The commercial exploitation of the Yacare Caiman (Caiman yacare) has become a relevant commodity in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Crocodilian's tail muscles nutritional characteristics and representativeness in body mass became the object of morphophysiological technological and evolutionary studies. The aim of this research was to report, for the first time, the anatomical characterization of muscle and bone bases of Pantanal Caiman meat cuts obtained from the tail. To describe the bones, we used one adult and six juvenile specimens of Pantanal Caiman. In order to study the muscle, 24 juvenile individuals were slaughtered and skinned, preserved in a -20oC freezer and thawed at the time of use, without any fixation. After evisceration, the specimens were dissected on both sides to verify structural symmetry, muscle attachments, sintopy relations, shape and muscular architecture. Caudal vertebrae are procoelous, except for the first of the series, and have sites on the ventral surface of their body where the hemal processes articulate, with the exception of the first and the last four or five vertebrae. The commercial meat cuts of the tail are the tail sirloin, composed of semispinal caudal, longissimus caudal, ilioischiocaudal, long caudofemoral, transverse and deep of the tail muscles, and also the tail tip, consisting of the longissimus caudal and ilioischiocaudal muscles, based on the last five or six caudal vertebrae.
Alligatoridae; morphology; tail edge; tail sirloin
