Culvers Dwarf Caiman #3 Canvas Print

Culvers Dwarf Caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus) with head out of the water in the Mesker Park Zoo, Evansville, Indiana.

HABITAT: Most of northern South America in freshwater forested riverine (drainages between and including the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, in addition to those in Paraguay) and flooded forests around larger lakes.

APPEARANCE:
Smallest extant species of crocodilian, males reaching a maximum of 1.5 or 1.6 m, females rarely exceeding 1.2 m. Heavily ossified armour on both dorsal and ventral surfaces - protection which serves to make up for its small size, perhaps, and reduces injury in more fast-flowing riverine habitats, as well as from obstacles and predators during terrestrial forays which are common in the adults.

My love for wildlife started early in life. I was the only child and we lived out in the country where there wasn’t any kids my age so all my time was playing alone out in the fields and woods. There I watched the birds and animals. In the winter when it snowed I would track the animals. Wildlife was my friends and siblings. I didn’t pick up the camera until I was 43 years old in 1983. My wife and I were going to visit a good friend in Alpine, Texas and visit the Big Bend National Park. I didn’t have a camera but a friend let me borrow his 35mm camera with a 50mm lens. I took several 36 exposure rolls of film on the trip. I soon found out I needed a much larger lens to photograph the deer and birds that I had seen. That trip...