Social Life of Black Caiman

Their starts in December when shrinking water bodies cause fish to congregate in shallow pools, creating a steady supply of food for the females and her off-springs. Their nests are made of vegetation found nearby which about 1.5 meters (5 feet) is across and 0.75 meters wide (2.5 feet).

All male Caimans will indulge themselves in fight to attract females for mating and the one who wins gets the right to stay with the female to reproduce. The male Caiman goes on top of female and inserts a tube into the female's back hole and releases sperm into the female's ovaries. Then they start to role together and go up and down. After rolling, they stay together for several hours. After courtship, females will build the nests.

Female Caimans lay 15 to 40 eggs, out of which only 8-10 remains alive. Lizards and other predators eat the eggs while humans steal them for commercial purposes. Black Caiman make all efforts to protect their babies by building their nests closer to each other. One single loss means too much for mother. Female Black Caiman will place her babies in her mouth and relieve from danger even at the slightest notice of predator or enemy. Mothers protect their children until they attain the age of 4 to 6 years.

Enemies of Black Caiman

Black Caiman faces the danger from Jaguar, big snakes, other caimans and big Lizards. Jaguars mistakes Caimans for logs jump on them and gets killed on the spot. Anaconda also squeezes Black Caiman hard until he dies.

Man, is continuously hunting Black Caiman's for commercial needs, making use of their skins for manufacturing luxurious goods. Due to this excessive hunting there are only 2000 of them left in whole world.

Efforts are being made to protect Black Caiman all over the world. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List these species has now undergone substantial recovery.

Black Caiman also helps to maintain the ecological balance of the nature. For eg. The decline of Black Caiman's also led to the decline of plankton and many species because the excrement of Black Caiman was once a food for planktons, which formed the base of the aquatic Amazonian food chain.

Thus more and more efforts are required to protect these species to maintain ecological balance. There are lots of black caiman zoos. If you want to a black caiman you can go there . You can refer the history of Black caiman for more details.

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Social Life of Black Caiman

Enemies of Black Caiman

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