Obituary

New York Times – Elizabeth, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum’s senior iguana, died on Thursday in her enclosure at the age of 19. She was a remarkably social animal, those who knew her said, equally at ease with mayors, music stars and developmentally disabled children. Her departure leaves a gap that the museum is presently too stricken to contemplate filling. “There are really no words to express the depth of this loss,” the museum’s live animal programmer, Jarad Astin, wrote in an e-mail to colleagues. “Although not entirely unexpected at the age of 19, it comes right on the heels of Sunkist’s sudden passing just a couple of weeks ago.” Sunkist was an 8-year-old corn snake who died last month of pneumonia.. . .

Iguanas, Mr. Astin noted, are “one of the few kinds of reptiles that are known to appreciate certain levels of companionship from humans.” But even for an iguana, he said, Elizabeth was gregarious. “She was in fact the sweetest reptile I have ever encountered,” Mr. Astin wrote. She shared a stage at the Apollo with Matthew Broderick, Vanessa Williams and the elderly Muppets, Statler and Waldorf; she met Mayors Edward I. Koch and Rudolph W. Giuliani. And in her educational role, Elizabeth received regular visits from a group of developmentally disabled teenagers from the League School in Brooklyn.