It takes a village – or a Phoenix suburb – to wrangle a wayward tortoise

Rex, the tortoise, at Brian and Sara Westfall's home, who fostered him while they searched for his owner, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Adriana Zehbrauskas for NPR/57999420m hide caption toggle caption Adriana Zehbrauskas for NPR/57999420m His name was Rex because he looked like a dinosaur. The giant sulcata tortoise came lumbering down a suburban Phoenix street one recent spring evening. A gaggle of dumbfounded neighbors milled about him. I was among them. Questions swirled. Where did he come from? How far had he come? Was he hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Rex walks as a group of neighbors watches. Alina Hartounian/NPR hide caption toggle caption Alina Hartounian/NPR His unlikely stroll down a sidewalk stirred the neighborhood into a tizzy and set in motion a multi-pronged effort to find his owners. But, more than just a fun commotion on a Tuesday night, Rex's daring getaway shows just how challenging owning a sulcata tortoise can be, even though the pet trade is so widespread that sulcata ownership featured as a punchline in a Saturday Night Live sketch . 'So damn cute' View of one of five newborn African spurred tortoise (Centrochelys Sulcata) at the zoo, in Guadalajara, Mexico, Jalisco state, on May 17, 2018. Ulises Ruiz/AFP via hide caption toggle caption Ulises Ruiz/AFP via When sulcatas hatch, they're the size of golf balls. …