Globidentosuchus, a caiman specialized for eating hard-shelled prey, goes after a giant blue land crab in Miocene Venezuela. Behind it, a Jabiru stork catches a snail.
According to Aztec mythology, the earth was created from the enormous body of the Cipactli, a primordial sea monster with attributes of a caiman, a toad, and a fish. Its hunger was so insatiable that it had ravenous mouths on all of its joints. The deity Tezcatlipoca (”Smoking Mirror”) captured the hungry beast by sacrificing his foot as bait. With the help of Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent”), the Cipactli’s body was torn asunder and re-molded into the vast terrain of the world.
Just about everyone likes to feel pretty sometimes, even this South American caiman and its impressively sassy side-eye. Photographer Mark Cowan, traveling the Amazon studying reptile and amphibian diversity, spotted this pretty caiman on the riverbank whose head was covered in lovely butterflies.
“The phenomenon itself isn’t particularly unusual, salt is critical to the survival of many creatures like butterflies and bees who sometimes drink tears from reptiles in regions where the mineral is scarce (we’ve seen the same thing happen with turtles). What made this sight so unusual was seeing the butterflies organize themselves into three different species groups atop the caiman’s head.”
