As far as private individuals go, any crocodilian species that is
federally listed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as endangered,
threatened, or similarity of appearance to, requires an Illinois
endangered/threatened species possession permit. This permit is
required BEFORE the animal is obtained. Interested parties must get an
application for said permit, fill it out, mail back to Springfield, and
then are only legal to get that animal AFTER the permit has been
approved and is back in the hands of the applicant. This requirement
goes for any animal species that is federally listed by the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service as endangered, threatened, or similarity of appearance
to. Here is a link to the website of that inclusive list:

http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/SpeciesReport.do?dsource=animals

Even though crocodilians do not naturally occur in Illinois, some are on
this U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service list due to similarity of appearance
to. Since they are on that list, an Illinois permit is also required to
legally possess them in Illinois. This would also apply to any other
herp that is federally listed that does not occur in Illinois, such as
Indian pythons, eastern indigo snakes, San Francisco garter snakes, etc.
..

An Illinois endangered/threatened species possession permit allows for
possession only, and not for transfer or sale of that animal.
Therefore, anyone selling or transferring a state or federally listed
species would need a separate permit to do that in addition to the
possession permit. I try to discourage people from impulse buying at
swap meets that offer things like baby American alligators, because
anyone acquiring one would FIRST need the possession permit in hand to
be legal. Any vendor offering them for sale would also need a
possession permit and a permit to sell, offer for sale, or transfer
them. A lot of preparation needs to be done with paperwork and permits
to legally possess these. Unfortunately, the meticulous attention that
is needed for this does not always occur with spur-of-the-moment
decision making at an animal swap meet.
scott ballard