Alligators boast the strongest bite force in the animal kingdom, exerting 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch whenever they chomp down on a target. One alligator in South Carolina seemingly tried to snack on a deer, but in the process, got an antler lodged in its jaw.
Hunters stumbled upon the reptile with the antler stuck in its mouth. The animal was already dead, which may have resulted from a puncture wound as a result of the antler getting stuck.
The next stop for the unique animal corpse was Cordray’s Processing and Taxidermy. Shop owner Michael Cordray took photos of the gator with the antler stuck in its teeth, then proceeded to remove it. “Talk about a mouthful!” he said of the 11-foot reptile. The antler appeared to be attached to a small chunk of bone, which could mean that it came from a deer that the gator actually ate, rather than one that a deer shed and the gator decided to munch on.
“We determined it has been that way six months or less, and likely happened while the alligator was chewing,” Cordray told local newspaper The State. “It surprised us too. We’ve seen a lot of strange things but we’ve never seen anything like that. It just shows you the destructive power of an alligator, that they even try to eat the antlers.”
As for what led to the spiky predicament for the gator, Cordray has an idea. “I’m guessing the deer was drinking water and the alligator popped out and grabbed it,” he surmised.
Rather than mount the head with the antler inside, the hunters opted to have the gator made into a rug with just the head and skin intact. It certainly would have made for an interesting conversation starter if it ended up as a wall mount.
