The four-hour operation took place at Miami's Metrozoo on Tuesday.

The giant male predator, dubbed Robo Croc after the operation left it with a significant amount of metal dotted around its face, was close to death after having its head crushed by a car in the Florida Keys last year.

But Douglas Mader, of the Marathon Veterinary Hospital, has saved the reptile by reconstructing its face.

Veterinarians placed two metal rods between its eyes, extending down to the bridge of its nose, and another on each side.

Forty-one metal screws were drilled into its hide, keeping the skull and snout together.

"RoboCroc is doing just fine," said Ron Magill, a spokesman for Miami Metrozoo.

"We have a certain responsibility to our endangered, native species and it was either he die on the table today, or die a horrible, slow death," he told the Miami Herald.

There has been reconstructive surgery undertaken on crocodiles before but not to this extent, according to the zoo's vets.