What do you name an alligator with no tail?
Mr. Stubbs, obviously.
Stubbs has gotten a second chance thanks to the folks at the Phoenix Herpetological Society in Arizona. When they found Stubbs, he was in a bad way. His tail was missing, most likely a casualty of a fight with another alligator. Russ Johnson, the President of PHS, told KOLD that Stubbs had to do the doggy paddle to stay afloat in water.
Word of Stubbs' struggles reached the CORE Institute, an Arizona-based orthopedic surgery outfit. A CORE team assessed Stubbs' mobility, and fashioned him a new prosthetic tail. Now, he's something of a $6 million gator: The prosthetic requires a special harness system and is cloaked in Dragon Skin, a hardcore-sounding silicone material used in film effects.
Mr. Stubbs is finally learning how to swim like a healthy gator, and the PHS team says he couldn't be happier with his new look.
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