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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Mystery 6-foot crocodile appears in middle of Greek lake – leaving local farmers terrified (update)

Greek farmers are “upset and afraid” after a 6-foot (1.82-metre) crocodile mysteriously appeared in a man-made lake on the island of Crete.

Water from the in-land lake and surrounding rivers are used by residents of the nearby seaside town of Rethymno, but reported sightings of the dangerous reptile left them too scared to go near the area.

Video footage captured by an unmanned drone flown over the lake appeared to show the large crocodile floating on the surface, before diving down out of sight with a flick of its tail.

Local land-owners have also blamed the animal for missing ducks and even lambs, and police have now taped off access to the lake until the crocodile can be removed by wildlife officials.

Speaking to APTN, Nikistratos Charokopou said: “The locals are very upset because they are in danger. There are farm lands and properties nearby and people are in danger, they are afraid.

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Mystery crocodile confounds Crete cops

Greek police have been left baffled by the mysterious appearance of a two-metre long crocodile spotted lounging near an artificial dam on the tourist island of Crete.

"Clearly crocodiles do not occur naturally here, so the owner probably wanted to get rid of it," a local police official told AFP Sunday.

The reptile—which is about two metres or 6.5 foot long—was sighted by a team of local fire officers who were on patrol near Rethymnon, on the north of the island.

Crocodiles are not native to Europe.

Two reptile experts from the Heraklion Natural History Museum are due to arrive on Monday to help capture the animal.

The official said that police were also planning on encircling the dam with a fence to protect those living nearby.

Read more at: 

World's Smallest Mammoth Discovered

The smallest dwarf mammoth, standing at under 4 feet (about 1 meter) at the shoulders, has been uncovered on the Greek island of Crete, researchers say.

These findings could help yield insights as to how giant animals can shrink to tiny sizes over evolutionary time, scientists added.

Dwarfism often happens to species of large animals when they get trapped on islands,including dinosaurs. Scientists think dwarfism helps giants survive within the limits imposed by islands.

Ancient Mediterranean dwarf elephants are especially extreme examples of island dwarfism. Over the course of less than 800,000 years — a short stint on an evolutionary scale — these dwarfs are thought to have descended from larger European elephants, weighing 100 times as much, which lived on mainland Europe.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/20178-dwarf-mammoth-fossils-smallest.html