Watch: Alligator Faces Robot in Florida Sewers

The alligator is scared by the robot camera. Photo: City of Oviedo – City Hall/News

The crew working with the mobile video camera first thought they were seeing a large toad.

“At first they thought it was a toad, and in the video you see two small glowing eyes until you get closer. But when it turned around, they saw the long tail of an alligator and followed it through the pipes,” officials in Oviedo, near the city of Orlando, said.

“You can see in the video they got about 340 feet before the robot got stuck in a small indentation and the alligator went sideways.”

The alligator turns to reveal its long tail and rights: Jam Press

“Thank God our crews have a robot,” they said, warning local residents to stay away from storm and sewer pipes.

As one Florida newspaper wrote: “Among the many reasons not to climb into storm drains : you may not be alone.”

The city posted a video of the unusual encounter online with the caption: “Did you hear about the snakes on the plane? How about “Alligator in the pipe?”

The reptile retreats into the pipe. Photo: Jam Press

Urban legends about huge alligators living in the sewer systems of American cities formed the basis of a hacky horror film called “Alligator”, filmed in 1980.

In the film, an alligator that was thrown into the sewer when it was small in eventually transforms into a 36-foot-long, 2,000-pound monster that terrorizes the city.

The danger that alligators pose in real life in Florida is all too real, and there have been several attacks on people recently.

Over the past few months, an 85-year-old woman has been killed while protecting her dog, and a 72-year-old man's leg has been bitten off.

Last year, a man was killed by a lake in the city of Largo , and an 80-year-old woman was killed by an alligator when she fell into a pond at a country club near Sarasota. In 2016, a toddler was killed by an alligator at Walt Disney Park.

Despite these incidents, Florida officials say there is a one in three million chance of serious injury from an unprovoked alligator attack in the state.