This is NOT a Lᴏsᴛ pet, IT IS a Lᴏsᴛ pet! Manuela, a red-footed turtle and beloved pet of the Almeida family from Rio de Janeiro, arrived in ᴍɪssɪɴɢ in 1982 but did not go far:
The family eventually discovered her in an attic filled with furniture, infested with termites for over 30 years.
Life goes on with this close-knit family in the western area of Rio, and patriarch Leonel Almeida continues to salvage furniture and electronic devices he found abandoned on the streets of the neighborhood, storing them away. kept in the bedroom upstairs. When Leonel passed away in early January, his family saw the long-awaited opportunity to clean up the moldy mess.
Leonel’s son Lenita says:
“My dad thinks he can fix anything he picks up and takes it home. If he finds an old TV, he thinks he can use part of it to repair another, so he keeps hoarding stuff.
Leandro, Lenita’s brother, finds a box containing an old tape recorder. He wanted to throw it away but the neighbor suddenly asked him if he was going to throw the turtle out of the box too. Manuela, the famous tortoise ᴅɪsᴀᴘᴘᴇᴀʀᴇᴅ 30 years ago, built her own house. And she seems fine
Incredibly, the turtle was somehow trapped in the warehouse for three decades. Her family suspected that she had eaten termite larvae in an overcrowded room. Manuela’s family was delighted. She was Aʟɪᴠᴇ and of course, she still is.
Lenita says :
“We never dared to enter this room. We are all thrilled to have Manuela back. But no one can understand how she managed to last
30 years there, that’s amazing.
Understandably, with stories like this, many have questioned her nature, many of them skeptic that Manuela lived without food, water, air, and vegetation. But these turtles are tough!
Veterinarian Jeferson Pires in Rio de Janeiro says red-footed turtles are actually very resilient. “They are exceptionally resilient and can live for two to three years without food. In the wild, they eat fruits, leaves, animals, and even feces.