CONCERN had mounted in the leafy streets of Corsham after a giant tortoise went AWOL last month.
Police issued an urgent appeal after the 80-year-old Hermann tortoise and a European member of the Testudinidae family was believed to have been spirited away from a garden in the cul-de-sac Ivy Field in the town.
Police said the large shelled land-based creature would have been unlikely to have done a runner and described the disappearance as a theft.
The mystery began on May 31 in the late morning or early afternoon when the tortoise didn't check in for lunch.
A search for the native animal of Spain, Greece and Albania was made but to no avail.
However this week the owners of the tortoise valued at £400 said they had recovered the creature after it had slipped into the next door neighbour's garden a few feet from its home.
Police have stood down the search operation.
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