'Adolf Hitler's pet alligator' dies in Moscow

An alligator, who is alleged to be once Adolf Hilter's pet, has passed away at the Moscow Zoo.

According to the zoo, the reptile named Saturn was around 84 years old when it died on Friday.

After being brought over from the United States in around 1936, 'Saturn' was put on public display in Berlin Zoo.

However, the alligator had apparently escaped the zoo during the 1943 bombings and its whereabouts were unknown until 1946.

It was the British soldiers who then found Saturn and handed him over to the Soviet Union, the zoo stated.

On May 23, the zoo officially announced that the alligator had passed away of old age after "a long and eventful life".

"Almost immediately, the myth was born that he was allegedly in the collection of Hitler and not in the Berlin Zoo," the zoo said in a statement.

"He was fussy about food and loved being massaged with a brush. If he didn’t like something, he would gnaw on the concrete decorations."

"Animals are not involved in war and politics and it is absurd to blame them for human sins," the statement adds.

Saturn spent 74 years at the Moscow Zoo as one of the most famous attractions of the zoo, surviving on a diet of rabbit, rat and fish.