Saturn (alligator)

Saturn was described as having been 2 to 3.5 meters long, and weighed 200 kilograms (441 pounds). Like most alligators, he had green scales, a broad mouth, and yellow eyes. == Berlin Zoological Garden ==

Saturn was hatched in the wild in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1936. It was from this period that the popular rumor emerged that Saturn was Adolf Hitler's "pet". This may have originated with the author Boris Akunin, a Russian writer who hypothesized in an article that this may have been the case. In actuality, he was not Hitler's personal pet, as he was on public display at the zoo. However, some sources report his display at the zoo as being part of a personal menagerie of Hitler's, while Dmitry Vasilyev, a veterinarian at the Moscow Zoo, contends that while Saturn was not Hitler's pet, the two certainly came into contact, as Hitler was known to have visited the Berlin Zoo on occasion. During World War II, much of the Berlin Zoo was destroyed. Of the zoo's 16,000 animals, only 96 survived. When the aquarium building was destroyed by a bomb on 23 November 1943, 20 to 30 alligators and crocodiles were killed. Press reports documented that the streets near the aquarium were littered with alligator and crocodile corpses, but that some, including Saturn, had survived and were wandering through the city in search of food. ==Moscow Zoo==

At the close of the war, the Berlin Zoo area came under the jurisdiction of the British Zone of Occupation. Because the Moscow tourism office burnt down in the 1950s, the exact details of how Saturn came to Russia are unknown, but the Red Army transported Saturn, along with an Indian python, to Moscow in July 1946, bringing him to live in the Moscow Zoo. When the alligator arrived there, he instantly became a popular attraction, as there were only two crocodiles at the zoo and no other alligators. A new interior and reconstructed enclosure were completed, and Saturn returned to public display. == References ==