A mayor in Mexico has 'married' a female alligator-like creature he calls "Little Princess" in a traditional ceremony said to bring good fortune to his tribe.
Mayor Victor Hugo Sosa wed the caiman reptile, an alligatorid, called Alicia Adriana and said the pair "loved each other".
The ceremony happened in the town of San Pedro Huamelula, where indigenous Chontal people live in the Oaxaca state of southern Mexico.
"It is the union of two cultures. The union of the Huaves and the Chontales [indigenous communities]", Mayor Victor Hugo Sosa told reporters.
Victor said during the ritual: "I accept responsibility because we love each other. That is what is important. You can't have a marriage without love... I yield to marriage with the princess girl."
He was pictured carrying the reptile through the town with her mouth bound shut before being passed around the villagers who were dancing with her to celebrate the matrimony.
He was also pictured kissing the animal on the head.
Princess was wearing a green skirt, a colourful Mexican hand-embroidered tunic and a headdress of ribbons and sequins.
She is later dressed in a white bride's costume complete with a veil and taken to the local town hall for the wedding
Marriage between a man and a female caiman has taken place there for 230 years to commemorate the peace between two indigenous groups co-existing happily.
The wedding allows the sides to “link with what is the emblem of Mother Earth, asking the all-powerful for rain, the germination of the seed, all those things that are peace and harmony for the Chontal man,” explained Jaime Zarate, a chronicler of San Pedro Huamelula.
The seven-year-old crocodile is thought to represent a deity linked with mother earth and their marriage will bring prosperity to the community.
