Feb. 18 (UPI) -- A team of University of Florida researchers said they were shocked at what their cameras discovered in the sewers of Gainesville: an "abundance of animals," including alligators.
Alan Ivory, a doctoral student and lead author of the research published in the journal Urban Naturalist, said he and his team set up 39 cameras in 33 stormwater sewers in Gainesville in an attempt to document the use of the underground tunnels by wildlife over a period of 60 days.
The researchers ended up with 3,800 sightings of 35 animal species, including 50 alligator sightings.
"It's like something out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," Ivory told The New York Times.
"The abundance of animals down there was surprising."
Ivory said the gators mostly seemed to be using the sewers as passageways between ponds, but some appeared to be using the tunnels to hunt for fish.
"It's almost as if they were cornering the fish into this dead end, using the human infrastructure to help them forage," Ivory said.
The research team said they also documented about 1,800 raccoon sightings -- and the animals would sometimes walk off with the cameras.
"We would have raccoons steal cameras every now and then," Ivory said. "They would climb up the ladders and tear them off the manholes."
Other animals caught on camera included bats, armadillos and 12 species of birds.
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