A Slice of Sudan

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being a reptile keeper, I always thought, was being able to create the habitats.  With their smaller size, glass fronts, and the steady, year-round climate control from being inside, as opposed to the outdoor habitats for mammals and birds, it was often possible to exercise a far greater degree on control when building a reptile exhibit than it was for other animals.  And with that greater control came greater opportunities to engage in artistic creativity.  

I was able to refurbish a cornsnake exhibit, for example, which had previously just been a box with mulch.  I tore off wooden planks from old fences and lined the walls of the tank with them, making it look like the interior of a barn.  Other barn implements - a milk pail, a pitchfork, etc - added complexity for the snake in the form of climbing structures and hiding opportunities, while also providing a more interesting experience for the visitor.  It also provided an educational lesson, as we could talk about how cornsnakes benefited farmers by eating rodent pests.

One of the first reptile habitats I ever assembled was one for a Sudan plated lizard (I saw "one of" because the first attempt I had at such an exhibit, for frilled lizards, was deemed so inadequate by my curator that he immediately took it apart and made me redo it, recounted here).  To do this, I spent a lot of time looking back at pictures and memories of my time in East Africa, where I'd seen the lizards in the wild.  What really left an impression on my memory was the earth there - the red, sunbaked earth - so I went and found a few bucket-loads of similar material for the substrate.  I found big, flat rocks to form a Retes stack of slate stones.  These formations are excellent for rock-dwelling lizards, which can take advantage of the multiple crevices formed by the rocks to hide within, while also having lots of exposed ledges of various distances from the heat lamp for basking.  Lots of tufts of tall dried grasses (I tried and failed to establish live plants) provided cover.  A piece of drift wood, a water bowl, and voila  - we had a habitat.

Because this was a 4 x 4 x 4 habitat in a reptile house, I was able to do it all myself easily.  And what's more, at any time I wanted to, for any reason, I could undo it and redo it by myself - even if it was just a whim.  No need for an all-day team project, or a bunch of heavy machinery to be called in.  I could handle it by myself, which meant that the lizard could get its habitat redone and refreshed much more often than, say, the tigers could.  

Recreating reptile habitats is a fun, aesthetic challenge, all the more interesting because the multiple levels to it.  Can you build a habitat that is naturalistic, while still having the animals visible to the public (considering that the natural behavior of many reptiles is to hide)?  Can you impart meaningful conservation and educational messages with your design?  Can the exhibit you designed easily and safely be cared for by staff?  And, most importantly, can your animals thrive in it, expressing as wide a range of their natural behaviors as possible or desirable for them?