Mystery surrounding death of crocodile now over

The mystery surrounding the cause of death of the National Aquarium of New Zealand’s crocodile ‘Izzy’ two weeks ago is now over.

A post mortem report has answered questions for aquarium staff around the cause of their crocodile’s death.

The report confirms that Izzy had picked up a bacterial infection and because the crocodile was in a state of semi hibernation its immune system was unable to fight it off causing the heart to stop.

Manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand, Rob Yarrall says leading up to Izzy’s death there were no obvious signs shown to indicate ill health.

“Crocodiles along with many reptiles have the ability to disguise illness to protect themselves from predators or others of their own species, therefore making it difficult to detect sickness,” says Rob.

Another mystery that Izzy’s death has cleared up is the question surrounding her gender. The post mortem has confirmed the gender as female.

“There was a strong feeling amongst staff that Izzy was a female and now this has been confirmed. It’s really nice to finally know,” says Rob.

The National Aquarium have received many tributes in the way of emails, phone calls and flowers left by Izzy’s exhibit showing the impact she had on so many visitors to the aquarium.

A plaque will be made and mounted by Izzy’s enclosure to acknowledge her time at the aquarium.
Now the task begins of planning for a new animal to join the aquarium family – one that hopefully will have as much impact on visitors as Izzy did