Šis un tas
Rīga reptile
April 21, 2005
That time we visited the Rīga Zoo, we missed the alligator, having more fun with the friendly North American porcupines, or dzeloņcūkas (literally, prickly pigs). But we should have checked in with Čabulītis, too.
Having already made the rounds in Latvia, the story is beginning to circulate in the U.S. media that perhaps the oldest American alligator in captivity lives in the Rīga Zoo. Čabulītis arrived in Rīga in 1935, according to a story that ran on the NBC network affiliate in Miami, Fla.
The Rīga Zoo, however, says on its Web site that the reptile arrived in 1934 when he was one or two year old. Regardless, he’s now at least 70 years old.
— Andris Straumanis
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Comments about this article
Baiba Menke
The alligator, about 30 cm long, was purchased by the Skolu Muzejs* from the Hamburg Zoo in Germany. It lived in a terrarium on the fifth floor of the museum which was located on Kr. Valdemara street. My grandfather Janis Silins, the director of the museum, related to me that during one of the cleanings the alligator was placed on a balcony, but it managed to wiggle under the railing, and survive a fall from the fifth floor into the courtyard garden below. He was taken to the Riga Zoo, found to be unhurt, and remained there, as at a lenghth of about two meters, it had outgrown it's terrarium. Considering also that it's living conditions were far from optimal during the soviet occupation, this 70 year old Mississippi alligator has proven to be a true survivor! * In 1938 Skolu Muzejs was moved to Kr. Barona street, and under the soviet occupation renamed as Dabas Muzejs (Museum of Natural History)
12 May 2005 (United States)