Artificial incubation at 28ºC and initial growth at different temperatures of Pantanal Caiman (<em>Caiman crocodilus yacare</em>)

Abstract

Twenty Pantanal Caiman (Caiman crocodilus yacare) eggs were artificially incubated at 28°C. During the incubation, three eggs were opened in order to check their viability. 94.11% of hatchability was detected, with the hatching of 16 eggs. The hatched animals were kept under two different temperatures during growth (28ºC and 32°C), and submitted to morphometrical analysis. The collected data were analyzed according to the analysis of variance. The characteristics of the weight of the animals and the width of the head did not present significant differences (P > 0.05) between the treatments. The circumference of the belly and width of snout at nostrils were the ones that had the best (P < 0.05) results at 28°C. The other characteristics as total length, tail length ,snout-vent length ,head length, eye length, snout length, width of snout at mid-point and distance between limbs showed better results at 32°C. It may be concluded that temperature variation did not influence the gain of weight, but the temperature of 32°C was the best for the general development of the animals.