SI $hell game vs. builder

This creature sleeps most of the year, buries itself in swamp muck, fits in the palm of your hand — and can stop a $40 million, 1,400-job superstore development dead in its tracks.

Meet the 4-inch-long Eastern mud turtle (above), the mightiest creature on Staten Island — if it really lives there.

The state has ordered a Manhattan developer to launch a needle-in-a-haystack search for the rare reptile in a forested wetland slated to become a retail center.

Its possible presence a mile from the Goethals Bridge is the latest twist in a decades-long drama pitting conservationists against BJ’s, the big-box retailer set to anchor a 225,000-square-foot commercial complex.

“The turtles have at least bought us time,” said Tony Rose of the Natural Resources Protective Association.

Eastern mud turtles have never been seen on the property. In fact, they have been seen only twice in all of New York state since 1887.

But one of those times was on Staten Island, in a different part of the borough, in 2002, according to the state’s Natural Heritage Program, which tracks sightings of endangered species.

“Our experts did an assessment of all species on the property as part of the environmental review process,” said attorney Mitch Korbey, who represents property owner Charles Alpert. “This animal was not identified there.”

The tiny turtles can live only in marshy woods that flood in the spring, just like Alpert’s land, the conservationists argue.

Alpert has been trying to build on the property since the 1980s, when the state declared his parcels to be protected wetlands.