A story circulating online that hunters here killed a massive, ancient gator with Civil War bullets embedded in its hide is a good read but totally bunk, state officials said Wednesday.

The story posted on World Daily News Report’s website claims a 910 pound, 185-year-old alligator was killed in Vicksburg the week before Thanksgiving, and the beast had nine Civil War era rounds from a Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle stuck in its tough, leathery hide.

“They were very creative. It makes a good story,” Ricky Flynt, alligator program director for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said.

The story has been shared online more than 190,000 times with many people believing the tale was true.

“Why kill it? I wonder how long it could have lived? I guess they did not know it was that old,” one user posted on worlddailynewsreport.com

The dead giveaway that the story was a hoax is a link on the top of the webpage saying “Disclaimer.”

Clicking on the link reveals a message that describes the site as “a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within worldnewsdailyreport.com are fiction, and presumably fake news.”

Of course, that’s the fine print. And nobody likes to look for big clues in fine print.

There was never a good story in the fine print anyway.

The only part of the story that is real is the accompanying photograph of four men standing with a gator that was legally harvested in 2012 by Tom Grant of Cleveland.

“It was taken in Issaquena County, and it weighed 697 pounds,” Flynt told me this week. “The weight was overstated, and there was no projectile found.”

The 13-foot gator in the photo was caught Sept. 21, 2012, and its weight was a state record at the time. A new record has been set each gator-hunting season since. Each of the record gators were caught in Warren, Issaquena or Claiborne counties.

The photo had previously been posted on the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries website and the site of a Los Angeles, Calif., television news station. In addition to Grant, it shows Kenny Winter and Jim Reed, both of Greenville, and Michael Robbers of Palos Verdes, Calif.

So beyond the fine-print, how could the average person know the story was a fraud?

First, alligator season on both public and private lands ended in September, so it’s highly unlikely that anyone who poached a gator in November would want international publicity.

The second clue is a photo of one of bullet supposedly pried from the alligator’s hide.

It shows a man gripping what appears to be a fully round .69-caliber musket ball between his thumb and forefinger. The 1853 Enfield never used a round .69-caliber ball.

In Vicksburg, most Enfields used the conical Minie ball. The round ball show in the photo was used here during the Civil War, but was most common in smoothbore Union muskets that fired buck and ball — a round lead ball with pieces of buckshot attached.

So could there be river monsters out there with a Civil War Minie ball stuck in its side?

Not likely, Flynt says. The beasts just don’t live that long.

“We know they live about 50 to 70 years in captivity. We don’t know how long they live in the wild,” he said.