A Florida maintenance worker got a grisly sight Tuesday – a large alligator with a human body in its mouth.
The worker called police in Lakeland, in central Florida, to report that he had seen an alligator with human body parts in its mouth, Tampa television station WFLA reported.
Officers responded to the scene and confirmed that the human remains were from an unidentified male. The alligator released the body from its mouth, but managed to escape back into Lake Hunter.
A state alligator trapper responded to the scene at about 3 p.m. to help catch the animal.
As of 3:30 p.m., Lakeland police were working to keep the alligator away from the body so they could remove it from the water. It’s not yet clear if the alligator killed the man; an autopsy will be done to determine his cause of death.
The person’s identity is not known.
The condition of body indicated it had likely been in the water at least a day, a Lakeland Police Department sergeant told the local newspaper, the Ledger.
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