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Yhuri Cardoso Nóbrega et al. 906 opportunity for nesting. We located three active nests within the site; each was composed of a mixture of dry leaves, small branches and soil. Visual inspection of nests confirmed no signs of faeces, mould, predation, excessive invertebrate activity or other feature that would characterise nest abnormalities. Female caimans were observed in the vicinity of each nest but did not interact with the field team during sampling. Wearing gloves and face-masks, we carefully excavated the topmost nest material until eggs were uncovered. Without direct handing, 10 eggs from each nest were swabbed using Olen®, model K41-0102 sterile swabs. The temperature of nests was not recorded. After swabbing, eggs were inspected—none were observed to be infertile, unviable, or in a state of decomposition—and approximately 100g of nest substrate collected from the middle layer of the central area of the nest deemed not to have been in direct contact with eggs. This sample was stored in a sterile flask and the eggs replaced. For laboratory processing, each swab was placed in sterile saline, manually homogenised and 1 mL inoculated in Cistine-Lactose, Electrolyte Deficient (CLED) Kasvi® agar plates. Nest substrate samples were broken up and chopped into smaller pieces with sterile scissors and homogenized in a flask. One gram of each nest sample was placed in 10 mL sterile saline (NaCl, 0.85%, Êxodo Científica®, Brazil; sterilized at 121oC, 20 min), homogenized for 1 h at 145 rpm in a Kline mixer (Nova Técnica®, Brazil), and three replicates of 1 mL from each sample inoculated in CLED agar plates. All plates were …