Cipactli (Crocodile)¹⁾ is a Deity and primeval sea monster, part crocodilian, part fish, and part toad or frog, with indefinite gender. They are closely related to Tlaltecuhtli.

Karl A. Taube has noted that among the Formative-period Olmec and the pre-Hispanic Maya peoples, crocodilians were identified with rain-bringing wind, probably because of the widespread belief that wind and rain clouds are “breathed” out of cave openings in the earth. A series of Olmec-style basreliefs from Chalcatzingo in the state of Morelos portrays crocodilians breathing rain clouds from their upturned mouths. Portable green stone Olmec sculptures depict crocodilians in similar positions, indicating that they are probably also breathing.[4]

In the Maya tzolk'in, the day Cipactli corresponds to Imix. In the Mayan Popol Vuh, the name of the earthquake demon, Sipakna, apparently derives from Cipactli.[5] Sipakna is the demon Sipak of 20th century Highland Maya oral tradition. In Migian, Cipactli is Quanai.

Cipactli is depicted as a reptilian monster with various bodily configurations, sometimes amid the primordial waters, with mouths on each of Their joints. After Their dismemberment by Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, which transformed Them into the divine being Tlaltecuhtli, They are often depicted as a toothed and clawed firmament or symbolic open mouth upon which other earthly events take place.

Tezcatlipoca cut off His own foot to use as bait to draw Cipactli nearer, and then killed and dismembered Them. He and Quetzalcoatl then created the earth from Their body.