Berlin Zoo Alligator Who Survived WWII Bombing Mounted for Display in Moscow Museum

Storyful
4 年前

Saturn, a storied 84-year-old alligator who survived the bombing of the Berlin Zoo in 1943 and died of old age in Russia earlier this year, was put on display in the Darwin Museum in Moscow on December 9.

The alligator, who was “wrongly” rumored to have been Adolf Hitler’s pet, according to the BBC, was placed in a permanent exhibition space after taxidermists had worked on the reptile for six months, the museum said.

Saturn’s prolific biography begins in Mississippi, where he was believed to have been born in the wild, according to the Darwin Museum. He was caught and sent to the Berlin Zoo in 1936.

In 1943, the zoo was destroyed by bombs, but the alligator survived. British soldiers discovered Saturn and gave him to the Soviet Union in 1946. He died at the Moscow Zoo in May of 2020, and the zoo donated the alligator’s skin to the Darwin Museum.

The museum plans to open the exhibition to the public on January 16, according to their announcement. Credit: Darwin Museum via Storyful