Two-Foot Gator Appears To Have Been Brought On The El To The Airport

You can often see unusual things at an airport. With the number of people passing through and the age of dresses and sport coats for airline travel long gone, it takes a lot to make most people even look twice.

An alligator in Chicago might just do the trick.

A two-foot gator was captured Friday at O'Hare International Airport in Terminal 3. A woman saw the reptile lurking under an escalator, and immediately alerted Tineka Walker, a security guard at the airport.

Walker told television station WBBM-TV that the gator was captured by placing a trash can over it. The animal was reportedly moving pretty slowly for having been on the cold floor of the airport. It was removed by the Chicago Herpetological Society.

Which only leaves the question of how it got there in the first place, because it's a pretty sure bet it didn't fly in on a flight from Florida.

Which is where Twitter comes in handy. WBBM-TV reports that someone Tweeted a photo of someone carrying what looked like the same alligator on Chicago's Blue Line, which stops at the airport. Reptile specialist Bob Bavirsha of the Chicago Herpetological Society said it's likely once that person realized they were not going to be able to get the gator past TSA, they just let it go at the airport.

FMI: www.chicagoherp.org