Alligator Sighting in New York

One thing about New Yorkers, they love their sewer gator myth.

When a two-foot-long alligator was spotted hiding under a parked car in Queens yesterday, the question on everybody's lips was, "Did it crawl out of the sewer?"

Police spokesman James Duffy gave an honest answer. "It's a mystery, " he told the New York Post. "It could have been dumped from a car or it could have come out of a sewer."

The most likely scenario is that it's an escaped pet, of course, but that didn't stop the post from running this headline: "Alligator Captured After It Crawls Out of Queens Drain."

The NY Daily News was more circumspect: "Urban Legend Comes to Life, Maybe; Baby Crocodile Hiding Under Car Shocks Queens."

What most people don't realize is that saurian sightings are a fairly regular occurence in New York City. A 24-inch-long specimen was captured in Central Park in June 2001, and in 2006 a similarly-sized caiman was caught behind an apartment building in Brooklyn.

There's only been one documented case of an alligator in the New York City sewer system (an incident that probably served as the direct inspiration of the urban legend), and that occurred in February 1935.

In related news, a "crocodile" spotted in the English Channel last Friday turned out to be a piece of wood.

Update: Firsthand account by Joyce Hackett: "The Day I Found an Alligator in New York."

(Photo of alligator in the Florida Everglades by Joe Raedle / Getty Images.)