# My Louisiana cousin sent me these pics of a giant gator killed in NO **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 22, 2005, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851 "2005-09-22T07:51:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/1 "2005-09-22T07:51:31Z")
My Louisiana cousin copied me on this email message. I love my cousin, but I’ve never seen a gator quite that big. Is that a American gator or a African Crocodile? > [@](#): > > Now this is an Alligator. This gator was found in New Orleans swimming down the street. 21 FT long, 4,500 lbs, around 80 years old minimum. Specialists said that he was looking to eat humans because he was too old to catch animals. This crocodile was killed by the army last Sunday at 3:00 pm, currently he is in the freezer at the Azur hotel. The contents of it’s stomach will be analyzed > this Friday at 2:30pm. [Gator 1](http://home.comcast.net/~cpeek001/gator1.jpg) [Gator 2](http://home.comcast.net/~cpeek001/gator2.jpg) [Gator 3](http://home.comcast.net/~cpeek001/gator3.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/2 "2005-09-22T08:17:22Z")
Sorry to ruin your fun but those have been on [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/crocodile.asp) for over a week. Cousin indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/3 "2005-09-22T09:19:22Z")
And the snout’s all wrong to be an alligator. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/4 "2005-09-22T09:37:25Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > Sorry to ruin your fun but those have been on [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/crocodile.asp) for over a week. > Cousin indeed. As indicated in the OP my cousin Nat from Baton Rouge Louisiana forwarded me this (dubious) email he received as if it were gospel. I didn’t quite believe it, and am asking about it here. If it’s in Snopes email spam (like what I received) is probably where it started and how it spread. Why the scoff? ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/5 "2005-09-22T10:22:14Z")
> [@astro](#): > > As indicated in the OP my cousin Nat from Baton Rouge Louisiana forwarded me this (dubious) email he received as if it were gospel. I didn’t quite believe it, and am asking about it here. If it’s in Snopes email spam (like what I received) is probably where it started and how it spread. Why the scoff? Read the Snopes link I provided. It tells exactly what it was. ---
**Author:** ![Martiju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Martiju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martiju)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/6 "2005-09-22T10:59:17Z")
[QUOTE=astro 's cousin] **Specialists said that he was looking to eat humans because he was too old to catch animals** [/QUOTE] I admit I read it with scepticism anyway, but this line made my BS meter top out. Why would catching humans be easier than catching ‘animals’? How would a crocodile/alligator (terms mixed in message) know this? How would the ‘specialists’ know that the croc/alligator knew this? Etc. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/7 "2005-09-22T11:02:13Z")
It’s definitely a crocodile, not an alligator, probably a Nile crocodile. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/8 "2005-09-22T12:13:51Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > Read the Snopes link I provided. It tells exactly what it was. If I may interject in defense of the OP, you seemed to question that **astro** actually received such an email from an actual cousin. He did. His cousin just forwarded a false email, possibly not even knowing it was false. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/9 "2005-09-22T12:56:21Z")
An self-respecting Louisiana person (like myself) should know what an alligator looks like. That is wayyyy out of the maximum size range of an alligator. Plus, it is easy to tell it is a crocodile by the nose. There are no wild crocodiles in Louisiana. ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/10 "2005-09-22T12:56:50Z")
> [@astro](#): > > As indicated in the OP my cousin Nat from Baton Rouge Louisiana forwarded me this (dubious) email he received as if it were gospel. I didn’t quite believe it, and am asking about it here. If it’s in Snopes email spam (like what I received) is probably where it started and how it spread. Why the scoff? I would guess because a person with umteen thousand posts should know to check snopes… ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-louisiana-cousin-sent-me-these-pics-of-a-giant-gator-killed-in-no/322851/11 "2005-09-22T13:41:09Z")
It’s going around lately, like the flu.