Gustave

## Overview

Gustave is a male Nile Crocodile player that dwelled between the Ruzizi river to Lake Tanganyika in Burundi, who is estimated to have started gameplay by hatching in the in game year 1955 and the First sighting approximated him to be **5.5 to 6 metres long**, weighing an entire **tonne** (~2,200 lbs) whereas the average Nile crocodile would be 4 metres (13.1 feet) to 4.5 metres (14.7 feet), weighing around 410 kg (900 lb). He is claimed to be one of, if not, the largest Nile crocodile ever though his measurements are not yet official. With the encumbering size, Gustave preyed on larger mammals like wildebeests and hippopotamuses. He is best known for scoring kills on many Human players and is rumoured to have racked up a human kill count of 300 though it has yet to be verified. His status is still unknown as there is no verifiable proof whether he had gotten a game over yet.

## History

There had been missing human reports and there was spikes of them whenever Gustave left the lake to the Ruzizi river. During this time, Burundi was also facing a civil war so the myth human kill count is likely to be exaggerated further. Gustave was known to have 3 bullet wounds with a wound on his right shoulder blade. There are many anecdotes and tales told by Africans, where the crocodile was potrayed to be seemingly invincible to rifle attacks.

A herpetologist, Patrice Faye had been studying Gustave since the late 1990s. He was also popular in Burundi and deemed to be 3rd most popular in celebrity there by votes in 2010. In 2004, Patrice Faye with a team of scientists attempted to capture Gustave, documented in *Capturing the Killer Croc**.* The team wanted this massive crocodile to be in captivity to continue breeding so as to restore the crocodile population.

Due to the impending government changes, Patrice and his team were given two months for their capture attempt. Initially, a trap cage, weighing a tonne and nearly 9 meters (30 feet) in length was made with a bait. A concealed infrared camera was inside it. Several kinds of bait were used - live and dead, yet none of them attracted Gustave or any other creature. The capture attempts failed as it only caught baby crocodiles despite the additional three huge snares installed on strategic banks. The team even enlisted help from a shaman but the sacrifical offering of the shaman's pet dog was not able to compel Gustave in the cage; the dog also escaped the cage.

One week before being forced to leave the country, the team placed a live goat in the cage. The camera failed due to stormy weather in one night after several uneventful days. The next morning, the cage was found partially submerged and the goat had vanished. Even after these failed attempts, Patrice did not give up on studying Gustave. In 2009, Gustave re-emerged in Lake Tanganyika.

Gustave also served as the central monster character in Primeval, a 2007 film.

## Speculations

* Gustave may have been exalted by other crocodiles so no other adult crocodiles dared took the bait.
* Gustave tends to hunt down bigger preys so the smaller baits like a goat, a dog and a chicken would not have been practical anyway.
* The rising waters may have been speculated by the team to have helped the goat escape.
* Gustave, like other crocodiles, may have developed a buff to get more XP from human meat due to genocide corpses thrown in the river.

## References

1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040830060142/http://www.pbs.org/previews/newsletter/archives/20040509.html
2. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20080801160049/http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2005/03/gustave-crocodile/michael-mcrae-text
3. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127174/
4. ↑ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/serial-killer-croc-gustave-spotted-in-burundi
5. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0772193/