Largest gator in the Western Hemisphere?

i agree-what a damned sin to see this croc killed! would it not have made much more sense to capture him alive and put him in some sort of zoo. the democratic republic of the congo is incredibly poor. an animal like this, surely, would have helped to corral in lots of travelers. after all, look what happened in cape york, australia. in that, i mean, once they stopped killing the crocs, the eco-tourism industry exploded-bringing in tons of tourist dollars.

gustave: now this is a very interesting case. i was unaware of the national geographic program on him. however, i have been reading about him on the 'net for ages. at last account, he was still alive and unaccounted. 30 feet i find absurd (my opinion). these days, a croc over 20' would be very well publicized in herp circles. if i recall correctly, the largest known crocs in existence (at least in captivity) are either at samut prakan in thailand or the madras croc bank in india. they are siamese x salty hybrids. and i dont believe that any excede 20 feet. if anyone knows differently, i would be most interested to know.

sincerely,

gino

Originally Posted by GeckoStud

On another note, did you guys see the killer croc in Uganda named Gustave? He was a true monster, the managed to capture him on film but failed to actually capture and measure him. The film clearly shows him next to twelve foot crocs and he utterly dwarfed them. The hippos even stayed out of this goliath's path. This was no hoax and this beast was real, but he was a smart one and avoided all attempts of capture. Gustave however has killed many people along the river he called his kingdom, and hasn't been seen since the documentary. It is believed that the government stepped in and eradicated him. In the documentary though they depicted the crocs side and you could clearly see machine gun wounds that had healed. The scientist attributed this to his intelligence in avoiding humans and his murderous attacks on them. This seemed odd to me, but in truth most of his victims were found slaughtered and not eaten. Either way Gustave is nowhere to be found and a true giant has been lost forever. Although they were unable to capture him they estimated him to be near 30 feet in length and weighing well over 2,000 pounds. The document was put out by National Geographic and was called "In Search of the Killer Croc." If you ever get the chance to watch it do so you will be amazed.

Um...no. Niles don't get to be 30 feet, and neither do salties, which are the largest crocodilian in the world. So if by some chance he was actually 30 feet long, not only would he be the longest living crocodilian ever measured, but he would make Niles the largest species of crocodilians.

A 20 ft. saltie is a BIG crocodile. I believe Rob Bredl claims to have the largest crocodile in captivity coming in at around 24 ft. or so. They certainly don't get much bigger than that.

Originally Posted by GinoInDaBronx

if i recall correctly, the largest known crocs in existence (at least in captivity) are either at samut prakan in thailand or the madras croc bank in india. they are siamese x salty hybrids. and i dont believe that any excede 20 feet. if anyone knows differently, i would be most interested to know.

sincerely,

gino

Roark Ferguson has Utan, who is a saltXsiamese croc...and is around 22' long. To my knowledge the largest croc in the U.S.

Pretty interesting stuff there. It's amazing how blown out of proportion things get when they hit the net. People will do anything for attention.

I'll have to write a member on a Canadian forum about this. I know He spent quite a bit of time in India's croc bank studying. He would be the one to know about this sort of stuff first hand. Be nice to hear from Him again anyway.

Thanks for sharing that story.

Ciao,
Rick

Gustave sounds like a truly amazing giant. I would love to see any pics any of you people might have of crocs over 20' long. Please email me or post them on the net. Thanks.

Yea i doubt that gustave could be 30 feet, but i wouldn't be surprised if he was. I can say this though, he was definitely over the twenty foot marker or real close to it. The film national geographic produced showed him swimming by other 12 foot Nile crocs and he utterly dwarfed them. Dang it! I wish i could find a copy of the documentary or of any footage of it.

1,900 pounds, that's still impressive!

This makes me want to cry. :[

Does anyone have any pictures of Utan or the one Rob has?
The measurements and weight would also be interesting to know.

You may be interested to know that the largest American Alligator (of substantiated size) is probably a specimen at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in St. Augustine, Florida. This gator is plump, and measures, more than 13' -6"/ 4.1 meters in length.

I worked with one almost this size at Gatorland. Chester was, when I last measured him in February 2006, 13'-4-1/2" in length, and weighed about 1000 lbs/ 454 kg.

You may view a pic of him (second pic down, on the right-hand side) at this page: http://www.crocodopolis.net/dupont.htm. He's a handsome gator.

As for any larger - no one has come forward to offer a specimen of verifiable record.

If you know of any, I'd like to learn of it.

Regards,

Israel Dupont
Crocodopolis.net
ReptilesTv.com