If only this turtle could talk. Experts think it has been living under the streets of Sydney, Australia, for more than 20 years!
Last week a construction worker found the rare alligator snapping turtle in a Sydney sewer. "We couldn't believe our eyes," he told the Advertiser, an Australian newspaper. "It's massive and at first didn't look real."
This turtle tale may have begun 21 years ago, when eight baby snappers were stolen from the Australian Reptile Park, never to be seen again. If this is one of them, there could be a whole family of Sydney sewer turtles.
Alligator snapping turtles are native to the U.S. They are endangered-and one of the largest freshwater-turtle species in the world. They can weigh up to 200 pounds and live to be 60 years old. The turtle has been nicknamed Leonardo after one of the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It took six men and a wheelbarrow to haul 110-pound Leonardo from the drain. He now has a home at the reptile park.