Behavior
When water recedes in the dry season, Orinoco crocodiles retreat to burrows they excavate into the riverbanks. The adult pair mates during the drier period of the year and usually 14 weeks after mating, the female crocodile will dig a nest and lay approximately 40 eggs. It is a hole-nester and usually makes the nest on a sand bank. The eggs incubate for around 3 months. During the night they hatch and call to their mother who digs them out of the nest and carries them to the water, which is considerably higher at this point. Young Orinoco crocodiles are often at risk from predation by American Black Vultures, tegu lizards, anacondas, caimans, coatis, jaguars and other carnivores, though these species are sometimes caught and killed by the defending mother crocodile. It has been reported that mothers have defended pods of juveniles for over 3 years, though closer to one year to independence is generally most common.
Read more about this topic: Orinoco Crocodile
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“No one thinks anything silly is suitable when they are an adolescent. Such an enormous share of their own behavior is silly that they lose all proper perspective on silliness, like a baker who is nauseated by the sight of his own eclairs. This provides another good argument for the emerging theory that the best use of cryogenics is to freeze all human beings when they are between the ages of twelve and nineteen.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
“Children, randomly at first, hit upon something sooner or later that is their mother’s and/or father’s Achilles’ heel, a kind of behavior that especially upsets, offends, irritates or embarrasses them. One parent dislikes name-calling, another teasing...another bathroom jokes. For the parents, this behavior my have ties back to their childhood, many have been something not allowed, forbidden, and when it appears in the child, it causes high-voltage reaction in the parent.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
“Excessive attention, even if it’s negative, is such a powerful “reward” to a child that it actually reinforces the undesirable behavior. You need to learn restraint, to respond to far fewer situations, to ask yourself questions like, “Is this really important?” “Could I let this behavior go?” “What would happen if I just wait?” “Could I lose by doing nothing?””
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)