Appearance
The black caiman has dark-colored, scaly skin. The skin coloration helps with camouflage during its nocturnal hunts, but may also help absorb heat (see thermoregulation). The lower jaw has grey banding (brown in older animals), and pale yellow or white bands are present across the flanks of the body, although these are much more prominent in juveniles. This banding fades only gradually as the animal matures. The bony ridge extending from above the eyes down the snout, as seen in other caiman, is present. The eyes are large, as befits its largely nocturnal activity, and brown in color. Mothers on guard near their nests are tormented by blood-sucking flies that gather around their vulnerable eyes leaving them bloodshot.
The Black caiman is structurally dissimilar to other caiman species, particularly in the shape of the skull. Compared to other caimans, it has distinctly larger eyes. Although the snout is relatively narrow, the skull (given the species' considerably larger size) is much larger overall than other caimans. Young black caiman can be distinguished from large spectacled caiman by their proportionately larger head and shorter tail, as well as by the color of the jaw, which is light colored in the spectacled caiman and dark with three black spots in the black caiman.
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