Residents of Mexico city coexist with crocodiles

At least 65 crocodiles throng the 200-acre Laguna Carpintero — Carpenter’s Lake — a short walk from Tampico’s central square.

Unknown legions more thrive in the wetlands and estuaries on the city’s fringe, where new residential neighborhoods march right up to the water’s edge.

“They’ve gone from being just one more inhabitant of the lagoon to being icons of the city,” Mario Castellanos, a municipal biologist, said of the pampered pride of Tampico, an oil refining and port city 250 miles south of the Texas border.