19-foot alligator: the fascinating true story
"Giant Alligator" is a Grabber Headline. When you see news stories touting the size of a giant alligator that has been captured, the sheer enormity of the beast is usually enough to give a break. But what is the size of the biggest Gator?
If you did a superficial Internet search for "bigger alligator ever" you might see an ad that says "19 feet, 2 inches" - with a caveat that the number is "unconfirmed." From this writing, the official record is a 15-foot, 9-inch Gator captured in Alabama in 2014. So, how come we have an accurate record of 19 feet, 2 inches and yet this record does not count? Like most things that carry a "Well, maybe" tag, what happened a long time ago and by our modern eyes we usually mistrust anything that does not measure up to our standards. After hearing the story of the 19-foot alligator, you can decide if the record is a fairy tale or if the most famous American ecologist of the early twentieth century (which you have never heard of) really found a modern dinosaur.
1 Swampy alligators
Florida could be associated with alligators, but it is actually Louisiana with the highest concentration of Gators, with just over 2 million. You can chalk that up to a few things, but Louisiana is about 18 percent water, most shallow bayous. The alligators seem to like these marshes, with all the food sitting there in a pretty little space, and it lends itself to some huge growth. Of course, when people were not there, things were bigger. We know that at one time even mammals were big enough in size, and look, if the mammals were big we know that other creatures were-like this gigantic prehistoric crocodile found in Tunisia according to National Geographic. Which brings us back to the alligator.
National Geographic also notes the average alligator goes from 10 to 15 feet. It's a relatively wide range, but if you live in an area of the United States with Gators, you've seen them-with a frequency that probably disturbs visitors. You could see a 10-foot, and it's big, but it's very rare to see a much bigger one than the one in nature.
2 The Big Gator
In January 1890, 17-Year-Old Edward Avery McIlhenny went to hunt duck in a Bayou that connected Cock Bay with Lake Vermilion-obviously at a time when people named things with reckless scorn to sneer. After attracting a few ducks and making his move, he crossed the tall grass to get his dinner. In the dim sunset, McIlhenny came on what he thought was a log below ... it was actually a freaking alligator! He knew at once that it was the biggest alligator he had ever seen. An alligator can survive in cold weather, but they become almost catatonic and move slowly. Fortunately for McIlhenny, it was a pretty cold January.
McIlhenny did what any reasonable person would do when holding a gun, standing in knee-deep water, and facing down a giant dinosaur-he shot it in the head. He then made something even more sensible and got the heck out of there. The next morning, he returned with his hunting team and tried to tie it to his boat and drag it to the dry land for the skin, but the three of them could not even drag it into the mud! They left the Gator where he lay.
3 The story of a man named Ned
Does the name McIlhenny ring a bell? Do you like hot food? Edmund McIlhenny created a sauce from peppers grown at his plantation Avery Island-today we call it Tabasco. His son John took control of the company after the elders passed. His other son, Edward Avery McIlhenny, did some of the business stuff, too, but he had other interests in addition to the spicy sauce. Edward, called Ned by his friends, was one of the first ecologists in the United States, and at least certainly one of the most philanthropic naturalists of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Ned knew his business; growing up in the swamps of Louisiana, he became familiar with the flora, fauna and creatures that surrounded it and his home Avery Island.
He founded a wild bird sanctuary on Avery Island in 1895, and you can personally credit the rescue of the snowy egret from extinction. Avery was not just concentrating on aviaries: alligators were his specialty. So when Ned came upon this huge beast in the winter of 1890, he was not just a punk kid with a shotgun.
4 Go Gators
It's no exaggeration to say almost everything we know about alligators is because of McIlhenny. Scientists know that the temperature of an alligator egg will determine sex-below 86 degrees in the nest and it's a female. The mating season extends from April to June, with April being the flirty-flirty time and May to June being the business time. McIlhenny first documented all these facts in his revolutionary 1935 book the life story of the alligator.
McIlhenny grew up surrounded by Gators, and they were his passion. He chased Gators away, but he also watched their actions, recording what he could. He wrote in his opus that, before hiding the arriving hunters, he encountered many very great alligators. Today, if you went to an alligator reserve in Florida or Louisiana (or any state really), you might encounter a 12 or 13 foot alligator in captivity - live the good life and feed regularly. McIlhenny implies that with fewer hunters, the Louisiana alligators have gotten much bigger-than you see from the safety of a wildlife park today.
