Berlin WW2 Bombing Survivor Saturn the Alligator Dies in Moscow Zoo at Age 84-ish

looorg writes:

Berlin WW2 Bombing Survivor Saturn the Alligator Dies in Moscow Zoo:

"Yesterday morning, our Mississippi alligator Saturn died of old age. He was about 84 years old - an extremely respectable age," the [Moskow Zoo] said.

Saturn was gifted to Berlin Zoo in 1936 soon after he was born in the US. He escaped the zoo being bombed in 1943.

British soldiers found him three years later and gave him to the Soviet Union.

[...] "Moscow Zoo has had the honour of keeping Saturn for 74 years," the 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.

Mississippi alligators usually live to 30-50 years in the wild, it added.

Saturn may even have been the world's oldest alligator - it's impossible to say. Another male alligator, Muja who is at Belgrade Zoo in Serbia, is also in his 80s and still alive.

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