A FAMILY in the U.S. state of Alabama celebrated after catching the largest alligator ever recorded in the state over the weekend, the Daily Mail reported

    The mammoth beast, which measured 4.57 meters long and weighed 455 kg, was captured by five members of the Stokes family near Thomaston, the report said.

    It took the family, consisting of Mandy Stokes, husband John Stokes, brother-in-law Kevin Jenkins and his children Savannah, 16, and Parker, 14, 10 hours to capture the monster.

    The hunt started Friday night and lasted well into Saturday morning.

    Mandy Stokes said her crew went through the full range of emotions as they first staked the animal, before battling it, then killing it and finally struggling to take it back to shore.

    “He came up just as calm as he could,” Mandy Stokes told AL.com. “When I pulled the trigger this time, water just exploded on all of us.”

    When they finally got the beast back to dry land, he was so big that he crushed the winch system normally used by Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries biologists.

    Alligators are the only dangerous-game species that can legally be hunted in the state. In the end, a backhoe had to be brought in to lift the animal and officially weigh it.

    The mammoth gator has now been officially named as the largest ever legally harvested in Alabama and it could even be a new world record.

    In June, Safari Club International declared a 4.48-meter, 399-kg alligator killed in Chalk Creek near Lufkin, Texas by Justin Wells of Bossier City, Louisiana, in 2007 as the new world record.

    It isn’t clear which metric — length, weight or a combination of both — SCI used to come to its decision.

    The Stokes’ gator measured 179 cm around the stomach, 117 cm around the base of the tail and had a 41-cm snout measurement.

    Following his capture and being weighed, his next stop was scheduled to be Ken Owens’ Autaugaville taxidermy shop.

    (SD-Agencies)