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WAYCROSS, Ga. - The most famous resident of Okefenokee Swamp Park - an alligator that attracted the stares of tourists for decades - will soon be immortalized nearly a year after his death.

The skeleton of Oscar is being assembled and will be put on display like a museum dinosaur. The four-metre, 450-kilogram alligator had roamed the swamp from the time the park opened in 1946.

As his bones show, Oscar was a tough customer, surviving a shotgun blast to the face, at least three bullet wounds, broken bones and arthritis. By some estimates, the geezer gator was 95 to 100 years old when he died last summer.

The display also will include what park officials found in Oscar's belly - including a plastic dog collar, a dog's tag, a penny and the top section of a flagpole.

The Okefenokee is a 175,000-hectare National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Georgia that attracts 350,000 to 400,000 visitors a year.

The other famous Okefenokee alligator is fictional: a cigar-smoking critter named Albert in the late Walt Kelly's long-running comic strip, Pogo.