Police last week responded to a report of a “reptile” spotted in Mill Pond, officials say.
The nanny of a New Canaan family on July 29 said she’d seen a scaly creature enter the pond, according to a police report, possibly an alligator or caiman, according to a police report.
While Animal Control Officer Maryann Kleinschmitt said she’s not dismissing the idea of an illegally held reptile being released into the water—“People can put strange things in waterways,” she said—what is more likely is that what the eyewitness saw is what’s known as an ‘alligator turtle.’
Alligator Turtle. Contributed
Typically found in the southeast, the creatures are scaly and have spikes on their backs, and though they’re a different species from the snapping turtles New Canaanites would know, their mating season is similar (meaning the females could be leaving fresh water now to waddle to a nest and back).
“We usually see soft shell snapping turtles here, but if she saw this long-neck alligator turtle with scales, then it easily could be mistaken for another type of reptile,” Kleinschmitt said.
Alligator turtles have been reported in New Canaan in the past, Kleinschmitt said, “usually on people’s private property.”
Though Kleinschmitt herself hasn’t seen one in New Canaan, the reptile was seen on a pond off of Toby’s Lane, she said.
It’s not impossible that a small alligator—say, two or three feet long—was released in the water, since it’s not something that would necessarily be big enough yet to take geese from Mill Pond.
“It would eat fish and probably would sun itself in a sunny area,” she said.