Southeast of Tunapuy, Venezuela Photograph by J. van der Woude   Northern South America: Northeastern Venezuela Flooded Grasslands and Savannas   2,300 square miles (6,000 square kilometers) -- about the size of Delaware Relatively Stable/Intact

· Wading through Wetlands
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Wading through Wetlands

You’ll want to wear your boots in these wetlands. The Orinoco Wetlands ecoregion consists of flooded grasslands and forests along the northern delta of the Orinoco River in northeastern Venezuela. Along this major river system, patches of wetlands are dispersed throughout a mosaic of swamp forests, mangroves, and llanos (grassy plains with few trees).

Special Features

Buffered from the ocean by an extensive mangrove ecosystem, these wetlands are a freshwater system. Seasonal flooding of the Orinoco River provides valuable nutrients and creates habitat for waterfowl, fish, amphibians, certain reptiles, and other aquatic fauna. Looking across the landscape, you’ll notice grasslands with tall vegetation but few woody plants except for occasional concentrations of palms and patches of forest. Pioneer plants such as Cecropia trees may also pop up on the edges, along with lilies and Heliconia flowers, which attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

	Reaching more than 3 feet (1 m) in length and weighing more than 154 pounds (70 kg), the capybara is the largest living rodent in the world.

Wild Side

Perched in a tree beside the Orinoco River, Orinoco geese preen their scalloped buff-white and reddish-flecked feathers. Below, a black-crowned night heron rests on low branches, awaiting nightfall, as a wattled jacana walks atop lily pads and water hyacinth with its gigantic feet. On a shallow muddy bank, an Orinoco crocodile basks in the sun, while jabiru storks and whistling herons patrol the shallow waters for fish and a roseate spoonbill searches the mud with its beak, seeking aquatic invertebrates. Large rodents known as capybaras feed as a group on aquatic vegetation along the edge of an oxbow lake. Hiding under a mat of hyacinth, an enormous anaconda waits patiently nearby for young capybara to wander within reach. Below the water’s surface, a school of pacu, a vegetarian type of piranha, feasts on fruits and seeds that have been knocked down by the antics of a troop of spider monkeys feeding high in the canopy.

Cause for Concern

The wetlands along the Orinoco River suffer from the impacts of oil extraction and prospecting, water development projects, and dam construction.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.