page_title: List of reptiles of Guatemala
section_title: Crocodylidae
hierarchical_section_title: List of reptiles of Guatemala / Crocodilians (Crocodylia) / Crocodylidae
caption_attribution_description: Crocodylus acutus, American Crocodile, Cocodrilo Americano. Photo taken at La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico
context_page_description: This is a list reptiles in Guatemala, including snakes, lizards, crocodilians, and turtles.
  Guatemala has a large variety of habitats, from tropical rain forests, dry thorn scrubs, cloud forests, coastal marshes, pine forests, mountains and lowlands. This vast contrast in biomes makes Guatemala home to a large variety of herpetofauna. These include approximately 240 species of reptiles, subdivided in 3 orders and 29 families.
context_section_description: Order: Crocodylia. 
  Family: Crocodylidae
  Crocodylidae is a family of large aquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. Crocodiles tend to congregate in freshwater habitats like rivers, lakes, wetlands and sometimes in brackish water. Crocodiles are ambush hunters, waiting for fish or land animals to come close, then rushing out to attack. As cold-blooded predators, they have a very slow metabolism, and thus can survive long periods without food. They feed mostly on vertebrates like fish, reptiles, and mammals, sometimes on invertebrates like molluscs and crustaceans, depending on species. Despite their appearance of being slow, crocodiles are very fast over short distances, even out of water.
  American crocodile – Crocodylus acutus Cuvier, 1807 [VU]
  Morelet's crocodile – Crocodylus moreletii Duméril and Bocourt, 1851
caption: Crocodylus acutus
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