The yacare caiman (Caiman yacare), also known commonly as the jacare caiman, Paraguayan caiman, piranha caiman, red caiman, The adoption of this word into Portuguese (jacaré) and Spanish (yacaré) is due to contact between the Guarani people and the conquistadors during the colonial period and subsequent centuries of linguistic coexistence.

Taxonomy

François Marie Daudin originally described the yacare caiman in 1802 as Crocodilus yacare.

Distribution

The range of the yacare caiman includes Argentina (north), Bolivia, Brazil (south), and Paraguay.

Further reading

  • Daudin FM (1802). Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière des Reptiles; Ouvrage faisant suite à l'Histoire Naturelle générale et particulière, composée par Leclerc de Buffon; et rédigée par C.S. Sonnini, membre de plusieurs sociétés savantes. Tome second. Paris: F. Dufart. 432 pp. (Crocodilus yacare, new species, p. 407). (in French and Latin).
  • Reichert, Michelle N., et al. (2018). "The respiratory mechanics of the yacare caiman (Caiman yacare Daudine) " [sic]. Journal of Experimental Biology 2018: jeb.193037. .