A family found a giant alligator on their doorstep as they opened the front door

Last month a family woke up to find an uninvited guest at their front door. An eight-foot alligator was lying in the shade on their welcome mat.

The Tampa family struggled to convince the alligator to leave the porch, but it seemed too calm to do so.

Not knowing what to do, the residents put up a sign for the mailman: «Delivery stop! Leave your packages here!  ALLIGATOR at front door!! (Seriously).”They also called in specialist hunters to help them deal with the unusual guest.

The alligator had obviously gone far away in search of a safe place to sleep.

«The lake is not exactly in front of or behind the house, but the alligator probably came from there,» said Karina Sura Paner, manager of Croc Encounters. The alligator had to walk quite a distance to get to their front door. It probably went out at night looking for a new body of water. He may have taken shelter in the shade at dawn.»

When rescuers arrived on the scene, they saw that the alligator was missing two limbs, most likely as a result of a fight with another alligator.

That didn’t stop it from making a big fuss, however, when rescuers tried to get it off the property.

According to Paner, the alligator seemed calm until they got close to him, at which point he stretched his lips and hissed at us. He reacted as an alligator should, swinging his tail back and forth and even doing many deadly somersaults while we tied him down with a rope.

Although the alligator cannot be released back into the wild, it has found a home where it will live in an open natural enclosure with a group of other alligators, and will not have to worry that its lack of limbs will slow its development.

The alligator is now safe and has finally found a shady place where he can rest as long as he wants without help.