It's gator mating season, what you need to know

Authorities in Texas are investigating after human remains were found in the jaws of an alligator while officers were searching the area for a missing woman. The gruesome discovery in Houston comes less than a year after the body of a woman was found in the mouth of a gator in Florida.

"Patrol officers located the remains of a woman in the jaws of an alligator in the Horsepen Bayou … while searching the area for a woman reported missing," Houston police said in a statement Wednesday.

A sergeant shot and killed the alligator "to prevent it from doing more damage to the remains," officials said. A dive team later recovered the woman's body and dead alligator from the bayou, police said.

Police said the husband of the victim, an unnamed woman in her 60s, reported her missing early Tuesday morning, CBS affiliate KHOU-TV reported. He told police she went for a walk around 7:30 p.m. Monday and never returned. 

Police are waiting for autopsy results to determine the woman's cause of death.

"(Alligators) live down there. We see 8 feet, 10 feet babies. I know which banks to stay away from and where they like to lay in the sun," local Angela Derous told KTRK-TV. "That's the first time I've heard of that happening down here. It's a little scary."

The woman's death comes about eight months after the body of a 41-year-old woman was spotted in the jaws of a 13-foot alligator in Largo, Florida. Last Febraury, an 85-year-old woman was killed by a 10-foot alligator walking her dog in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Alligator attacks are rare in Texas, although earlier this month, a police officer in Cleveland, Texas was bitten by a 10-foot gator while trying to remove it from a roadway. 

The last fatal alligator attack in the state happened in 2015, when a 28-year-old man was killed while swimming late at night at a marine in Southeast Texas.

In:
• Texas
• Alligator

Stephen Smith

Stephen Smith is a managing editor for CBSNews.com based in New York. A Washington, D.C. native, Steve was previously an editorial producer for the Washington Post, and has also worked in Los Angeles, Boston and Tokyo.