A Florida veterinarian may have thought he had a set of Russian nesting dolls instead of a lizard as he extracted a faux lizard from it.

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Jacksonville veterinarian John Rossi pulled a 7-inch rubber lizard from Mushu, a real 12-inch bearded dragon that swallowed it, the Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-Union reported Wednesday.

"I have never extracted a lizard from another lizard before," he said.

Mushu's owners, who apparently put the rubber lizard in Mushu's cage as a companion, took their pet to the animal hospital after noticing a protrusion beneath the lizard's tail. After administering anesthesia, Rossi began the extraction, the newspaper reported.

"The next thing I knew, I was seeing legs and a body and a head," he said.

Rossi said bearded dragons are sometimes known to attack smaller species of lizard.

"You need to be careful what you give your pet to play with," he told the Times-Union.