Systematics
Cuvier originally described the species as Crocodylus acutus in 1807. Over time, it commonly became known as the "sharp-snout alligator". In 1822, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque postulated the species was in fact a crocodile.
The species was redescribed as Crocodylus floridanus by William T. Hornaday in 1875, when Hornaday and C.E. Jackson were sent from Washington, DC to Florida to collect alligator hides. Upon hearing of a "big old gator" in Arch Creek at the head of Biscayne Bay, Hornaday and his companions searched for it and reported:
"In a few hours we got sight of him, out on the bank in a saw-grass wallow. He was a monster for size–a perfect whale of a saurian, gray in color—and by all the powers, he was a genuine crocodile!"
Crocodylus floridanus is now considered an invalid junior synonym of C. acutus.
The American crocodile is sometimes confused with the smaller, Central American Morelet's crocodile.
Read more about this topic: American Crocodile