In your opinion, what is the nicest looking reptile houses you have visited and what makes it being so. My favorite is the small reptile house in Bioparc Fuengirola's Indo-Pacific section. The main purpose of the building is to display their komodo dragons, but there are also animals like blue-spotted and emerald tree monitors, crocodile monitors, carpet pythons, reticulated pythons and panther chameleons. Most of the enclosures are large and heavily planted. The komodo dragon exhibit is themed like the inside of a cave: (The only photo I have/found) What are your favorites?
Seconding the Saint Louis Zoo’s herpetarium. Both the building itself and the exhibits within are beautiful.
Prague's pavillion of giant tortoises https://www.zoopraha.cz/en/must-see/7667-pavilion-of-big-tortoises
I am surprised nobody mentioned 2-storey reptile house at Wroclaw zoo. It is converted from a posh restaurant from the early 20. century. Not the same as Afrykarium. It may also be the richest reptile collection and the biggest primarily-reptile building by volume in any zoo worldwide.
For a new building, I loved both Dallas's and Fort Worth's. They have a nice flow, beautiful exhibits that look as natural as they could, and plenty of uncommon species. For older buildings, Smithsonian's is an awesome building with stunning architecture, especially the doors. I wish they would renovate and do more to feature the beauty of the building.
Just wondering, could I post several pictures on here to further demonstrate my opinions on my favorite reptile houses?
Well, I'll do it in parts. I've seen quite a few reptile houses, but most of them are in a Rather old-fashioned style, of a dark hall and litten up enclosures. However, the Feline and Reptile Pavillion in Prague Zoo pleasantly surprised me. While I found the indoor cat enclosures... Barely sufficient, the terrariums are absolutely excellent. The rock iguana gardens in particular are excellent; 10/10, an amazing amount of space for the large lizards. Cyclura enclosures | ZooChat I also loved the Chambal gharial house, but I don't have any pictures that display the whole enclosure. And I found the reptile enclosures in "Africa up Close" to be... Just ok.
The Small-Mammal reptile house at Lincoln park surprised me with it's attention to detail in some of the reptile enclosures. I could say some of the exhibits for the reptiles were a little better than the exhibits for the Mammals in fact!
The Reptile house at Antwerp Zoo is certainly one of the better in Europe in terms of collection and accommodation. As are those of Koln and Berlin Zoo.
The Bronx Zoo’s World of Reptiles is a historic building over 100 years old, with busts of snakes, crocodiles, and turtles on the exterior facade. Inside the building space is well-utilized and the lighting is excellent for photography. The entrance also has a window behind the scenes to the nursery and you can watch keepers at work.
The best one I've seen sofar is "De Aarde" at Breda - the Netherlands. A very small collection ( Zootierliste list 25 species but all the animals are housed in large ( VERY large ) enclosures which are very clean and all the animals look in perfect condition. Other very good reptile-houses can be found at Antwerp - Belgium, Artis Amsterdam - the Netherlands and Prague - esp. the reptile part in the Cat-house is very good !
