mudbanks, with the water boiling inside the mini-lagunes (plus there are hundreds of turtles and piranha somehow co-existing with the caymans). Interestingly, their diet consists mostly of smaller insects and frogs and catfish, capybaras are not a common prey. You can see hundreds lying in the morning on the banks of the pools with their mouths wide open to thermo-regulate.