Lago de Maracaibo

has a great biodiversity. species such as herons, alligators, shrimp, iguanas, catfish, grouper, mullet, bocachicos, armadillos fish, pelicans and coconut plants are most common in the lake, is also rarely have detected the presence of peacocks, dolphins and even penguins .

There is a species of freshwater fish and water called old old lake that is only found in the Lake Maracaibo Basin, is the Lamontichthys maracaibero.4perteneciente the Loricariidae family.

The Lemna or Duckweed is an aquatic plant that grows in environments rich in nitrogen, an element that has been organically built Lake Maracaibo no conscience whatsoever for wastewater departments of local hydrological company to pour raw sewage treat the lake.

 It has tried to link the occurrence of Lemna obscura (Austin) Daubs with waste from industries settled on the banks of Lake Maracaibo, but still be true that these industries discharge pollutants, there is no doubt that the pollution caused by waste more than 5 million people living along its banks is the worst of its ills.

Numerous oil spills, attributable at least in part to poor maintenance chores and indiscriminate discharge of untreated sewage, significantly deteriorated water quality to the point that in the Zulia catches have fallen to levels that prevent their exploitation and in some places the water has dangerous levels of pollution for health. Within polluting activities has added more recently in the exploitation of coal, which contributes an additional fee load of pollutants to the watershed.Also, called streams, which are casual drainage courses, crawl to the large amounts of trash lake from human settlements that are in its path.