A group of hunters captured a record-breaking alligator that has been dubbed "nightmare material".
The beast was hauled out of the Yazoo River in Mississippi, US, on Saturday (August 26) and smashed the previous state record, weighing more than 800lbs and measuring more than 14ft.
The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks took to Facebook to share a snap of the gator. The hunters were identified as Tanner White, Don Woods, Will Thomas and Joey Clark.
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The post read: "A new state record for the longest alligator harvested was broken today! Congratulations to these Mississippi hunters!
"They harvested this male alligator in the West Central Alligator Hunting Zone. He measured 14 feet and 3 inches long, with a belly girth of 66 inches and tail girth of 46.5 inches. He weighed 802.5 lbs!"
People are allowed to hunt gators at specific times to keep numbers down in the state, especially near residential areas and after complaints about pet dogs being eaten. This beast was landed on just the second day of alligator season.
The previous Mississippi record was 14ft and under 766.5lbs, back in 2017.
"Nightmare material!" one woman commented on the Facebook post. Someone else wrote: "Good grief that’s a monster."
Don described the seven-hour struggle to reel it in as "mentally exhausting."
"We hooked him eight or nine times and he kept breaking off," he told the Clarion Ledger.
"He would go down, sit and then take off. He kept going under logs. He knew what he was doing. The crazy thing is he stayed in that same spot."
They finally managed to get the alligator onto their boat at around 3.30am.
"We just knew we had a big alligator," Woods went on. "We were just amazed at how wide his back was and how big the head was. It was surreal, to tell you the truth."
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