Crocodile falls 12 floors in escape bid

A crocodile survived a fall from the 12th floor of a block of flats in Russia after making an escape bid through a window, emergency services said on Wednesday.

Diving out of the window has become a habit for the crocodile, called Khenar, with concerned neighbours saying it was the third time he had used that method to flee.

The crocodile lost one tooth in the latest fall but was otherwise unscathed, said a spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry in the Nizhny Novgorod region of central Russia.

"It seems the owner was not at home when the crocodile came out of the window," she said.

Emergency services put the crocodile in a local aquarium to recover from his fall. Within a few hours his concerned owner came to pick him up and the crocodile was last seen lying on the back seat of his owner's car.