Australian Reptile Park
Encyclopedia
The Australian Reptile Park is located at Somersby
on the Central Coast
, New South Wales
in Australia
. It is about 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) (a one hour drive) North of Sydney
, and is just off the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway
. The park is home to a variety of reptile
s, including snake
s, lizard
s and crocodile
s, as well as other Australian animals, such as kangaroo
s, cassowaries
and Tasmanian devil
s.
The park is heavily involved in snake and spider venom collection for use in the production of Antivenom and is credited for saving the lives of thousands.
in 1948 at the Umina Beach Aquarium. It 1959 it was renamed Australian Reptile Park and moved to North Gosford, on the site of a failed orange orchard.
A second move occurred in 1996, to Somersby, adjacent to Old Sydney Town
.
Just past midnight on 17 July 2000, most of the main park building was destroyed when a faulty electrical wiring caused a fire. Park staff helped fire crews, but ultimately the building was lost along with most of the hundreds of reptiles and frogs that had been maintained in the building. With a lot of work from the staff, and support from the city and from other zoos around Australia, the zoo was able to re-open its doors on the 9 September 2000, just over seven weeks after the fire.
As of 2010, the Park remains the sole supplier of snake and funnel-web spider venom to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories
(CSL) for the nation's anti-venom program. Over its 60 year history the park has assisted in saving over 15,000 lives.
s and snake
s at the Park include American Alligator
s, crocodile
s, turtle
s, tortoise
s, skink
s, Komodo dragon
s, monitor lizard
s, gecko
s, iguana
s, pythons, taipan
s, brown snake
s, and death adder
s.
Arachnid
s include tarantula
s, funnel web spiders, trapdoor spider
, huntsman spider
, Goliath birdeater
spider, mouse spider, redback spider, wolf spider
, and scorpion
s.
The Park also houses Australian animals including koala
s, grey-headed flying fox
es, eastern grey kangaroo
s, Tasmanian devil
, wombat
s, wallaby
s, dingo
s, platypus
es, echidna
s, ring tailed possums, and cassowaries
.
initially named Dino, sometimes said to be the very first of Australia's Big Things
. This structure had portions of its legs removed and was moved to Somersby when the park changed location. In the light of additional media attention the dinosaur was renamed "Ploddy".
Eric had been implicated in the disappearance of two indigenous children in the 1980s, and was captured for the safety of the community. He was first taken to Darwin
Crocodile Farm, where he bit off the heads of two female crocodiles with whom he was supposed to mate, and lost his right rear foot in a duel with a fellow crocodile. In 1989 he arrived by special freighter jet at the Australian Reptile Park and became a major attraction. He was named after the park's founder Eric Worrell
who had died in 1987.
Eric the crocodile died on 30 June 2007 from a systemic infection, exacerbated because staff couldn't treat him due to power outages caused by storms in the area. His vet, Peter Nosworthy, believes age made him susceptible to the infection, while his size made it impossible to administer intensive care. At 5.6m long and 700 kg, Eric was the largest crocodile in New South Wales at the time of his death. A memorial to Eric is now at the rear of the park.
Eric now has a successor called Elvis the who arrived at the park in September 2007.
feeding, a reptile show, a Tasmanian devil talk, Koala talk, Spider talk, Dingo talk, and Alligator feeding.
Somersby, New South Wales
Somersby is a semi-rural locality of the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, located to the northwest of Gosford along the Pacific Highway...
on the Central Coast
Central Coast, New South Wales
The Central Coast is an urban region in the Australian state of New South Wales, located on the coast north of Sydney and south of Lake Macquarie....
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It is about 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) (a one hour drive) North of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, and is just off the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway
Sydney-Newcastle Freeway
The Sydney-Newcastle Freeway is a stretch of motorway linking Sydney to the Central Coast, Newcastle and Hunter regions of New South Wales. It is part of the AusLink road corridor between Sydney and Brisbane, carrying the route designation....
. The park is home to a variety of reptile
Reptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
s, including snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
s, lizard
Lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains...
s and crocodile
Crocodile
A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...
s, as well as other Australian animals, such as kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
s, cassowaries
Cassowary
The cassowaries are ratites, very large flightless birds in the genus Casuarius native to the tropical forests of New Guinea, nearby islands and northeastern Australia. There are three extant species recognized today...
and Tasmanian devil
Tasmanian Devil
The Tasmanian devil is a carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae, now found in the wild only on the Australian island state of Tasmania. The size of a small dog, it became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the thylacine in 1936...
s.
