_Caiman sclerops_, Spectacled Caiman |Central and S. | |America |7-8 ft. _Caiman palpebrosus_, Banded Caiman |Tropical South | |America |7-8 ft. | | F. Snout very broad; bluntly rounded at tip | | _Caiman latirostris_,[1] Round-nosed Caiman |Tropical South | |America |7-8 ft. _Caiman niger_,[2] Black Caiman |Tropical South | |America |20 ft. _Alligator mississippiensis_, American | | Alligator |Southeastern | |United States |16 ft. _Alligator sinensis_, Chinese Alligator |China |6 ft. ---------------------------------------------+----------------+------- [1] These species are exceptions in their genus. The snout is blunt like that of the genus _Alligator_. [2] Alleged to grow to this size by competent observers. Gadow in the _Cambridge Natural History_ (p. 450) agrees with Boulanger in believing that the recent Crocodilia cannot be separated into different families, yet he describes seven families of Crocodilia, two of which, the _Gavialidæ_ and _Crocodilidæ_, include the living members of the order; the former includes the gavials, of course, and the latter the crocodiles, alligators, and caimans. Though “doctors disagree” thus in regard to the scientific classification of this small group of animals, this fact does not in the least diminish the intense interest in the individual members of the order. ANCESTRY Although the huge dragon-like dinosaurs or “terrible reptiles,” some of which were probably more than one hundred feet long, became extinct during the Mesozoic epoch, perhaps millions of years before man made his appearance upon earth, we have one group of reptiles still living in certain parts of the earth of which the Mesozoic lords of creation need not feel ashamed. While most of the living Crocodilia are mere pigmies in size, compared to the Atlantosaurus, there are a few representatives of the living group, to be discussed later, that are said to reach a length of thirty feet, which length makes pigmies, in turn, of most of the other living reptiles. Considering the extinct as well as the living Crocodilia, Gadow says it is very difficult to separate them from the Dinosauria. In the Mesozoic Crocodilia the fore limbs were much shorter and weaker than the hind limbs, as was often the case with the dinosaurs; they were almost entirely marine, but gave indications of descent from terrestrial forms.