Black Caiman

[Dark Jaguar]

INTERSPECIFIC PREDATORY RELATIONS.

https://pt.qaz.wiki/wiki/Black_caiman

''Many predators, including various fish, mammals, reptiles and even amphibian species, feed on eggs and caiman calves. The black caiman shares its habitat with at least 3 other semi-anphids considered apex predators and is generally able to coexist with them by focusing on different prey and micro-habitats. They Giant Otters which are social and obligatory aquatic foraging and fish eaters, Green Anacondas that slowly feed on mammals and medium sized reptiles and Jaguars which are the most terrestrial of them and concentrate their diet mainly on relatively larger mammals and reptiles.

Black caimans can eat around the same prey as the other species. They are possibly the most opportunistic, but despite being the largest predator in the area, they may live metabolically from their food longer and therefore may not need to hunt as often. Normally each predator avoids encounters of adults of other species, but battles, which can be lost almost anywhere, rarely occur. Even more than otters and anacondas, jaguars and black caimans are indisputably at the top of this food chain. Once the caiman reaches a few meters long, it has few natural predators. The large anacondas can catch the occasional young caiman of this species. The jaguar being a known predator of all other caiman species is the only primary predatory threat to black caimans with some records of predation on young black caimans and eggs and one single reported case of an adult male black caiman measuring 3.8 m (12 feet) having fallen as prey to a large jaguar. However black caimans of 4.3 m (14 ft 1 in.) or longer have no natural predators as with other species of crocodilians of similar size given the size, weight, thick skin and immense strength and could even them themselves on rare cases prey on the jaguar or puma.''

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Interspecific Conflic between a young Black Caiman named Pepe (up front of camera) and Pantanal Caiman (Caiman yacare) in Bolivia.


Both repitiles are used to people around and have been fed by humans.

*This image is copyright of its original author

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