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.
“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.
“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.