Alligator Found Lurking Inside Storm Pipes Comes Face-To-Face With A Robot

Alligator eye close up

iStockphoto / AppleZoomZoom


Kids in the Southeast are often told by their parents to stay out of the storm pipes because there could be alligators inside lurking around.

As they grow older, they come to learn that this is mostly an urban myth used to keep kids out of storm pipes to prevent them from getting stuck down there.

Now according to a viral video out of Oviedo, Florida, a northeast Orlando suburb, it’s not an urban legend at all and alligators up to 5-feet can comfortably lurk around inside storm pipes and live their best lives.

While repairing potholes in a Florida roadway, a team of road workers sent a robot with a camera down into the storm pipes.

They encountered what they thought might be a large toad but in fact turned out to be a 5-foot alligator that was quite curious about the robot in the storm drain.

In the video, the alligator looks to be a ‘teenager’ and losing the characteristic yellow stripes found on juvenile alligators. But they estimated it to be a 5-footer just sauntering around down there in the storm drains like something straight out of a Hollywood film.

Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away, in Dauphin Island, Alabama, another alligator was found hanging out somewhere it’s not supposed to be.

This is a considerably larger alligator than the one inside Orlando storm pipes, and it’s hanging out in saltwater. Alligators are a freshwater species and are rarely found at the beach:

The video of the Orlando alligator inside the storm pipes was shared by the city. They published the video in order to dissuade the public from ever playing inside the storm drain system.