Venezuela is home to some of the largest reptiles in the world, including the anaconda and Matamata turtle. Unfortunately, I didn't see either of these. Even so, I did  get some great looks at other interesting "herps." Hato Masaguaral is one of the breeding centers for the Oronocan crocodile (or "caiman" in Spanish, not to be confused with the spectacled caimen below), one of the most endangered species in the world. Recent population estimates place their wild population at between 500 and 1000 individuals.

A close relative of the crocodile, the spectacled caimen (known as a "baba" in the Llanos), was very common in the wetter areas of the ranch. I saw them in all different sizes, from babies around 8 inches long to a few big guys that topped 6 feet by begging fish scraps from Kako, the crocodile keeper. They usually stayed out of our way, although every once in a while we would step on a submerged caimen. Needless to say, this is a bit alarming even for a herpetophile like me.

Green iguanas (Iguana iguana), the same species found in many pet stores, was very abundant, especially near the propogated plants around the houses. Other common lizards were the black-and-white tegu (Tupinambis teguixin), and the amiva (Amiva amiva), as well as a fence lizard and a house gecko.

We saw several species of snakes as well. Most familiar was the red-tailed boa (Boa constrictor). These were amazingly well tempered, we could just scoop them up with little fear of getting bitten (kids, don't try this at home, I am a trained professional). The largest one we caught was 2.3 meters long. The longest snake we nabbed was a 2.6 meter Spilotes pullatus, a hansome but very aggressive black and yellow snake. Cat-eyed snakes (Leptodeira) were frequent inhabitants of our parrotlet nest boxes- they apparently enjoyed the thermoregulation provided by the incubating bird. If I have room to stick in a snake picture or two, I will, because snakes are my favorites!

In terms of amphibians, we heard TONS of frogs, but couldn't identify the majority of them. Our favorites were the "hey!" frogs, whose call buWHEY sounded remarkably like a shouting person. When these frogs were in chorus, they sounded remarkably like the llaneran cowboys trying to round up the cattle! We distinguished at least 2 species of hylid (tree) frog, some ranids (look like bullfrogs), and a couple of toads, including the infamous cane toad (Bufo marinus).

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