A weird portrait

I think this is a very weird picture. My Pantanal photo tour began yesterday, and my group and I drove from Cuiaba, Brazil to our lodge in the Pantanal. We stopped several times to photograph birds, marsh deer, and dozens of caiman. This particular caiman was holding its head up at an angle, and I photographed it from an elevated low bridge. In essence, I was shootng right down the reptile’s throat. What makes this picture seem so strange to me is the primate-like structure that looks like nostrils and the bizarre way the eyes seem to be looking forward. The open mouth was partially in the sun, and that wasn’t good. I needed either full sun or full shade, but not a combination of both. So, I asked my local guide to stand at the edge of the bridge so his shadow obscured the harsh 3pm sunlight on the caiman's face. This resulted in soft, diffused light. I used a 480mm focal length on a 100-500mm Canon zoom, and the settings were 1/1000, f/8 and 2000 ISO.