Here are my other Brazos Bend and/or critter pages:
 ----------------------------------------------------------------                  OR,  FOR OTHER ANIMALS:
Alligators at Brazos Bend State Park Introduction              Critters at Brazos Bend State Park Page 1
Snakes-nonvenomous 1-------------------------------------------  Critters at Brazos Bend State Park Page 3
Snakes-nonvenomous 2-------------------------------------------------Insects, non-toxic
Snakes-nonvenomous 3------------------------------------------------Spiders
Snakes-venomous------------------------------------------------------Mammals
Birds-Waders----Birds-Raptors--------------------------------- Lizards!--Turtles!
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March 17, 2002  They were draining the Pilant Slough, and as the water level receded, aquatic creatures were trapped in waning pools of water. The alligators evidently capitalized on this turn of events, and rested on the newly-exposed banks near the observation tower in great numbers. See (lots of gators) below. Then, on the low end of the Slough, where the water was exiting the floodgate, a large fish got caught in the concrete breakwater. This was an alligator gar.  See the images below. The first shot shows it as it was found. I tried to move this fish, but I was only able to expose its head, which had been crushed.  Note the size of the concrete uprights I'm standing on, and you'll get an idea of the scale of this fish. It was HUGE.
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---LLOTS OF GATORS-------GAR AS IT WAS FOUND----MY FOOT BY THE HEAD----------THE HEAD------------THE ENTIRE FISH
April 07, 2002    Kind of a quiet day today. More storm weather was due in our area. However, this morning, I was allowed to join David, one of the Park Naturalists, and we took a quick survey of some recently-deceased park denizens. Among them was the huge gar that I've shown pictures of here, which I'd first encountered on March 17. I'd wanted to do a quick dissection of the gar to determine what it might have eaten, but was unable to find it until today; much too late for this. Making the best of the situation, I was able to take some more pictures that showed how large the gar is. Yes, that is a John Deere Gator in the picture below (By the Gator), next to the gar. I also took a few pictures of the skull. (MY FOOT (below)) and (TEETH (below)).  Those teeth are sharp!
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----BY THE GATOR------------MY FOOT-M -------------TEETH                COPPERHEAD-
May 05, 2002 Tuesday, April 23, I got to the park around 8:00 am. I hadn't been on the trail 10 minutes (I started at the 40-Acre Lake parking lot), when I encountered a copperhead stretched across the trail near Hoot's Hollow.  I  was able to take a few pictures before it got bored with me and continued across the trail.(COPPERHEAD, above)  Notice the coloration of the scales and the shape of the head. Also, the nostril is the small opening at the tip of its nose. You might notice another opening between the nostril and the eye. This pit is what gives "pit vipers" their name. It's a heat sensor, and aids the snake in stalking food. Copperheads are poisonous, and as stated in signs throughout Brazos Bend State Park, "POISONOUS SNAKES EXIST IN THIS PARK".  The snakes belong in the park. Humans are only visitors there. Visitors should keep a close eye on their children and pets while they are in the park, for this reason.
 

The Alligator Gar?s Story:
In March of 2002, the floodgate at the bottom of Pilant Slough, near the Nature Center, was opened. This was done to drain the slough so that the floodgate could be repaired. Sometime after this, a number of people noticed a huge fish caught in the breakwater at the floodgate opening.  Here is the fish as it appeared on March 17, 2002.

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     GAR AS IT WAS FOUND----MY FOOT BY THE HEAD----------THE HEAD------------THE ENTIRE FISH
The fish is an Alligator Gar (Lepisosteus spatula).  Note that each one of those concrete ?teeth? in the floodgate is about one foot across.  The gar was removed and dragged out to a remote location in the park.
Alligator Gars will eat other fish, though it is reported that they will sometimes take waterfowl. It?s very likely that a gar will eat anything that it can catch, including turtles and smaller alligators.  Unfortunately, too much time had passed before this gar could be examined to allow dissection for viewing its stomach contents.  It should be noted here that most popular game fish, like Largemouth Bass, are generally too vigorous for the Alligator Gar to catch.
Some time later, the condition of the gar was checked. The plan was to allow various park scavengers to clean the carcass. Here are other pictures of the gar, taken April 7, 2002.
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----BY THE GATOR------------MY FOOT-M -------------TEETH
The gar is pictured near one of the John Deere Gators used by Brazos Bend State Park.  The gar did not break down easily for a number of reasons. A hot, dry summer and the heavy scales covering the body probably prevented effective scavenging of the carcass.  On April 23, Park Volunteer Rick Dashnau salvaged the head and developed this project. The gar?s head was kept in the specimen freezer for some weeks while Rick and the Park Naturalists tried to figure out how best to clean it.  What made cleaning this prize so difficult was its size. It barely fits into a five-gallon bucket! On August 7, a small cage was built (to prevent larger scavengers from disturbing the head), and the head was placed in an ant nest for further cleaning.  Finally, the skull was clean enough to work with. Rick Dashnau was able to finish cleaning and preparing the skull, and also able to build the case to display it on September 24, 2002.

