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Caiman is a genus of medium-sized crocodilians, which comprises three officially acknowledged species, native to South and Central America with a wide range of geographical distribution. They have been served for skin demand, meat supply, pet breeding and many other purposes since the 20th century. Thanks to high populations and the wide distribution, the genetic diversity of caimans reveals to be high and the existence of cryptic species in Caiman is questioned due to the lack of data from molecular analysis. All three members within Caiman are not considered to be threatened at the protection level. However, the lack of genetic analysis might challenge this harmony since some species may be divided into multiple new ones due to cryptic species concerns. Hence the old evaluation of populations and protection levels may not be applied to those new ones. Many recent works focusing on genetic diversity and phylogeny analysis in Caiman have demonstrated problems of the underestimated genetic complexity of lineages. This review evaluates publications of the Caiman genus with phylogenetic concerns and compares them to examples of separation of other crocodilian species from last decades to discuss the cryptic species in Caiman and provide outlines for future protective operations.
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