Key Points
- In May of 2022, a Florida family woke up to an 11-foot-long, 500-pound alligator taking a swim in their backyard pool.
- The biggest alligator ever found in Florida was over 17 feet long.
- A 14-foot-long alligator was found in Lake Talquin, Florida.
The first time you see an alligator in person, whether at a zoo or basking in the sun on the banks of a river at your local park (depending on your location of course), you may be surprised by how big they really are. The average full-grown male American alligator is between 10-15 feet long and weighs 500-1000 pounds.
For reference, your average mini-van is around 16 feet long! Alligators live in all 67 counties of Florida with a large population living in the Everglades. Alligators over 4 feet long can be reported and removed if they are on people’s property, but what about really big gators? What is the biggest alligator ever found in Florida?
Recent headline: “11-foot alligator found in a family pool”
On May 19, 2022, the local news station in Punta Gorda, Florida reported about a family that woke up to find a large alligator hanging out in their backyard swimming pool! The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office was called in to fish the gator out of the pool (wouldn’t want that job!). The deputies said the alligator was 11 feet long and weighed 550 pounds. Sounds big, but this is a pretty average-sized alligator. So what alligators in Florida have been found bigger than that?
What is the biggest alligator ever found in Florida?
According to the Key West Aquarium, the biggest alligator ever found in Florida was 17 feet 5 inches. Every year, researchers and conservationists perform an annual alligator census and go out at night to count alligators. Sounds scary! Alligators’ eyes glow red when reflecting light and workers count the number of eyes. They record the number of alligators in each location as well as the size, sometimes estimating the size by the distance between the eyes. Although a 17-foot 5-inch alligator is pretty big it is not the biggest ever found.
Like most records, there is considerable debate about the largest alligator on record, which we’ll explore in more detail.
What is the biggest alligator ever found in the US?
The biggest verified alligator ever is the “Stokes Gator”. It was caught by a hunter named Mandy Stokes who was an avid boar and deer hunter that tried alligator hunting with her family. They went out in a 17-foot aluminum boat to search along the tributaries of the Alabama River and that is where they found this record-breaking gator. There was no way they were going to get the alligator into the boat after she shot it so they have to tow it to shore, very carefully. When finally measured this beast came in at 15 feet and 9 inches and weighed 1,011.5 pounds!
What is the heaviest alligator in the world?
The heaviest alligator in the world is the “Mike Cottingham Gator” caught by taxidermist Mike Cottingham in Arkansas. It is good he had four of his friends with him because it took all 5 of them to finally get the gator in the boat. They couldn’t lift it so they had to park at a boat ramp and roll the gator in using ropes. They had the gator officially measured by Mike Harris, a wildlife technician with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. It beat the state record by 2 inches coming in at 13 feet 3 inches. He also had it weighed and is the heaviest gator at 1,380 pounds! As if that is not impressive enough, he reported that when he gutted the gator he found the remains of a 6-foot alligator in its stomach!
The debate around the longest alligator ever
As we noted earlier, claims of the biggest specimens for any species normally have competing claims with differing levels of being “verified.” So another contender for the title of largest alligator goes to a 19-foot 2-inch alligator found in Louisiana in 1890. The alligator was shot by Edmund McIlhenny, who later published a book on alligators. He reported the alligator was old enough that its teeth had been worn down to be nearly non-existent.
One of the biggest alligators ever found in Florida was 1,008 pounds!
In 2020, Corey Capps was out on a boat ride when he noticed an awfully large alligator. He knew it had to be close to a record-breaker but he didn’t have a permit! He remembered one of his friends, Rodney Smith, that did have a tag that season and gave him a call. The next day they went out and captured and killed the giant gator. Corey was right, this was an enormous alligator that measured 13 feet and 1,008 pounds!
Bigger than that is the 14-foot gator found in Lake Talquin, Florida!
Part-time alligator trapper Lane Stephens was called to remove a “nuisance” gator that was thought to be 10 feet. Nuisance gators are considered any gator more than 4 feet long, especially if they end up in residential areas. With many alligator-infested lakes in Florida, he was not surprised by this call.
When he arrived he knew this one was more than 10 feet, by a lot! After a 3 ½ hour’s fight, he was able to kill the gator and tied it to the side of his boat to drag in. He saw right away that the gator was almost as long as his 14 ½ foot boat! Sure enough when they got to shore and got it measured it was 14 feet long and 1,000 pounds! The largest he had ever caught out of more than 100 gators.