I'll note here that we measured one of these John Deer gators today. It was 8.5 feet long! Also, here are four more pictures of the Alligator Gar.  The first one (ANT CAGE) shows the cage I built for the head so I could place it in an ant nest. The next two (STILL NOT, and 12 INCHES) show the head after the last treatment; a week long bath in a solution of 1 gallon bleach/4 gallons water. This was before I stripped off the remaining flesh.  The measurement is from the end of the snout to approximately the center of the eye socket. These were taken on September 19th...the same day as my images of the 3-fanged Cottonmouth.  The next two (SIDE VIEW, FRONT VIEW) are of the gar's head as we first displayed it. We placed it on top of the display featuring the skeleton of an 8-foot long alligator.
What I can't stop thinking about is the image of this huge prehistoric fish stalking the waters of the park--as large and as voracious as a good-sized alligator!

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 08/07/02 ANT CAGE   8STILL....NOT QUITE   12 INCHES TIP TO EYE         SIDE VIEW                  FRONT VIEW

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       RICKUBIS LIKES FISH---------  -----------------------LONG SPINE

October  20, 2002 A rather cool, wet weekend. However, on Sunday, some alligators showed themselves right after the sun finally came through the clouds.  On Saturday, we had the Volunteer Picnic at the park. During this, I'm proud to say, I received an award for "Outstanding Volunteer" from the Brazos Bend State Park Volunteer's Organization. Apparently, this was due to votes cast by a number of volunteers. Thanks, everyone! I have a great time doing things at the park, and then I GET AWARDED FOR IT! Is that great, or WHAT? The image above left (RICKUBIS LIKES FISH)  shows some older guy, Rickubis(yes, that's me), attempting to reconstruct the spine of a very large Alligator Gar--on the dining room table. In fact, this is the same gar I've talked about before.  So far, I've gone out on three occasions to dig and scrape and find these vertebrae. So far, I've found about 48. I'm not sure how many more there might be, but I can't seem to find any more. I'm sure I have a large part of it.  The spine I can reconstruct is about 48 inches ,or 4 feet long. The image above right (LONG SPINE) shows what I have so far.  Add the length of the head, about 20 inches, and I have 68 inches of a 96-inch long fish accounted for. I have no idea of the length of the tail spines, nor the distance between vertebrae. I'll see if I can get a count of how many there are supposed to be.

November  10, 2002 The image below (BOWFIN) is of an interesting "primitive" fish called a "Bowfin".
The water at the park got very high. In fact the nearby Big Creek was so filled that the water from Pilant Slough, which normally flows out of the park, was flowing back INTO the park from Big Creek. As evidence of the amount of water we received, here it the fishing pier on Hale Lake, the deck of which usually stays at least 10 feet above water level (see HALE LAKE PIER, below).  This happened for about 2 days, until the water level dropped in Big Creek . As the water started flowing back out of Pilant Slough, other bodies of water were free to drain. 40 Acre lake started flowing back under the footbridge, and a few predatory fish stationed themselves in the sluggish flow. Among them were a few Bowfin, and a few Spotted Gar (see image below).  These fish were about 15 inches long. It is interesting to me that these "primitive" fish both inhabit the park, right along with various perch, sunfish and bass. Of course, let's not forget the Alligator Gar! The image below (HEAD AND SPINE) shows my completed gar as it is now.
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         BOWFIN                              SPOTTED GAR                 GAR HEAD AND SPINE             HALE LAKE PIER

If you'd like to know more about the park follow these links:

Brazos Bend State Park   The main page.

Brazos Bend State Park Volunteer's Page  The volunteer's main page.
 

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