Which Zoo's have the best Reptile AND Invertebrate Houses/Most Testudine sp.

[Eric]

I have a three fold question rather than posting multiple threads. Firstly UK,then world wide.

1) Which Zoo has the best Reptile House,or most Reptile/Amphibian sp.?
2) Which Zoo has the best Invertebrate House/most sp.?
3) Which Zoo has the most species of Testudines..?

*ps: I know they may have been prior best reptile house threads.!*

 

[Shorts]

I'm assuming best is judged on quality of exhibit but more weighted towards number of species.

UK
1. Probably still London, it's a beautiful historic building and houses a varied collection (with a few too many duplicates nowadays). Honourable mentions go to Paignton (possibly top if you're flexible enough to combine the reptile section of the tropical house, amphibian house (truly superb) and Crocodile Swamp), Bristol and Crocodiles of the World;
2. Bristol (beating the only other serious contender, London);
3. Pass, struggling to think of anywhere with a standout collection.

Worldwide
Who knows, I haven't travelled enough to comment much (I suspect few have) but Wroclaw's Reptile House hosts a mindblowingly massive collection including a lot of Testudines -it also has some nice inverts. There's also a place in The Netherlands that specialises in Testudines.

 

[Dassie rat]

Here is the list of the top 10 UK collections for different types of chelonians:
1 Paignton Zoo, Wingham Wildlife Park 17
3 Chester Zoo 16
4 Bristol Zoo 15
5 Linton Zoo, London Zoo, Whipsnade Zoo 11
8 Colchester Zoo, Rodbaston Animal Zone, Welsh Mountain Zoo 10

 

[Eric]

London Zoo's herps and inverts are separated between their classic listed Victorian RH,one of the oldest in the world,and the Clore rainforest and its new extention to the Ring tailed lemur enclosure.Still a pleasure to visit.And quite a stocklist

 

[Dassie rat]

Hello Erik. Don't forget the Galapagos giant tortoises and Komodo dragons near the Reptile House and a variety of phyla in BUGS.

 

[Tim May]

.....classic listed Victorian RH,one of the oldest in the world.....

London Zoo's current Reptile House opened in 1927; it is not a Victorian building.

However, the previous Reptile House was a Victorian Building and is still standing; it is now the Bird House (Blackburn Pavilion).

 

[FunkyGibbon]

Based purely on zoos I've visited:

1)Berlin Zoo, Cologne and Zurich probably have the nicest reptile houses, both for collection and exhibit quality (to my untrained eye)

Honourable mentions to London and Frankfurt. Digging a bit deeper into my memory Skansen Akvariet was also much better than it 'should' have been.

Tropicario in Helsinki has an excellent collection of monitors and hot snakes in very unimaginative exhibits.

2) I think both for architecture and collection, BUGS at London can't be beat. However, Berlin Zoo is also excellent.

Plzen's Akva Terra has an unbelievable diversity of tarantulas.

Beijing Aquarium has a fantastic Crab Room, with a real diversity of body types that I'd never seen in one place before.

I haven't visited, but supposedly Tama Zoo in Japan has an insane Insect House.

3) No help from me here I'm afraid!

 

[DavidBrown]

I can only speak to reptile and invertebrate houses in the United States. Los Angeles Zoo, Fort Worth Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta all have new reptile houses with excellent reputations. Several zoos have traditional reptile houses that are considered good with good collections: Bronx, Smithsonian National, St. Louis, San Diego.

Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans, Cincinnati Zoo, and St. Louis Zoo have reputations for excellent invertebrate exhibits. The insect zoo at the Smithsonian natural history museum is historically significant and a good facility. The National Zoo had a great invertebrate house with octopus, spiders, nautilus, butterflies, etc., but it closed down a few years ago.

 

[Chlidonias]

Beijing Aquarium has a fantastic Crab Room, with a real diversity of body types that I'd never seen in one place before.

That's the one at Beijing Zoo? They didn't have the crab room when I was there (which was way back in 2013 - I hate the passage of time...).

 

[FunkyGibbon]

That's the one at Beijing Zoo? They didn't have the crab room when I was there (which was way back in 2013 - I hate the passage of time...).

Yes. It's not really a room as such, just a section of the route. It's upstairs in the central part of the aquarium, possibly in or above 'Corals'?

 

[FBBird]

I have a three fold question rather than posting multiple threads. Firstly UK,then world wide.

1) Which Zoo has the best Reptile House,or most Reptile/Amphibian sp.?
2) Which Zoo has the best Invertebrate House/most sp.?
3) Which Zoo has the most species of Testudines..?

*ps: I know they may have been prior best reptile house threads.!*

Newquay Zoo here in the UK has a relatively small herp and invert collection on view, but in superbly designed and maintained habitat exhibits. There have been several UK zoo first breedings here, including Vine Snake, Black Tree Monitor and various Anuran and Caudate species.

 

[Eric]

London Zoo's current Reptile House opened in 1927; it is not a Victorian building.

However, the previous Reptile House was a Victorian Building and is still standing; it is now the Bird House (Blackburn Pavilion).

Sorry..Should have checked it up !

 

[Kakapo]

One of the best public collections of chelonians must be Vero "La cité des tortues" (the turtle city), in A Cupulatta, Corsica island. It houses 130 turtle/tortoise taxa according to their website (but only 55 according to Zootierliste), no other animal than turtles/tortoises, and it holds many species that are not held at any other European collection.

 

[AWP]

Artis in Amsterdam has a large Reptile House as well as a large and quite new building for invertebrates, but I think the collection in the Aquarium of Zoo Berlin is even better.

For turtles and tortoises, Stichting Schildpaddencentrum in Alphen aan den Rijn (NL) has the largest collection that I've seen. I visited it in 2014 and at that time the center had about 65 species.

Of the zoos outside Europa that I visited, Bronx Zoo had the largest reptile collection.