SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Finding a crocodile on Australia's southern coast is strange, but finding an American alligator there is even stranger.

That's why police assumed they had a crocodile, which is native to Australia's tropical north, when vacationers caught a reptile wandering around their campsite.

But police have corrected their initial statement to explain that the 5-foot reptile was actually an alligator. The manager of that area's Australian Reptile Park zoo tells the NineMSN Web site the captured creature belongs to a species native to the southeastern U.S.

Police say no one is licensed to keep either a crocodile or an alligator in the area where it was found. They're still trying to determine where the alligator came from.