Shakespeare mentions the word “crocodile” five times in his plays, but crocodiles not being native to England must have been introduced to the bard from outside his natural habitat there in London. The crocodile itself was well known in English literature, having been written about in association with Egypt and Africa by writers like Pliny the Elder centuries prior to Shakespeare. This particular beast was brought back to the forefront of popular imagination during Shakespeare’s lifetime, however, when explorers to the New World came home with stories of a new creature similar to the crocodile and unique to North America named the alligator. The alligator is mentioned only once in Shakespeare’s works in Act V Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet where it is included on a list of items on display in an apothecary shop. That reference is particularly interesting when you consider that a display of natural specimens in an apothecary shop is very likely one of the real places Shakespeare himself might have encountered one. Here to take us back to the mid 1590s as Shakespeare wrote about the alligator in Romeo and Juliet and explain for us what 16th century science believed about the alligator/crocodile is our guest, Spencer Weinreich.

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