Ahhh, la dolce vita. The sweet life, as they say in Italy. Well, life sure wasn't so sweet for an Italian motorist in the major port city of Bari. Local police were conducting routine inspections of vehicles when they pulled over driver Francesco Lombardo.

When police asked Lombardo to open his hatchback, they discovered a menagerie of animals crammed to capacity. There were more than 1,700 in all -- 216 parakeets, 300 white mice, 150 hamsters, 30 Japanese squirrels, six chameleons and more than 1,000 terrapins, a kind of turtle.

All of the poor little critters were carefully gathered up and transported to a nearby zoos. Authorities will continue to investigate the motorist's links to rare and protected animal smuggling. The driver is also suspected of planning to sell the terrapins for about 20 Euros each ($29).

One of the officers on the scene laments, "There is no doubt those poor animals were suffering in such a small space."