 Caatinga
Caatinga is a vegetation type whose
location is mainly the Brazilian northeast, but
also occurs in the north of Minas Gerais State.
This area
is characterized by a semi-arid climate with
irregular rains. It presents two seasons not very
well defined: One hot and dry and the other hot
and wet. It is common during the dry season to
prolong and to provoke calimite to the population
of this place.
When the
first rains begin, the vegetation takes new form
and the Caatinga turns a verdant green.
Everything is very different from the
characteristic brown of the dry season.
Most of the local population
survives with incipient agriculture, vegetable
extraction of low quality and ridiculous cattle
breeding. Both cattle breeding and she-goat
breeding exist, with the latter being more
important than the other. The goats remove
vegetable sprouts, and even roots that look for
digging with their skulls.
The soil isn't very deep and is
stony. It makes agriculture a difficult
practice in this area. There exist some places
where the soil can be taken advantage of by
agriculture. Nowadays, with strong irrigation and
soil correction, (because it is acid in general)
we can plant coffee, sleeve, and other fruits
with great success. The coffee is overtaking
production in areas to the west of São Paulo
State and the Paraíba Valley, known for their
high productivity.
The vegetation is defined by a bush
aspect, it possesses small leaves or thorns.
These are some of the solutions found by the
plants to avoid the loss of water by the
epidermis. Besides some species have a loss
of leaves in the dry season and some
species store water (for example bromeliaceae and
cacti). The vegetation is distributed in an
irregular way, inhabiting contrasting areas
similar to forests,with areas with soil
almost without vegetation.
The fauna of reptiles is abundant,
where can be found a great number of lizard and
snakes. In addition, there exist rodents and many
insects and arachnids. The difficulty of finding
water hinders the existence of big mammals in the
area, but there exist wild dogs and other animals
that feed mainly of rodents.
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