Photos

Documenting wildlife’s behavior and separating tales from real events it’s a naturalist dream. I had heard the caimans and crocodiles will bury themselves during extreme droughts and in my 39 years of field work, I never saw this event. Well 2001 was a year of extremes in the llanos, the dry season came up with an unforgiving sun drying most seasonal bodies of water forcing its inhabitants to migrate for large distances. Yet some resourced to stay and wait out the bad times. As it turns out, caimans do bury themselves in the mud. By just living their nostrils out and lowering their metabolic activities to a minimum they can withstand dehydration for some time until the arrival of the rains. This photograph is a good example on how the study of ones subject and the continuous visits to the same wilderness area helps to achieve ones photographic goals.