She's safe and sound now, but a young iguana has had quite an adventure.
She was found inside the engine compartment of a DPW pick-up truck in Hull, Massachusetts, by a stunned DPW worker.
"Scared him quite a bit," said Hingham Animal Control Officer Leslie Badger, who handles Hingham, Hull and Cohasset. "And he jumped back, and realized what it was."
Badger has no idea how the iguana ended up under the hood, and whether she was abandoned or took off from someone's home.
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"Whether it got to a point where that person could no longer care for her and somebody decided to just set her free or, as we're hoping, she just escaped from an enclosure," said Badger.
Badger says she likely came from somewhere around the South Shore and she's been well taken care of.
"Someone obviously put some time and effort into raising and taking care of her," said Badger. "So I'm pretty sure someone loved her."
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They don't know her name, but they do know she's about 2 years old, 3 pounds and 4 feet long.
And she knows how to bolt.
"I think she's an escape artist," said Dr. Greg Mertz.
She's already tried to slip away from her temporary home at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth.
"Once we got her here, she also escaped from us, out of one of our cages, and we had to go on a search mission," said Mertz. "She's a busy little girl."
The pick-up truck where the iguana was found hadn't been used in about a week, so it's possible she'd been there that long, but so far, there have been no calls about a missing pet.
"We just did some blood work on her, we did X-rays on her to make sure there were no broken bones or other injuries," said Mertz.
The owner of the iguana has seven days to claim her. If no one does, she'll go up for adoption.
