iStockphoto / AppleZoomZoom
I see a ton of alligators here in Southwest Florida on a weekly basis. In fact, there is a small one in the pond out back that I see daily.
There’s a big one that I drive past daily down the road anytime I leave the house. And my go-to golf course is literally named after alligators and they’re always sitting on the edges of the lakes and a few feet away from the ball I nearly shot into the water.
I’m rarely startled by alligators because I always see them in places I expect to see them. Except for that time in H.S. when I found a small one in the men’s bathroom (true story). All of this context is to illustrate how alarming it is to see something like this alligator below when you’re not expecting to see a gator at all.
This viral footage came from a hunter in Georgia who was out looking for deer but instead witnessed a walking dinosaur lumbering through the woods. The gargantuan and prehistoric reptile was estimated at around 13 feet but it looks bigger than a hippo to me.
13-Foot Alligator Walking Through Woods Like A Dinosaur Goes Viral
That footage continues to go viral. It’s easy to see why.
It has been a wild time for alligator news.
Alligator Walks Across Golf Course Eating Huge Fish
This ‘Winter’ in Florida has been the coolest I can ever remember. We’ve been pummeled by some chilly cold fronts and honestly, the alligators are not loving it.
With that said, I’ve been seeing alligators around A LOT more this time of year than in years past. And the video below was filmed just a few miles away from where I’m writing this article, in the next City to the North of where I live. I can also walk to my backyard right now and look out over the lake and spot at least one gator. They’re everywhere around here but this is still a wild encounter by any standards.
Golfer Mike Murphy was playing Tara Golf and Country Club in Bradenton, Florida with friends. They were hitting approach shots from the fairway when the alligator emerged from a pond on the left. It’s eating big ol’ fish that it is carrying in its mouth as it walks between the golfers and across the fairway.
For what it’s worth, that alligator 100% does own the place. It walks by with the swagger of an apex predator that’s only displayed by the alligators in Florida, not the other crazy animals. It knows those golfers aren’t a threat and is just going about its business.
Photographer Captures Picture Of ‘Biggest Alligator Ever Seen’ Eating Another Gator Like An Easy Snack
Every other year or so a photograph (or video) of an alligator emerges that’s so striking it reminds tens of millions of Americans just how powerful and majestic these creatures are.
There was that video from Palmetto, Florida a few years ago of a gator the size of a Buick walking across a golf course that shook the world. Now there’s this picture below from wildlife photographer Bobby Wummer. He described this as the biggest alligator he’s ever seen and it’s clear from the picture that isn’t hyperbole at all.
The image shows an alligator about the size of a Great White shark munching on a juvenile alligator like it was an easy snack. Cannibalism is relatively common in the alligator world with an estimated 7% of juvenile alligators being eaten by larger gators.
As a Floridian, I joke a lot about ‘never swimming in my backyard’ because I live on a lake but the reality is if there was a gator this size nearby everyone would know it. If there was an alligator this big within five miles of my house I’m sure I would’ve heard about it by now.
The caption from photographer Bobby Wummer’s Instagram post sheds some light on what and where this was happening. He captured the image at the Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland, Florida (between Tampa and Orland). His caption reads:
“Call them cannibals if you will. The biggest and the strongest will survive. This huge dinosaur has been eating good as you can see.
And this is not a photoshopped or manipulated photo. It is very real. I took this photo at the Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland, Florida. This gator 🐊 is well known and his name is “Humpback”. Actually, he is internationally known and locally respected. He is the biggest gator in the pond sort of speak. And that gives him the ability to do whatever he wants to.
I’ve seen other gators totally avoid or yield to get out of his way. They will give him room when he rests on his favorite sunning beach”
He goes on to say that ‘Humpback’ is the biggest alligator he’s ever seen. And he’s seen a 14-foot-7-inch alligator taken out of the water at the Loxahatchee River Water district treatment plant. This gator’s bigger than that. So we’re talking possibly 15-feet in length.
This alligator is most likely over 50-years-old and from the behavior described above in the IG caption it sounds like all of the other alligators in the area give this one space. Part of that could be because it’s so big but the obvious explanation given the picture we’re looking at is that Humpback is no stranger to eating fellow gators even when they’re not tiny.