Dwarf Caiman
The smallest of the caimans, the most you're likely to see of a 5-foot dwarf caiman are chocolate brown eyes, protruding nostrils and bumpy armored scales above the water's surface. Like other crocodilians, these ambush hunters rely on looking like a partly sunken log.
Secretive residents of the deep flooded forest
During the rainy and high-water seasons in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, dwarf caimans live deep in the flooded forests, in lakes or small, fast-moving tributaries, where the bony armor on their necks, backs, tails and even eyelids protects them from injury. During the low-water season, they stalk through the forest at night, moving to different ponds or looking for food. They hunt equally well on land and in water, eating a variety of fishes, including piranhas, and crabs, beetles, frogs, rodents, birds and snakes. They also keep to their forest niche because 12-foot black caimans—aggressive predators about three times the length of a dwarf caiman—dominate larger, open rivers and their sunny banks. Dwarf caimans like their patches of sun among the trees, but you won’t see one basking in the open.
Caimans by moonlight
Amazon Rising’s exhibits are outfitted with soft overhead spot lighting that clicks on around 7 p.m. (when the daytime habitat lights go off) and dims to dark by 10. This “moonlight mode” gives the caimans and other animals a more natural equatorial environment. Anyone looking for the caimans then might find them by their reddish-whitish glowing eyeshine. The caimans’ large eyeballs are packed with light-gathering cells. And the backs of their eyeballs have a thin coating of reflective tissue that produces sharp images even in low light, a terrific adaptation for a nocturnal hunter.