• Noble Shift@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I live on a sailboat in South Florida and there is a salt water croc that lives about 500 yards from me in some mangroves. It’s not as large (bulk) or as long and has a narrower body than an alligator, and just LOVES to eat iguanas.

    Like the iguanas, pythons, anacondas, etc etc the caimans arrived with the exotic pet trade. You could purchase a <1 foot caiman in the early 80s in Florida for under $60. Then once those mean aggressive bastards got 3-5 feet people just dumped them in the woods/swamps.

    Between the American alligator, saltwater croc or caiman, Ill face the caiman last. Those fuckers are mean AF, territorial and did I mention mean?

    [edit - American Croc, not one of those dinosauric African/Saltwater monsters]

    • Decoy321@lemmy.worldM
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      11 months ago

      I can confirm this dude’s statement about caimans. I used to hang out in their neck of the woods a looong time ago when I was a teenager. A few minutes away from Key Biscayne is a little tract of federal land where an old squatter named Jimbo built himself a little shanty town in a cove. He’d sell smoked fish and if you left cash on a counter, you could grab canned beer from a nearby cooler. My friend and I would see all kinds of wildlife in the nearby trails and water, usually gators, deer, and manatees. A few times we did see caimans, and they were always the most hostile fuckers. We called them Meth Gators.