Snake Swallows 6-Foot Alligator

The Associated Press...Channel 6... ^ | October 5, 2005 | The Associated Press

[A knight without armor]

I saw this picture earlier today. That long white thing in the background that looks like a board is the landing part of a helicopter. That helps show how very huge this snake is.

Reading these comments shocked me. I had no idea a widdle pet snake can grow to feet long in a year! I thought they grew very, very slow.

[The Phantom FReeper]

There has got to be an easier way to have a meal.

[drhogan]

OH, MAN--what ever happened to the free market?

if snakeheads and pythons are outlawed, only outlaws will have snakeheads and pythons!!!!

(just kidding--these things give me the creeps. did anyone see "frankenfish"?)

[GladesGuru]

Joe is a rare critter in the 'Glades - someone with a considerable amount of time actually spent in the habitats. But the larger problem is the faulty management premises of the Armed & Rangerous from the Department of The Inferior.

Lest one think I am being needlessly harsh, consider this: One such huge python was seen wrapped around a large gator at the Shark Valley facility off US 41. Ranger Randy and Rangerette Jeanette watched the clearly non-native python trying to kill the native alligator. Neither one either captured or simply shot the python.

Both python and snake were reported to have survived the disagreement over the menu that time.

Here's just a remote, barely possible, reason they didn't kill the snake. It will breed and soon there will be reason to have a python control bureaucracy.

It was the Department of the Inferior being inferior. Move along! Nothing new about this!

[Rebelbase]

I found a 10-12 foot python someone had shot with a shotgun and left laying on a trail in a mangrove swamp in South Miami 30 years ago. Scared the bejebbers out of me.

[GladesGuru]

"I never thought they could explode either."

Maybe the high level of mercury in the gator "fulminated" in the snake digestive tract and caused the explosion.

That would be an 'organic' chemical reaction, wouldn't it? ;-)

[GladesGuru]

Carrying a combat shotgun is hard work. I have a high water event at my place in the Everglades right now. Fish are swimming through what was once lawn. Panther are raising their young alongside my place, and my newest concern is whether the 11 foot gator is large enough to kill off any pythons in my pond.

Bad news is the big gator seems to be missing.

And I am getting tired of having to keep a Redhawk on my belt all the time.

Note to Blue staters, a Redhawk isn't a bird. I once had falcons; trust me when I tell you it isn't a bird.

[mel]

That's what I'd like to know also

[dufekin]

A couple more pics:

[mel]

Thanks that explains it a lot better.

[Quilla]

My husband just came in from work and reports an incredible alligator story. After Katrina, rescuers fastened dead bodies to stop signs for later retrieval. When they went back to claim these bodies, several were missing from one area. They later located, captured, and killed a 22 foot, 4400 pound alligator that they assumed had eaten several of the bodies. He saw pictures of this alligator - dead in the back of a dump truck. If at all possible, I'll get copies and post them tomorrow.

[Jimmy Valentine]

You know, I could have gone all day and not seen that.

That is a real "Tums" moment

[spetznaz]

My husband just came in from work and reports an incredible alligator story. After Katrina, rescuers fastened dead bodies to stop signs for later retrieval. When they went back to claim these bodies, several were missing from one area. They later located, captured, and killed a 22 foot, 4400 pound alligator that they assumed had eaten several of the bodies. He saw pictures of this alligator - dead in the back of a dump truck. If at all possible, I'll get copies and post them tomorrow.

Might you be referring to these pictures?

After Katrina there were emails circulating that stated that the crocodilian seen above was an Alligator, and that it had eaten the dead left laying on the screen

The truth is that the creature in the picture is not an alligator. It is a Nile crocodile, the second largest crocodilian in the world (the largest is the Australian Salt-water crocodile). The Nile crocodile is found throughout most of Africa, and it is a veritable man-killer and man-eater. And they can grow to prodigious lengths ....the crocodile in the picture is 16 feet long (the email said that the 'alligator' was 21-22 feet long ....it is neither an alligator, nor is it 21-22 ft long), but Nile crocs have been known to get up to 20 feet and maybe more than that. I once saw a Nile crocodile nab a Wildebeest, and I tell you this ....that thing was a monster. The head alone seemed the size of the Wildebeest (which is roughly the size of a cow).

This crocodile (the one in the pic that emails claimed was an 'alligator') was killed in the Republic of the Congo. Alligators never get close to crocodile sizes, and this beast was thousands of miles away from New Orleans.

I'm not sure whether that is the email you are talking about, but the fact that it mentioned a '22 foot long alligator' makes it seem as if it is the same one (and gators do not even get that large ....the only crocodilians that can get that big are the Salt-water croc from Australia, the Nile croc from Africa, and maybe in a blue-moon the Mugger croc from India. All are killers, all are huge, neither is an alligator).

[spetznaz]

Here is a link at snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/crocodile.asp#photo2

[Quilla]

Wow. I bet those are the exact photos he was shown. When he stops by my office this morning, I'll show him your post. It appears as though the gents who showed him the pictures and relayed the story were had. He'll have a ball with this info. Thanks and my apologies for propagating the rumor.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I like snakes of all types. But my wife can not overcome her fear of them. If I had a snake in the house, I'd have no wife in the house. And my wife is my best friend.

[Laura Earl]

The only good snake is a dead snake. Saw a pic of the python with that gater hanging out his busted belly in the morning paper. Made me smile!

[Conspiracy Guy]

meanie

[mel]

I am not to found of gators either

[Laura Earl]

I think they're cute.