Claim:   Photograph shows a 13-foot alligator killed in Texas.

Status:   True.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2005]

This is a real photo of a gator killed in Bay City, TX. Lot of South Texas Nuc Plant folk live in this area. Look at the size of that head! Here is another reason to stay out of the ditches and bayous. This was found at Bar X, which is between Angleton and West Columbia, near a house. How would you like to meet this fella in the dark? Never let it be said that we don't grown them big in Texas.

Variations:   E-mailed versions of this photograph sent in 2006 were accompanied by text that shifted the locale from Texas to Florida and enlarged the 13-foot gator into a 23-foot behemoth:

Florida grows em BIIIIIIIG This alligator was found between Orlando and Titusville, Florida near a house. How would you like to meet this fella in the dark? Never let it be said that we don't grow them big in Florida .. Game wardens were forced to shoot the alligator- guess he wouldn't cooperate... Anita and Charlie Rogers could hear the bellowing in the night. Their neighbors had been telling them that they had seen a mammoth alligator in the waterway that runs behind their house, but they dismissed the stories as exaggerations. "I didn't believe it," Charles Rogers said. Friday they realized the stories were, if anything, understated. Florida Parks and Wildlife game wardens had to shoot the beast Joe Goff, 6'5" tall, a game warden with the Florida Parks and Wildlife Department, walks past a 23-foot, 1-inch alligator that he shot and killed in their back yard.

Origins:   The photograph displayed above is genuine and corresponds to the following account of an alligator killed by game wardens near West Columbia, Texas (a town whose claim to fame is its status as the First Capital of the fledgling Republic of Texas), in April 2005:

Game wardens forced to shoot alligator
Published April 16, 2005

WEST COLUMBIA - Anita and Charlie Rogers could hear the bellowing in the night.

Her neighbors in Bar X Ranch had been telling them they had seen a giant alligator in the bayou that runs behind their house, but they dismissed the stories as exaggerations.

"I didn't believe it," Charles Rogers said. Friday they realized the stories were, if anything, understated. Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens had to shoot the beast.

(Caption: Joe Goff, a game warden with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, walks past a 13-foot, 1-inch alligator that he shot and killed in the back yard of the home at the Bar X Ranch on FM 521 near West Columbia.)

The startling picture was taken by Val Horvath, a photographer then working for The Facts, a newspaper in Clute, Texas.

The American alligator is commonly found throughout the southern U.S., including the eastern third of Texas, generally in and around fresh-water sources such as swamps, rivers, bayous, and marshes. They typically range in size from 6 to 14 feet in length, so a 13-ft. gator would certainly be a large specimen, but not an extraordinarily-sized one.

This image is another example of how positioning can exaggerate the apparent size of objects in photographs. The alligator is in the foreground of the picture, with its head turned towards the camera, while a game warden strolls in the background, making the reptile (particularly its head) seem proportionally larger than it really is.

Last updated:   24 May 2006

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  Sources:

    The Facts.   "Gator Done."

    16 April 2005.