MORELET'S CROCODILES
As soon as our van had pulled up to the dock at Dzilam de Bravo we saw a good-sized Morelet's Crocodile, CROCODYLUS MORELETII, floating in the much-boated canal right beside our busy road. The guides said it was a Morelet's but the reptile rode so low in the water and was so silhouetted that we couldn't distinguish it from an American Crocodile, which might conceivably appear in this area, or even an alligator, which shouldn't. My herp book doesn't mention Morelet's Crocodiles existing in the northern Yucatan, so I asked the guides if maybe these crocs had been introduced here for the benefit of tourists. No, it was true that until a few years ago no crocodiles lived along this coast but then a big hurricane came along, Gilbert if they remembered correctly, and since then the crocs have been reproducing and spreading. In fact, at the edge of one lagoon up the coast we saw a mound of sand about the size of a melted Volkswagen, and that was a crocodile nest. A few feet away at the water's edge, well camouflaged among mangrove stems, rested several babies maybe 15 inches long. At the reedy edge of one lagoon we saw where a very big adult had slid from the water onto dry land, smoothing mud and knocking down vegetation. Not one of the group could resist glancing behind us. The guides told us that during the nights the hundreds or maybe thousands of flamingos across the lagoon flew elsewhere to roost. It's supposed that they go to crocodile-free lagoons. You may be interested in looking over the tourist blurb I wrote about the Dzilam de Bravo trip at http://www.backyardnature.net/n/06/060318x.htm. Also, I've put together a selected list of plants and animals of the Dzilam de Bravo Conservation Zone at http://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/dzilamff.htm. |
