Thirty years ago Leonel Almeida and his family were completing a
renovation on their home in Rio de Janeiro when they lost track
of their pet tortoise, Manuela. They figured one of the
construction workers had left the door open, Manuela eased on
out and that was the last they would ever see of the tortoise.
So you can imagine how surprised Leonel's son, Leandro, was when
he was taking out the trash recently and he noticed a red-footed
tortoise crawling around a box next to an old record player.
"At that moment, I was white and did not believe," Leandro told
(translation via the Edmonton Journal).  Leonel Almeida passed
away earlier this month, and his family was cleaning out the
upstairs storage room where he had kept many of his belongings.
As it turns out, Manuela had gotten trapped in that storage room
30 years ago. For the past three decades, it had been Manuela's
home.  The Almeida family speculates that Manuela survived on
termite-heavy diet while stuck in the storage room. Yuck.  “We
are all thrille