NBCNewYork  A monster frog making the rounds on social media may not be as gross as it seems. Photos posted on the South Texas Hunting Association’s Facebook show Markcuz Rangel holding what’s claimed to be a frog weighing 13 pounds. The post read, “Wanted to share a monster bull frog we got yesterday afternoon at one of our fishing ponds in South Texas ranch located in Batesville tx 13lb monster frog!!!” “Everybody from Time Magazine in New York to stations in San Francisco have been jumping (pun intended) on this big frog story,” Steve Lightfoot, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman, told NBC DFW. Lightfoot said the frog pictured is indeed a big bullfrog, though bullfrogs rarely exceed one pound in weight. Instead, what we have here is an optical illusion. Think of images of people holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Since there is nothing to gain reference with, such as a hand around the frog, there’s no way to say for certain how big it is,” he said. Lightfoot said the hunter is welcome to bring it in to be weighed or inspected by a Texas Parks biologist.

I am not buying that this bull frog, which was allegedly killed by a hunter in Batesville, Texas, is as big as it looks in the picture or that it weighed a whopping thirteen pounds. This has to be a hoax, the hunter must be holding the frog very close to the camera, creating an optical illusion which makes the frog look much larger than it actually is in real life. Like when you catch a fish, you hold it close to the camera, but also extend your arms so that the fish is as far away from you as possible to make it look huge. I grew up catching frogs, and once as a kid captured a massive bullfrog that I kept in a tank in my yard, which probably weighed two pounds. He was huge, ate a water snake which was kept in his enclosure, and escaped after knocking a lid off the tank which was held in place by multiple heavy rocks. Bull frogs can grow big, and there are some monsters out there, but a thirteen pound frog has got to be a hoax.