5 The measuring tape
McIlhenny said he shot the beast of great value of compassion, that given the location and size of the alligator, he would be dead from exposure. Later, he observed the alligator had no teeth, just strained to the bone, and was clearly very old. Just look at the Gator, however, McIlhenny knew he had to somehow get a record of what he had found. As an amateur scientist, he decided to measure the Gator.
Using his 30-inch gun, he started to tail and worked his way up the muzzle, scoring with his knife as he went until he came to the end of the business. The verdict? An incredible 19 feet 2 inches! McIlhenny measured the Gator twice as much to check his work, and Yep-19 feet 2 inches. In case you're wondering, 19 feet 2 inches is 234 inches, which means he's put the barrel of his gun down about eight times on this Gator.
↚
6 There were others
Make no mistake that Gator McIlhenny was the biggest, but there were other listed ones that are bigger than today's Gator record. Several Gators were mentioned at 18 feet, and Ned John's uncle captured a 17 '3 "Monster Alive in 1886. To show the huge beast, Uncle John arranged for it to be shipped up to In Philadelphia, along the way, a sailor decided to pour paint on Gator's head, and he died, and instead of continuing to Philly with a dead alligator, they threw him to one side. If Gator had arrived, he would have certainly been the largest specimen of alligator around.
In addition, McIlhenny told a story in his book about a man named Max Touchet and a fat Gator on Marsh Island in Louisiana. Max and another man somehow lasso this big Gator and pulled him out of his Gator Hole-and it worked! Being 3 miles from the ground and having a scary beast at the end of a rope, the duo decided to kill the Gator and the skin he-wearing hiding back instead of the 1,000-pound beast. The skin measured 17 feet, 10 inches, with about 4 inches of tail missing the alligator, perhaps lost in a battle at a younger age. And guess what? Skins shrink once they are out of a Gator, according to Jungle Adventures People at Christmas, Florida.
7 Let's put this in perspective
Do you know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? As the living science and photos above explain, crocodiles have museaus and narrower teeth that shine outside their pretty mouths. Crocodiles also grow much larger than alligators. Lolong, a legendary fang caught in the Philippines, had a taste for humans and measured a whopping 20 '2. Australia usually has no problem clearing the 15-foot plateau either, as a 17-foot illegally poached in 2017, or a 17-footer caught by Steve Irwin for his TV show.There are all sorts of stories out there of Crocs trim 23, 28, and even 33 feet-but keep our attention on the alligators.
Now, there are still huge alligators prancing on, but the 19-footer McIlhenny killed all those years is almost as big as the biggest confirmed crocodile, the Lolong above. Do you think the alligator is too big? Size is just the first thing that could give you a break on this tale, but there are others.
8 There are problems
So, why is the Division "unconfirmed" word associated with McIlhenny's son? Well, sometimes even the clearest picture can be a bit cloudy in the Bayou. There are some old alligator skulls floating around, with claims of more than 15 feet. The skull of a 16-foot specific Gator turned out to be from a 14 '9 "specimen, it's not small, but it's not 16 meters away.
The other problem is Nutria. Do you know what a capybara is? This giant rat? Nutria are basically the same thing, but they live in Louisiana because some Brainiac brought them from South America in 1889. Originally thought to be a good fur trade animal, they do a lot more harm than good. OLE Ned McIlhenny took the credit for Nutria's introduction to Louisiana, but he did not introduce them to everyone - they had a nearly 50-year history in Louisiana by the time he started his farm. Maybe he is not a reliable narrator. Oh, and there is also the fact that his giant alligator report appeared 45 years after he supposedly arrived.
9 So, what is the verdict?
Life is rarely black and white. Many of the scientific observations in McIlhenny's book stand today and are generally accurate. He really knew his alligators. Again, Jungle Gardens, founded by McIlhenny in 1935, does not mention the 19-footer at all, but does not speak of an 18-footer taken by McIlhenny's father in 1879.
We know, based on the skin in his book, that he really had a 17-foot alligator at a spit distance from his home base. We also know that using your gun barrel, no matter how many times you do it, is not an exact measure of anything. Did McIlhenny really overestimate his giant alligator by 4 feet ... three times? Did he just have a little something to exaggerate a bit? In the end, it will probably only be known if someone finds a 19-foot skeleton in the Bayou.
No comments:
Post a Comment