Vegetarian crocodile Babia: 70-year old reptile who lived in Kerala temple pond dies

Vegetarian crocodile Babia dies: A decades-old lone crocodile, claimed to be a vegetarian, that inhabited the lake at the Sri Ananthapadmanabha Swamy temple and often found roaming inside its premises was found dead late on Sunday night.

The crocodile, fondly called Babia, was missing since Saturday. Thereafter, the carcass was found floating on the lake around 11.30 pm on Sunday night and the same was conveyed to the police and the animal husbandry department. The carcass was removed from the lake and put on public display as hundreds of people, including politicians, turned up on Monday for a last glimpse of the crocodile.

Temple officials claimed the crocodile was a vegetarian which subsisted on the 'prasadam' made there.

Babia: God's own crocodile

Temple officials said that the carcass of the crocodile would be buried before Monday noon in a pit nearby. The Mahavishnu temple is located at Ananthapura near Kumbla in the northern Kerala district of Kasaragod. The temple is known as the 'moolasthanam', the original source, of the Sri Anantha Padmanabha Swamy temple of Thiruvananthapuram, according to its website.

The temple's website also claims that a "very unusual phenomenon" there was the presence of a single crocodile in the temple lake, named 'Babia'.

Chulliparambil

36-year-old tusker Chulliparambil Vishnu Shankar also died recently. The tusker had a huge fan base among the elephant lovers in Kerala.