The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Snake house nearing completion

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 15, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Snake house nearing completion

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The construction of the snake house at the city zoo - a Rs. 28-Lakh-project - is nearing completion.

This, the nocturnal home for housing creatures such as the slender lorris, jungles cats and porcupines, the reptile house and the open enclosure for the panther are the last major construction works in the ongoing modernisation project at the city zoo.

The entrance to the snake house resembles the head of the snake as the overall structure resembles the undulating body of a snake in motion.

Inside the snake house each of the 11 species of snake at the zoo would be given a 100 sq.ft. pseudo-habitat enclosure.

The king cobra and the python, however, would have enclosure twice as big. The speciality of the snake house is that each of these cubicles would have a `micro-climate' designed to simulate the natural habitat of each variety of snake.

To complete the pseudo-habitat feel each cubicle would sport pebbles, rocks, cacti and shrubs. Once the snake house is operational the zoo plans to add five new species of snakes to its collection.

The snake house is about 40 m long and 6 m wide. The exit point of the snake house will serve as the entrance to the rest of the reptile house that would be the home of the crocodiles, the turtles and the monitor lizard. The zoo also has plans to purchase some iguanas for its proposed reptile park.

Nocturnal homes

The proposed nocturnal home at the zoo would be a light-proof structure inside which an artificial night time would be simulated so that visitors can watch nocturnal creatures such as the jungle cat, the bats and the slender lorris at their natural best. During the night, the nocturnal home would be illuminated using special lighting to give the animals a sense of daytime.

The construction of the enclosures for the otter and the panther are also nearing completion at the zoo.

Plans to set up a walk-through aviary, on the other hand, have remained on paper owing to the lack of a viable design.

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