OT:Who says there ain't no dinosaurs?

[Pete Schumacher ®]

http://rc.posterous.com/holy-its-a-deer

[xavier]

Well, there aren't. We shot them all.

[martyh]

..........woah.........

[johnnyrichards]

Be interesting to see the measurements on this - 17ft or so is the commonly accepted maximum length for these critters. There are stories, of course, of animals reaching 19 feet, 20 feet and of course the brief article claims "25 feet".

It would also be cool to see a photo with anything approaching a reliable reference for scale.

Has this popped up on Snopes yet?

[Rightbrained]

We grow gators LARGE in Alabama.
On a river trip with a fishing buddy we counted 19 sunning on the sand bars early in the morning.

[johnnyrichards]

Why yes it has.

[Rightbrained]

Yeah , that photo has been around emails for several years. I need to see if I can find the monster taken from Lake Eufaula during last years Alligator season.

[Rightbrained]

Here is a 600+ pounder taken last year.

http://blog.al.com/outdoors-alabama/...ator_stor.html

And here is an article on some rather large reptiles

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_184075.asp

[J_Shea]

In the picture with the game warden, the shadows appear to be coming from at least two different sources of light. Compare the angle from the tailgate of the truck in the foreground to it's shadow with the angle of the alligator to it's shadow.
Either the sun was coming from a different angle depending on whether you're a lizard or a vehicle when that picture was taken, or that's a composite image from at least two different source images.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

But how about the pics of the beast in the water with a deer in its mouth?

That's a good reference for scale too.

Anyone guess what the size of the deer in his mouth is?

[Pete Schumacher ®]

In the picture with the game warden, the shadows appear to be coming from at least two different sources of light. Compare the angle from the tailgate of the truck in the foreground to it's shadow with the angle of the alligator to it's shadow.
Either the sun was coming from a different angle depending on whether you're a lizard or a vehicle when that picture was taken, or that's a composite image from at least two different source images.

I don't see an alligator shadow . . . only the trooper.

[billfitzmaurice]

Gators and dinos lived side by side. The dino's offspring are still with us, we call them birds. I saw a flock of cranes flying overhead recently and they were the spitting image of pterodactyls. And I was most glad that they weren't.

As for the gator you can extrapolate his size from that of the nylon strap wrapped around his tail.

[waynew]

Pete,

Most southern deer are quite small, in the range of 80 to 150lbs. Think Great Dane and you will have the size about right.

Northern Whitetails and Muley's are quite a bit bigger. 120 to 250lbs. I shot a doe this weekend that field dressed about 200lbs. It took everything me and my buddy had to get her into the truck. It took us 3 hours to butcher her, and that was a hurry up job because of the heat! I now have about 30lbs of Bratwursts, and 20lbs of loins and backstraps, not counting the 10 giant logs of summer sausage that are currently undergoing a nice chill in my freezer. Tasty, tasty tasty....


WayneW

[evilskillit]

I don't know if they're that old, but nothing makes me think "dinosaur" more than when I see a 150lb snapping turtle. Holy heck those things look mean and prehistoric.

Looks like this but they can get up to the size of a medium dog, over 100lbs

[johnnyrichards]

I don't know if they're that old, but nothing makes me think "dinosaur" more than when I see a 150lb snapping turtle. Holy heck those things look mean and prehistoric.

Looks like this but they can get up to the size of a medium dog, over 100lbs

Around here there are claims of snappers hitting 100+ pounds, but the snappers we have are not like those - I think that one is called an "Alligator Snapper" and we have the "Common Snapper".

I used to fish for them, and caught hundreds and hundreds of them. Never saw one over 25 pounds, give or take. I ate quite a few of them, gave away even more of them and released a significant majority of them. Good times.

Someday I want to get back to my mothers' family in Louisiana and go turtle catching for the Alligator snappers like that one.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

[johnnyrichards]

[evilskillit]

Yeah the spikey lookin guy is an alligator snapper, they always make me think of Koopa from Mario Brothers. I've seen one at the local zoo that was bigger than my basset hound and give the density of their skin and shell I'd believe he weighed over 100lbs.

[davepellegrene]

I saw one of these fly by the other day.

[johnnyrichards]

We don't have those, but we do have these all over the state, particularly west river: