Cold weather most likely killed famous croc

April 2, 2015

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck

A crocodile that gained notoriety after being discovered on the Greek island of Crete last year has died, apparently from a recent cold spell, various media outlets are reporting.

Credit: Thinkstock

According to Discovery News, regional water management representative Vangelis Mamangakis confirmed that the Nile croc had been found dead on Sunday, apparently as a result of exposure to the cold. It was to be taken to the natural history museum at Heraklion for further testing.

The six-foot (two-meter) long crocodile, which has been dubbed Sifis (Cretan for Joseph), first gained notoriety after it was first discovered at an artificial lake last summer. Crowds flocked to see the creature, whose fame only grew as it managed to avoid multiple attempts to capture it.

Sifis-less

Sifis, which experts believe had been abandoned by its former owner, died eight months after it was first spotted on the island. It was discovered belly-up on the banks of a lake, and experts told The Guardian that it had apparently been dead for over a week when it was discovered.

“He… must have been dead for at least 10 days,” Petros Liberakis, a local herpetologist who was in charge of attempts to capture the crocodile, told the UK-based newspaper. “This year’s heavy winter and the fact that we had so little sunshine were almost certainly the cause.”

Sifis was named by the legions of fans he earned over the past eight months, some of whom had actually set up a Facebook page to the creature. Tourists and TV crews reportedly travelled to the island to get a first-hand look at the crocodile, which had first been spotted bathing in the sun at the lake, and the beast had captured at least 10 different attempts to capture it.

“In the end it was the cold that got him,” Mamagakis told The Guardian. “It’s sad, very sad. We never wanted this to happen, we wanted to move him out of the reservoir to a more suitable place but he just kept eluding us… He was very happy in the lake, there was a lot for him to eat there.”

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