NC Zoo: New Native Reptile Display

Are this and the hellbender exhibit the only reptile area in North Carolina Zoo?

@DavidBrown They also have a snake/lizard building in the Streamside building near the bobcat enclosure, and plenty of reptiles in the Desert dome inluding chuckwallas, frilled lizards, etc.

The International Zoo Yearbook listed 80 reptile/amphibian species for North Carolina Zoo not that long ago, but I suspect that many of those are off-show. It would be intriguing to note how many on-show reptiles and amphibians are at the zoo.

@snowleopard @DavidBrown I forgot to mention, NC also has alligators, snapping turtles and gopher tortoises (to name a few) in the Cypress Swamp area, and even juvenile komodos temporarily on display in the Desert before their eventual move into the Asia region. (I just wish they made Asia into a full-on continent but that'd mean sacrificing Australia. There's possibilities, such as a keeper I talked to wanting Indian rhinoceros, an idea I had for a hilly, montane environment for snow leopards, gharial, etc.)

@snowleopard Did the former African Pavilion have reptiles in it? I wonder if that is where some of those species were.

@DavidBrown I was a baby when I last went to the African Pavilion, and due to Infantile Amnesia, I sadly can't answer your question. What I can do is direct you to the North Carolina Zoo's contact information, which shows up when you Google it. I do remember the Pavilion having colobus monkeys (from a VHS recording) meerkats and dik diks (from ZooChat) and even gorillas (from video)

@DavidBrown The statistics of 80 reptile/amphibian species (and 300 total cold-blooded specimens) are from a couple of years ago and so North Carolina Zoo still has an impressive collection to this day...although like all major U.S. zoos I'd estimate that 50% of the species are kept in off-show areas. As for the African Pavilion, it hasn't held animals for at least a decade (except for the indoor holding for Hamadryas Baboons) and I don't know what reptiles and amphibians were there back in its heyday.

I'm almost certain that I remember seeing dwarf crocodiles in the Africa Pavilion back in the day.

@DavidBrown From the species list on the zoo's website from the Wayback Machine, the African Pavilion at some point or another displayed Ball python, African rock python, Savannah monitor, Panther chameleon, African helmeted turtle, Home's hingeback turtle, East African black mud turtle, African forest turtle, African spurred tortoise, Leopard tortoise, Dwarf crocodile, and African bullfrog.