BOOKS: Alligators & Crocodiles

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

Alligators & Crocodiles, by Eric
D. Stoops and Debbie Ly n n e
Stone. Sterling Publishing (387 Park
Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-
8810), 1996. 80 pages, illustrated,
$13.95 paperback.

At about age four, I was terrified
of a mummified baby Cuvier’s Dwarf
Caiman belonging to a student who roomed
with us––in part because he was dead. I
sensed that the caiman no more wanted to be
among us than I wanted him to be there.
Alligators & Crocodiles brought that 40-
year-old memory back with a photo, captioned
“Studies of the contents of the stomach
of the Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman suggest
that these caimans sometimes eat their
young.” Adds a second caption, “Probably
the Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman is the rarest.”
Small wonder. Most other crocodilians are,
if nothing else, devoted mothers. And this
book tells everything any child is likely to
want to know about them.