#23 and counting up
If you live in the southeastern United States then you are already familiar with the big toothy grin of the American Alligator. Although it doesn’t usually prey on humans, its definitely big enough to do so, and will occasionally exercise that ability. Normally though its diet consist of small animals, birds, and other marsh dwellers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_alligator
Alligator mississippiensis (Daudin, 1802) | |
Birth of an Urban Legend
The earliest published reference to alligators in the sewer — in what Jan Harold Brunvand refers to as the "standardized" form of the urban legend ("baby alligator pets, flushed, thrived in sewers") — can be found in the 1959 book, The World Beneath the City, a history of public utilities in New York City written by Robert Daley. Daley's source was a retired sewer official named Teddy May, who claimed that during his tenure in the 1930s he personally investigated workers' reports of subterranean saurians and saw a colony of them with his own eyes. He also claimed to have supervised their eradication. May was a colorful storyteller, if not a particularly reliable one.
Carl,
You never cease to amaze me with some of your stuff.
Mike, I owe it all to my good friend Google … which gives me an idea for a new topic.