Some animals seem impossible to classify at a glance. One of these is the caiman. A traveller, finding one near a stream in a Brazilian forest, might scream, “A crocodile!” and flee. The caiman is not a crocodile, although it belongs to the order Crocodilia. It also belongs to the sub-family Alligator- mae. Crocodiles are found in Asia, Africa, Australia, and tropical America; one species of alligators lives in the United States and one in China; caimans live in Central and South America.
There are more than one species of caiman. Adistinction must be made among the spectacled caiman, the jacaré caiman and several others. The spectacled caiman has a kind of armor on its back that seems to be made of heavy coins, thick enough to resist bullets. If one has to be killed, it must be shot in the side, where its armour is weakest. The adjective “spectacled” was given to it because the transverse ridge above its eyes gives the illusion, when seen directly from the front, that the caiman is wearing a pair of spectacles with frames on them. Its eyes can be seen at once, whereas its teeth cannot. It has them though, eighty of them— and very strong ones.
The caiman stays on land during the day for hours on end, without going very far from the water—the river, lake or pond that is its hunting ground. Half-buried in the tall grass, it sleeps for hours, only getting up when it is hungry again. It gets into the water with the slow clumsy gait that is characteristic also of crocodiles and alligators. At first the caiman does not seem to be a good swimmer, but appears to be content with staying on the surface, letting the upper part of its head, the eyes and nostrils, emerge. These slow and quiet movements are only a feint. If the caiman went through the water at full speed, as it does sometimes when it has to, there would be a good chance it would not catch anything it cared to sink its teeth into; while, if it is motionless, it arouses no suspicion. Those eight feet of floating scales, with no sign of life, look remarkably like a log. Many a fish, mollusc and small amphibian continue their quiet life in the pooi with no fear whatever, until they are within reach of the huge mouth that swallows them immediately.
Then the caiman will turn again and go slowly up the bank. It has sighted a marsh bird preening its. feathers, feet out of the water. There is hardly a flutter of the bird’s wings, as the enormous animal makes its killing with incredible speed. However. things are not so easy on land for the spectacled caiman. It is up against faster animals that are very dangerous to it. There is the jaguar, for instance, who treats the reptile as it would any big lizard, and sometimes
Caiman Pictures
