Nonetheless, a single recorded fatality was reported for a small adult American crocodile when a great white shark killed the American crocodile as it was swimming out at sea. Usually, American alligators are dominant over and more behaviorally aggressive than American crocodiles. However, on one occasion an American crocodile in a Florida zoo escaped its cage and started a fight with a large male American alligator in a bordering pen and was killed by the American alligator. Conversely, there is one confirmed case of an American crocodile preying on a sub-adult American alligator in the wild in Florida. American alligators and American crocodiles do not often come into conflict in the wild, due largely to habitat partitioning and largely separate distributions. There are several records of American crocodiles killing and eating spectacled caimans in South America. Areas with healthy American crocodile populations often hold only limited numbers of spectacled caimans, while conversely areas that formerly held American crocodiles but where they are now heavily depleted or are locally extinct show a growth of caiman numbers, due to less competition as well as predation. In areas where the two species coexist, the smaller but more aggressive Cuban crocodile is behaviorally dominant over the larger American crocodile. In Mexico, some Morelet's crocodile individuals have escaped from captivity, establishing feral populations and creating a problem for the populations of American crocodile, which must compete with this invasive species. American crocodiles breed in late fall or early winter, engaging in drawn-out mating ceremonies in which males emit low-frequency bellows to attract females. Body size is more important than age in determining reproductive capabilities, and females reach sexual maturity at a length of about . In February or March, gravid females will begin to create nests of sand, mud, and dead vegetation along the water's edge. Nest location is crucial, and with the correct amount of vegetation, the eggs will develop within a small temperature range. Because sex determination is temperature-dependent in crocodilians, slight aberrations in temperature may result in all-male or all-female clutches, which would possibly harm the health of the population. About one month later, when it is time to lay, the female will dig a wide hole diagonally into the side of the nest and lay 30 to 70 eggs in it, depending on her size. After laying, the female may cover the eggs with debris or leave them uncovered. The white, elongated eggs are long and wide, with a number of pores in the brittle shell.