An alligator that survived the bombing of Berlin during the Second World War has died at Moscow Zoo.
The 84-year-old Mississippi alligator, Saturn – wrongly thought to have belonged to Hitler – was a gift to the Berlin Zoo in 1936, according to a BBC report. The alligator escaped in 1943 when the zoo was bombed and many other animals perished, and was found three years later by British soldiers, who gave it to the Soviet Union. It is not known where the alligator spent its years of freedom, or how it survived.
Moscow Zoo said in a statement: ‘For us, Saturn was an entire era, and that’s without the slightest exaggeration… He saw many of us when we were children. We hope that we did not disappoint him.’
The zoo reported that Saturn knew his keepers, loved being massaged with a brush – and was able to crack steel feeding-tongs and bits of concrete with his teeth if irritated.
The report said Mississippi alligators usually live to between 30 and 50 years in the wild.