[1] Culebrasuchus was first described and named by Alexander K. Hastings, Jonathan I. Bloch, Carlos A. Jaramillo, Aldo F. Rincona and Bruce J. Macfadden in 2013 based on a single holotype skull and three neck vertebrae from the Culebra Formation.

Culebrasuchus is thought to be the most basal member of Caimaninae, meaning that it represents the earliest radiation of caimans in the Americas.

The movement of Culebrasuchus into the Panama Canal Zone was an early part of the Great American Interchange in which animals dispersed between North and South America across the newly formed Isthmus of Panama (although during the Early Miocene it had not yet formed, with 20 km of ocean still separating the continents).

Other caimans that lived during the same time in South America (including those in the genera Mourasuchus and Purussaurus) were much larger than Culebrasuchus.

Features in Culebrasuchus that are not found in other caimanines include the lack of ridges above the eye sockets and the large size of a hole in the lower jaw called the external mandibular fenestra.