I've mentioned before (I think) that I volunteer at the city zoo on weekends. It's small, and not AZA accredited, but it is fun. They've been working on getting a reptile house since 2006, and ribbon cutting was *finally* held yesterday at 10am texas time
It's a small facility--1,000 square feet including the behind the scene stuff. Mike, the person in charge, tried to get a good mix of animals in there, some from every continent and with a mix of general crowd pleasers and some that will be neat for reptile nuts. He's got an Arizona Mountain King on display but it was too well hidden for me to get a shot of it today when I went in for pictures. He's also got rubber boas (also not cooperating), fire salamanders, a mata-mata...some rats, a russian legless, a chuckwalla...a handful of critters. There's a red ackie but it also was not out today, which is odd. He's been really active and fond of basking for the last week but I think he was in a tunnel today.
russian legless

chuckwalla

boa...that hollow log is about 4' off the ground

panther cham

burms

we have a meet the snake station on Saturdays, where kids can pet a snake (mostly our ball python, on occasion a honduran milk, soon a western hognose). I'm likely going to be in charge of that most of my shifts now, because I'm fairly comfortable with both snakes and kids. It's a blast to watch kids pet a snake for the 1st time. Mostly, the parents are leery and the kids are gung ho about it. I love spreading the love of herps
Seriously, when a 5 year old pets a snake and they just light up it's enough to make my day.
We're also getting an educational building next year--I'm hoping we can offer a herp class aimed at kids on the weekends. *cross fingers*






