A woman was left shocked after spotting a nine-foot long alligator swimming around with half of its jaw missing.
The large reptile was spotted in the Florida Everglades gliding through the waters with the top of its jaw torn off.
Stacey Lynette spotted the predator swimming around happily in murky swampland where she snapped a picture of the alligator with a chunk of its jaw missing, the Star reports.
She took to Facebook to say: "I saw this gator far away and he looked weird to me.
"I grabbed my camera and sure as s**t, the whole end of his top jaw is missing.
"The photo quality is c**p because he was really far away. By the looks of him, he's doing alright though."
Adam Rosenblatt, a biologist at the University of North Florida, says “Alligators are really resilient.
"They are built to withstand damage at an immune system level and at a physical level.”
It's not known how or when the alligator lost its upper jaw, but it is unlikely it will every grow back.
The usually aggressive creatures are often in fights during mating season, which may explain the injury.
They are also know to have the ability to regrow body parts after being injured, but this serious injury seems all but likely to stay as it is.
Mr Stubbs, a US alligator that lost its tail several years ago while being illegally transported by a group of animal-traffickers.
He was given a 3D-printed replica of the missing appendage.
Justin Georgi, an associate professor of anatomy at Midwestern University in Gelandale, Arizona, collaborated with a local company called STAX3D to use an Artec 3D scanner to create a custom-made replica tail that enables
Mr Stubbs to swim almost as well as he could before his mishap.
