Now I have never been to Edinburgh Zoo in the past, and from looking at the ZTL listing I can tell they're not that big on reptiles (like they were in the past). I have this book at home titled "Wildlife in Britain - Guide to Natural Habitats, Safari Parks and Zoos" which of course focuses on collections and native wildlife in the UK. It's a very old book from the 70's as it contains details of a lot of minor zoos (ones that have closed down in years gone by like Glasgow zoo or Windsor safari park). When looking at Edinburgh Zoo's history (pages 326 - 331) it claims there used to be a Tropical Bird House and adjoining that was the zoo's Reptile house, where you could see crocodiles, alligators, monitors, geckos, skinks, lizards and iguanas as well a collection of the large constricting snakes (boas and pythons) and a few venomous species. If you want I might take photos of different pages from this book to upload on here, after all I love looking back at the histories of zoos and wildlife parks. I know Edinburgh has kept beaded lizards, gila monsters, Komodo dragons and Dwarf crocodiles before (according to ZTL)... if anyone knows of any other Reptile species that have been kept feel free to list them down here if you can remember them.
It's interesting to note that Edinburgh Zoo had a king cobra, named "Rebekah", that was a personal favourite of the zoo's Director, T. H. Gillespie. At the start of the Second World War, the zoo's council ruled that all the zoo's venomous snakes should be destroyed. Gillespie, however, disobeyed the Council's instructions and refused to have this particular snake killed.
According to ZTL, Edinburgh is one of 2 ZTL zoos to have held the Australian striped skink, St Lucia whiptail lizard and Natal Midlands dwarf chameleon. Edinburgh is one of 5 ZTL zoos to have held the montane egg-eating snake.
I don't remember a huge amount about the old reptile house, the only reptile species I distinctly remember in there is a West African dwarf crocodile.
The dwarf crocs that were at the zoo are the ones that moved to five sisters- they're still there, having survived the terrible accident in 2013.
