New world news from Time: Alligator Rumored to Have Been Hitler’s Pet Dies in Moscow Zoo

(MOSCOW) — An alligator that many people believe once belonged to Adolf Hitler has died in the Moscow Zoo.

The zoo said the alligator, named Saturn, was about 84 years old when he died on Friday.

According to the zoo, Saturn was born in the United States and later sent to the Berlin Zoo, from which he escaped when the zoo was bombed in 1943. His whereabouts were unknown until 1946, when British soldiers found him and gave him to the Soviet Union, the zoo said.

“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.

But, it noted, “animals are not involved in war and politics and it is absurd to blame them for human sins.”