This is my review of the Alice Springs Reptile Centre, a privately-owned facility in central Australia. Hix has also visited recently, and added a number of photos to the gallery: Alice Springs Reptile Centre Gallery The review was originally posted here: http://www.zoochat.com/24/zooboy28-australia-313826/ 7/10/2013. Today was a partial day off in Alice Springs, so I visited the Alice Springs Reptile Centre, located near the town centre. This looks like a converted house, and a staircase leads up to the reception, where I paid $13 as a student, and got a map of the place (for map and species list see here: http://www.zoochat.com/2079/alice-springs-reptile-centre-map-2013-a-345876/). The first room is a relatively new attraction, the Gecko Cave opened in 2006. This was a nocturnal house style room, with ten large tanks set into the walls. These contained geckos and legless lizards, typically in multi-species exhibits. The next room (Room 1) was entered via a sliding door, guarded by a very friendly Spencer’s Monitor, which wandered around the visitors, and could be patted. This room had sixteen tanks around the walls, although these were not generally spacious given the larger sizes of their inhabitants, typically snakes, monitors and larger lizards. Another sliding door led into Room 2, which was a bit smaller, but had a similar number of tanks around the wall, mostly with smaller snakes and lizards, as well as some frogs and turtles. The centre of the room was dominated by a terrarium for Freshwater Crocodiles. I then stepped outside into the sweltering heat, and explored the outdoor exhibits, basically a series of low-walled, sand-filled enclosures, mostly shaded. Most of the reptiles out here were larger monitors, as well as a selection of common lizards – blue-tongues and bearded dragons. The largest exhibit outside held Terry, a Saltwater Crocodile wild-caught in Darwin in 2002. He can be viewed underwater and from land. The most exciting species outside however, was the Thorny Devil, a couple shared an exhibit with some Centralian Blue-tongues. These are very beautiful lizards, and well-worth seeing. Back inside, Room 1 and the Gecko Cave were both being used for demonstrations, so I sat in the Gecko Cave (with a crowd of mostly international tourists) and watched a Northern Territory Park Ranger give a show about local reptiles, with obligatory lizard and python holding. This was well-done, and indeed the whole centre was generally well-done, with good signage and enclosures. It is a privately-owned facility, and the guy who runs it is has an excellent reputation for helping with injured reptiles or those that need removing. Overall I saw 49 species (all native reptiles, except for one frog), of which eighteen were species I hadn’t seen before. Definitely recommend checking this place out if you ever visit Alice Springs. New Species: Northern Spiny-tailed Gecko, Zigzag Velvet Gecko, Yellow-headed Legless Lizard, Mesa Gecko, Sand Plains Gecko, Hooded Scaly-foot, Spencer’s Monitor, Nocturnal Desert Skink, Western Brown Snake, Northern Brown Snake, Desert Death Adder, Speckled Brown Snake, Central Netted Dragon, Worrell’s Turtle, Curl Snake, Yellow-faced Whip-snake, Western Blue-tongue Lizard, Thorny Devil.
Thank you Zooboy28 for this intresting review ! Sound like a realy nice place. Do you have any information about ( rare ) breeding results at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre ?
