Google was looking for a new way to cool its servers – and it ended up with a 4-foot alligator.

The experiment in the law of unintended consequences took place in Berkeley County, South Carolina, just off U.S. Highway 52, where Google has built a $600 million data center.

Google data center operations chief Joe Kava recently told the Charleston Post & Courier that his team was tinkering with a system for using the data center's stormwater retention pond to cool down the thousands of servers in the data center. It's something they'd like to roll out to other data centers, but there was a snag.

From the Post & Courier:

[T]he pond also has become home to plenty of algae, which meant Google had to stock it with fish. And since this is the Lowcountry, the food chain didn’t stop there. “So we now have a 4-foot alligator that has taken up residence in our pond as well,” Kava said, clearly amused. He added that government experts have said it’ll have to be removed once it grows to six feet long.

When it comes to figuring out how to beat the server heat, Google is an acknowledged leader. The company uses icy Baltic Sea water, thermal batteries and even Georgia toilet water. But a Gator-pond-cooled data center does appear to be a first.

Google has historically been quiet about what goes on in its data centers. The company considers them a key competitive advantage and guards its data center secrets nearly as secretly as its search algorithm.

But last month, the company invited a reporter – Wired's Steven Levy – into its data centers for the first time, and it has started to give the world at least a peek at what's going on behind the curtain.

Who knew we'd find alligators?