We know what you’re thinking: How on Earth does anything survive and stay hidden for 30 years in a home without being noticed?

Even after hearing the bizarre story, we still have some questions.

A red-footed tortoise named Manuela made the news back in 2013 when the Almeida family – who lives in Realengo, in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – discovered her in a storage room three decades after she got “ran away.”

Their pet went missing in 1982 and they had assumed it trundled out of the house on Rua Padre Sabóia de Medeiros after construction workers left the door open one day when the family was having their home renovated, according to Brazil’s Globo TV. (After all, tortoises can’t really “run” away.)

When the family patriarch, Leonel Almeida, passed away, his family had to do the one thing they had been dreading – clean out his storage room. He had been a lifelong collector of “stuff” and much of it got shoved into that one room.

“He just kept accumulating things,” his daughter Lenita said.

But Leonel’s children decided it was time to tackle the room in 2013, and they were shocked to find a box with a real treasure inside.

Son Leandro Almeida told Globo:

“I put the box on the pavement for the rubbish men to collect, and a neighbor said, ‘You’re not throwing out the turtle as well are you?’ I looked and saw her. At that moment, I turned white, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

In the box was an old record player – and Manuela – possibly wondering why people were trying to upend her peaceful life after all this time.

Tortoises are amazing creatures – some can even live for hundreds of years! But they can’t live without food.

They can, however, go long periods without eating (though they also need water) since they can lower their body temperatures and alter their physiological processes (basically going into suspended animation). But not for 30 years.

Rio-based veterinarian Jeferson Peres told Globo that there are stories of red-footed tortoises going without eating for 2-3 years in the wild, but 3 decades is not possible.

According to National Geographic “[Peres] speculated that Manuela had survived by eating termites and other small insects and licking condensation.”

Of course, there is a possibility that it’s a different turtle – or that their father had been caring for it – but then one might wonder why on Earth it was confined to a crowded storage room. The details of Manuela’s survival story will remain a mystery.

Regardless of how it happened, the Almeida family was convinced this was Manuela and was very happy to see her again.

“We’re all thrilled to have Manuela back,” Leandro’s sister, Lenita, who was given the tortoise as a childhood pet, told Globo. “But no one can understand how she managed to survive for 30 years in there—it’s just unbelievable.”

Manuela was welcomed back into the family and there’s been no word of her since. But we assume she got fed well to make up for lost time.

Do you think the tortoise is really Manuela? Let us know in the comments.

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Source: National Geographic, Globo.com