Saturday 19 January 2019

Terrarium

Recently we have visited the nursery of butterflies. Today I will take you to a place where reptiles live. Since it is snowing quite heavily recently in Europe and reptiles are poikilotherm (i.e., the temperature of their body varies considerably), their house has to be a warm and sheltered place. Like a terrarium. Reptiles include several groups. First, there are turtles. The elongated tortoise lives originally in South-East Asia and India. It is endangered because of the degradation of the environments and the illegal trade driven by demand for its meat and also by traditional medicine.


 The Galapagos giant tortoise is far larger. It can live over three hundred years.


The terrarium is a place where humans try to reproduce as close as possible the natural habitat of a given spiecies. So for water turtles they create small ponds.


Another group of reptiles are crocodiles (and the like).


Then come the snakes. They are in various colours, depending on where they live. Some may be green like fresh leaves.


Others have colours closer to the soil.


But there are also some black snakes.


But the most amazing thing is that snakes actually change their skin every now and then. So if you find something like that next to house, you'd better be careful.


Another group of reptiles are lizards. Some are small but I prefer the larger ones. Like the Cuban Iguana.


Or the Green Iguana (not that green to be honest, at least not as the green snake).


But my favourite ones are the Komodo Dragons.


I hope that you have enjoyed this encounter with various reptiles, leaving in piece in this nice terrarium, like this round nose plated lizard and his pal, the leopard tortoise.


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