The Alligator Test, and the Escapes That Are Not Here

The test run November 2026

Every river city keeps an alligator story, and this section was sent to test Mishawaka's class of them against the record. The record's answer is a turtle, in Michigan, in 1999. The searches ran across the press record and the federal scientific record: no alligator, caiman, or escaped exotic reptile on Mishawaka ground — in the river, in a pond, in a sewer, in a yard — appears in any source reached. What the river's record does hold, exactly once, is the U.S. Geological Survey's Nonindigenous Aquatic Species fact sheet for the alligator snapping turtle: "In the St. Joseph River, Berrien County, Michigan, M. Brazo (personal communication 1999) found an alligator snapping turtle in 1999." The fact sheet's comment on all such out-of-range animals is that pet releases should be suspected, and its caution could stand as this entry's epigraph: the identity of the species found out of its range "should be carefully verified, as many untrained people mistake C. serpentina, the common snapping turtle, for this species." The common snapping turtle is Chapman's turtle, a native of this reach since before the county had a name. So the alligator of the St. Joseph River resolves, on the only documented evidence, into one released or escaped turtle twenty-five miles downstream and a standing warning about the native turtle it gets confused with — and that is the whole of this section's alligator record, printed whole. The companion test resolves the same way. The circus-animal record of Mishawaka — the menageries under canvas, elephants and a hippopotamus among them — stands in the family-entertainment and zoo files, where the shows' courses are printed; the escape story, the elephant loose on Lincoln Way that the class of city legend requires, was searched for in the press record reached and is not there: no circus animal escape in Mishawaka is documented, and the famous escapes of the record belong to other cities' files.

Principal sources

1. U.S. Geological Survey, Nonindigenous Aquatic Species fact sheet, Macrochelys temminckii (alligator snapping turtle) — the 1999 St. Joseph River, Berrien County, Michigan record (M. Brazo, pers. comm.); pet releases suspected; the misidentification caution.
3. The zoo and family-entertainment files in this record — the circus menageries' courses through Mishawaka, printed there.