What's New

Reptile House

D

Dan

Team Member
Team Member
The Reptile House at Drayton Manor Zoo has been a staple attraction for many years, it is home to many animals and is very popular amongst guests! The park have already upgraded many enclosures and are working on bringing the final enclosures to the same high standard. The park also have other exciting animals in store for the 2019 Season. We look forward to following these developments in future visits!

Photos taken 11/04/19.

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The park have been adding misters to the enclosures and seem to be painting up some of the existing rock work and adding additional foliage.

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From research, it seems Drayton is the only UK zoo to exhibit the zonures and will be one of only a few zoos to have a gaboon viper...when they get one. This is exciting!
 
Interesting! It seems like there is an enclosure refurbishment or repair going on, when I was in the park on 24/08/2019 the lights for the enclosure were on, the contents piled up inside and the glass removed - looks like a refurbishment and potentially new glass being installed.

What I did notice is that the signs for the animals at the top of the enclosure have been removed (see Themeparksandy1981 images above), not sure when (could have been ages ago!) but there has been one new one added - I like the style of these and hope that all others are replaced in a similar style.

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I'd also like to give an update on the Gaboon Viper development mentioned above, the enclosure has some great looking themed signs and there are moveable signs in the enclosure to highlight where the animal hides - a nice addition.

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I must say the Reptile House is looking the best it has for a very long time! The park have removed the signs describing the species and have been adding wooden panelling as shown in the above image, it makes the enclosures look much smarter, the enclosures following their refurbishments are also looking much better. I also heard some audio playing in there in my last visit, not sure if this is new or not, but I think it's great to have!

Some new additions in one habitat (Western Girdled Lizard), as well as some continued renovation in another - looks to be a complete glass replacement.

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The Reptile house enclosure has been repaired and it’s ready for use.
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Also the big enclosure u can see from the window outside is been worked on with the animals moved to other enclosures.
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The Reptile House had a really good operation in place when I headed to the park over the past few days. The numbers inside were limited, with a member of staff standing at the front of the Reptile House to give the go-ahead to enter. It was great to see that the enclosure windows were frequently cleaned, with staff working behind the last group to complete this before more groups may enter. There was a one way system in place, with social distancing tape marking out safe distances on the floor.

Just to give an update on the work mentioned above, the new Tortoise Enclosure looks great, but there is a sign to announce that this has been delayed due to the current circumstances. Below are some images of this development and the reptiles inside the reptile house.

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It's interesting to see how the netting in Themeparksandy1981 has now been cladded to form this effect:
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I've also noticed that the enclosure which can be viewed outside has been changed, if my memory serves me correctly this was a large snake before? There has been some work done and select frogs and lizards are now here.

I've added a general update of how the entire park and zoo looked on the Coronavirus Thread, here.
 
There big plans for the Reptile house and the former indoor building of Dinosaur land. They want to make the Reptile area more interactive and connect both buildings together and have a Aquarium built.
 
There is a model of a snake on the outside of the reptile house which stares straight into the meerkat enclosure. I always find it a bit cruel that the meerkats have to have one of their predators staring into their enclosure all day!

I’m sure they are used to it now
 
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