Mo Ganji: Cuban Crocodile | Kubakrokodil | Crocodylus rhombifer | No. 065/250 from work group 8/99

Cuban Crocodile | Kubakrokodil | Crocodylus rhombife

Mo Ganji’s single line turns toward the Cuban crocodile — a striking, medium-sized crocodilian known for its agile movement and boldly patterned scales — as a distilled gesture that reveals only the essential trace of presence. The continuous line suggests just enough of a reptilian outline for recognition, yet remains open, resisting any rigid attachment to the category of “crocodile.” In this reduction, Ganji creates a space where the being can surface before concept or expectation shapes our perception.

Crocodylus rhombifer is listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List. Endemic to Cuba, the species survives mainly in the Zapata Swamp and, to a lesser extent, the Lanier Swamp on Isla de la Juventud. Its range is extremely restricted, and the total population remains small, though conservation efforts have stabilised parts of it.

Major threats include hybridisation with the more widespread American crocodile, habitat alteration from water management and human encroachment, and historical hunting pressure. Fragmentation and reduced genetic integrity pose long-term risks, while the species’ limited distribution leaves it vulnerable to storms, droughts and other localised events.

Ganji’s single line offers a moment to encounter the being beyond the frameworks through which we usually interpret it. The stripped-down contour gestures toward a life that exists outside our classifications, reminding us that the belief in human separation from nature obscures how closely our choices are woven into the destinies of other creatures — especially those balanced on the edge of survival.