CubaPLUS Magazine

The black legend about the ferocity of crocodiles began to be written by man a long time ago, and even today it is difficult to escape from it. Man thinks more about taking care of us reptilian size than dedicating ourselves to taking care of them. Not counting those who think of exterminating them for the sake of economic benefits.

In Cuba, however, there is already vast experience in the care, promotion of reproduction and the creation of restricted protected areas that guarantee the reproduction and right to life of the only two existing species: the Rhombider (Crocodylusrhombifer), the only endemic of the country and the Acutus, called American Crocodile.

Both species have breeding sites and swampy areas as habitats, where they can live in captivity or preferably in the wild, depending on the stage of life they are in. They are species with a high mortality rate when they are very small and are usually eaten by powerful predators, when they appear to be small lizards in their infancy.

The mighty Cuban Rhombifer, the older of the two, breeds and lives in breeding sites in Ciénaga de Lanier (Isle of Youth) and Ciénaga de Zapata, Matanzas, the largest wetland in the Antilles. Meanwhile, the Acutus already has a considerable population in the Ciénaga de Virama, Río Cauto municipality, also located to the south of the Islagrande like the two previous reservoirs.

No tourist or vacationer has the risk of colliding with a crocodile or the so-called alligator on Cuban beaches or rivers, since his life has a rigorous control and monitoring, to avoid accidents.

They usually feed on small turtles, fish, insects and when they are older they come out of the swampy water where they live and approach the trees to hit their trunks with their strong tail. Sometimes a hutía -Cuban mammal- falls and they eat it with great pleasure.

The crocodile mother is among the most consecrated in the world, both by preparing the nest with branches and remains of trunks, on the banks, and later by caring for and defending her offspring once the 30 or 40 eggs that they lay and have hatched, we would say that almost with a great love.