Snake Park Sunday

Part of the Nairobi National Museum in Kenya, on Museum Hill, includes Nairobi Snake Park. It was established in 1961 and accommodates a selection of snakes, turtles, tortoises, fish, molluscs, and crocodiles. It was closed in August 2008 and re-opened a year later in 2009 after renovations.

The selection of reptiles includes a Gaboon viper (Bitus gabonica) which is a broad, flat-headed snake with rectangular patterns in shades of brown. The sign says it is a “good natured snake that rarely bites” but it has the world’s longest fangs of any snake – up to 4 centimetres. There is also the black-necked Spitting Cobra (Naja nigricollis) – a black snake with a red underbelly. The Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) is a slim olive-brown snake and very fast moving. It is also highly toxic (neurotoxic and cardiotoxic) causing paralysis if bitten - and eventual death.

The large land tortoise that I saw in 2009 has now passed away, but there are other turtles and tortoises. An addition includes the Giant African Land Snails (Achatina fulica) which are large gastropods of 20 centimetres or more.

http://www.museums.or.ke/content/blogcategory/12/18/

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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