Clearly, it’s able to make sea crossings and to live at sea for months at a time. Specimens have been reported from the Islas Marías in the Pacific (100 km off the coast of Mexico), the Caymans (370 km west of Cuba in the Caribbean), and archaeological remains show that it previously occurred on the Bahamas. Its presence in southern Florida is well known, and in the Caribbean it occurs on Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Martinique (though, apparently, not elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles). Having said that it’s “gigantic”, modern individuals tend to be between 2.5 and 4 m in total length, with lengths of 6 or 7 m being very much a thing of the past.Īmerican crocodiles occur from coastal western Mexico all the way south to extreme northern Peru in the west and eastern Venezuela in the east. acutus Cuvier, 1807, but the former isn’t in use since the description it accompanies does not unambiguously pertain to this species. Actually, the name Crocodylus americanus Laurenti, 1768 might be a senior synonym of C. It’s a large to gigantic crocodile, the specific name referring to its proportionally long and slender snout. This is a mostly Central American species, well known for being tolerant of brackish and marine conditions.

We start with the best known member of this group: the American crocodile C. That ‘only’ leaves us with the several New World crocodiles, and it’s this group of species – forming the so-called New World assemblage within Crocodylus – that we look at here. As you’ll recall if you read the previous six parts of this series (all of which are linked to below), I’ve managed so far to get through the Asian crocodiles, the Indo-Australian ones, and – most recently – the two distinct African lineages.

I finish my series of articles on the crocodiles of the world.

Croc's World instal the new