Sept. 7 (UPI) -- An alligator of unknown origins has been found wandering in Oklahoma for the second time since the start of September.

Rich and Deborah Ames, who live just outside of Shawnee in the Twin Lakes area, said Rick was driving near their home Thursday when he spotted what he thought was an unusually large lizard.


"He thought, oh that's an awfully big lizard," Deborah Ames told KFOR-TV, "and it ended up being that little alligator."

Rick Ames captured the 3-foot alligator, wrapped its snout shut and brought it to his home, where the couple placed it in a dog crate and contacted authorities.

A Pottawatomie County sheriff's deputy arrived with a game warden to take custody of the animal, which state authorities confirmed was an American alligator.

Deputies said it is illegal to possess an American alligator in Oklahoma. They said the reptile may have swum to Oklahoma from Texas, but also could have been an escaped or abandoned exotic pet.

"It's really sad," Deborah Ames said. "It just goes back to what the news media says all the time that people get these exotic pets, and they get to a certain size, and then they just let them go. I'm sure that's probably what happened."

Oklahoma police previously captured an alligator in a residential neighborhood earlier in September. The Moore Police Department shared body camera footage of an officer taking the gator into custody. The origins of the Moore alligator remain under investigation.