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American alligator
A broad, rounded snout and a lower fourth tooth hidden by the closed upper jaw give you two clues in one look. In southern Florida, this dark-bodied alligator shares part of its range with the lighter American crocodile. Elsewhere it occurs across wetlands in the southeastern United States.
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American crocodile
Compare this crocodile’s pointed snout and conspicuous lower fourth tooth with the American alligator next to it on the list. In southern Florida it often lives in brackish or salt water. Its wider range reaches Caribbean islands and the coasts of Central and northern South America.
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Gharial
The long, unusually thin jaws and interlocking teeth are suited to catching fish. A mature male has a pot-shaped growth, or ghara, at the tip of his snout, as in this photo from India’s Chambal River. Sandbanks along large rivers in India and Nepal provide nesting habitat.
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False gharial
From above, the tomistoma’s long jaws widen toward the eyes, and their tip lacks the adult male gharial’s bulb. Look for the species in a different kind of freshwater setting: peat swamps and swamp forests in places such as Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo.
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Chinese alligator
The other living alligator is much smaller than the American species. It is native to the lower Yangtze basin, where it spends the cold months in burrows and emerges to bask in spring. Its remaining wild range is fragmented.
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Saltwater crocodile
Two ridges run forward from the eyes along the snout of this heavyweight. Its range spans South and Southeast Asia and northern Australia. The name fits its ability to travel through seawater, though it also uses freshwater rivers and wetlands.
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Freshwater crocodile
Australia’s other native crocodile has a long, narrow snout and is generally smaller than the saltwater species. It lives across northern Australia, chiefly in freshwater rivers, creeks, and pools, with some overlap in habitat where the two species meet.
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Mugger crocodile
The mugger shows why a broad snout alone doesn’t make an animal an alligator. Its enlarged lower fourth tooth remains visible in a notch when the mouth closes. It inhabits waters across the Indian subcontinent and west into Iran, including reservoirs and ponds.
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Nile crocodile
Despite its name, this species lives well beyond the Nile, including southern and eastern Africa and Madagascar. Females bury their eggs in a hole and guard the nest. When the young hatch, a mother can carry them to the water in her jaws.
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Cuban crocodile
This crocodile has a short, broad head and a bony ridge behind the eyes. The photo shows its body lifted off the ground as it walks, a posture its strong legs make possible. Its best-known remaining stronghold is Cuba’s Zapata Swamp.
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Philippine crocodile
A row of large scales just behind the skull can help distinguish this smaller crocodile from a saltwater crocodile. It is native only to the Philippines. Its range once covered more islands, but wild populations persist in places such as northern Luzon and Mindanao.
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Siamese crocodile
A low ridge between the eyes is one field mark of this broad-snouted freshwater crocodile. Its range across Southeast Asia has contracted sharply. In Cambodia, conservation teams have bred animals and released them into suitable wetland habitat in the Cardamom Mountains.
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Spectacled caiman
A raised strip of bone between its eyes resembles the bridge of a pair of glasses. That’s the feature behind this caiman’s name. Its natural range stretches from southern Mexico through Central America and into much of northern South America.
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Black caiman
Dark coloring gives this large caiman its name. Younger animals can show pale bands, so color alone can be misleading. Across the Amazon basin it favors quieter water, including lakes, lagoons, and river backwaters.
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Cuvier's dwarf caiman
This small South American caiman has plenty of armor, including bony plates in the skin of its belly. It lives in areas such as the Amazon and Orinoco basins, where it uses shallow forest streams as well as other freshwater habitats.
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Broad-snouted caiman
Seen head-on, its blunt, broad muzzle is especially clear. Its stout jaws handle hard-shelled prey such as snails. Its range includes the Paraná, Paraguay, and Uruguay river systems as well as Atlantic drainages in eastern South America.
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