Just a Big Ole Alligator Gar

Seen in the Hogg Bird Sanctuary

Showing Off Buff Physique

Feb. 1, 2022

Bayou lover Katy E. was enjoying the sights and sounds in the woods of the Hogg Bird Sanctuary in Houston when she happened to look down at the remains of the tributary creek that once cut across what is now Westcott.

“At first I saw him head on and I thought it was an alligator,” she wrote in an email. 

First sight. Photo Katy, Jan. 2022

“This was what I first saw and I think you can see why I thought it might be an actual alligator,” she wrote of the above photo she bravely took.

A closer look. He/she/it seems interested. Photo by Katy

“This guy was just drifting around,” she wrote. “He was pretty big.”

But it turned out to be an alligator gar, another of the ancient creatures, including alligators, alligator snapping turtles, and beavers, that inhabit our living bayou. The ancestors of the alligator gar in Texas date back over 200 million years. They can grow more than eight feet long and live over 60 years.

Apparently the alligator gar was more interested in the trash collected in the inlet. Photo by Katy, Jan. 2022

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