The park is heavily involved in snake and spider venom collection for use in the production of Antivenom and is credited for saving the lives of thousands.
History
The park was founded by Eric WorrellEric Worrell
Eric Worrell was an Australian herpetologist and writer who was a pioneer in the production of snake anti-venom in Australia.Worrell was born in Sydney and grew up in Paddington...
in 1948 at the Umina Beach Aquarium. It 1959 it was renamed Australian Reptile Park and moved to North Gosford, on the site of a failed orange orchard.
A second move occurred in 1996, to Somersby, adjacent to Old Sydney Town
Old Sydney Town
Old Sydney Town was a small open air museum which operated from 1975 until 2003 in the town of Somersby, near Gosford New South Wales, Australia. The park was intended to be a living tribute to Australia's colonial past. -History:...
.
Just past midnight on 17 July 2000, most of the main park building was destroyed when a faulty electrical wiring caused a fire. Park staff helped fire crews, but ultimately the building was lost along with most of the hundreds of reptiles and frogs that had been maintained in the building. With a lot of work from the staff, and support from the city and from other zoos around Australia, the zoo was able to re-open its doors on the 9 September 2000, just over seven weeks after the fire.
As of 2010, the Park remains the sole supplier of snake and funnel-web spider venom to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories
CSL Limited
CSL Limited is a global specialty biopharmaceutical company that researches, develops, manufactures and markets products to treat and prevent serious human medical conditions...
(CSL) for the nation's anti-venom program. Over its 60 year history the park has assisted in saving over 15,000 lives.
Animals
ReptileReptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
s and snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
s at the Park include American Alligator
American Alligator
The American alligator , sometimes referred to colloquially as a gator, is a reptile endemic only to the Southeastern United States. It is one of the two living species of alligator, in the genus Alligator, within the family Alligatoridae...
s, crocodile
Crocodile
A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...
s, turtle
Turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...
s, tortoise
Tortoise
Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...
s, skink
Skink
Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae. Together with several other lizard families, including Lacertidae , they comprise the superfamily or infraorder Scincomorpha...
s, Komodo dragon
Komodo dragon
The Komodo dragon , also known as the Komodo monitor, is a large species of lizard found in the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Motang and Gili Dasami. A member of the monitor lizard family , it is the largest living species of lizard, growing to a maximum length of in rare cases...
s, monitor lizard
Monitor lizard
Monitor lizards are usually large reptiles, although some can be as small as in length. They have long necks, powerful tails and claws, and well-developed limbs. Most species are terrestrial, but arboreal and semiaquatic monitors are also known...
s, gecko
Gecko
Geckos are lizards belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from 1.6 cm to 60 cm....
s, iguana
Iguana
Iguana is a herbivorous genus of lizard native to tropical areas of Central America and the Caribbean. The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his book Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena...
s, pythons, taipan
Taipan
The taipans are a genus of large, fast, highly venomous Australasian snakes of the elapid family.-Overview:The taipan was named by Donald Thomson after the word used by the Wik-Mungkan Aboriginal people of central Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia.There are three known species: the coastal...
s, brown snake
Pseudonaja
Pseudonaja is a genus of venomous elapid snakes native to Australia. Members are known commonly as brown snakes and are considered to be one of the most dangerous snakes in the country; even young snakes are capable of delivering a fatal envenomation to a human.- Species :* Dugite or Spotted...
s, and death adder
Acanthophis
Acanthophis is a genus of elapid snakes. Commonly called death adders, they are native to Australia, New Guinea and nearby islands, and are among the most venomous snakes in the world...
s.
Arachnid
Arachnid
Arachnids are a class of joint-legged invertebrate animals in the subphylum Chelicerata. All arachnids have eight legs, although in some species the front pair may convert to a sensory function. The term is derived from the Greek words , meaning "spider".Almost all extant arachnids are terrestrial...
s include tarantula
Tarantula
Tarantulas comprise a group of often hairy and often very large arachnids belonging to the family Theraphosidae, of which approximately 900 species have been identified. Some members of the same Suborder may also be called "tarantulas" in the common parlance. This article will restrict itself to...
s, funnel web spiders, trapdoor spider
Trapdoor spider
Trapdoor spiders are medium-sized mygalomorph spiders that construct burrows with a cork-like trapdoor made of soil, vegetation and silk. Some similar species are also called trapdoor spiders, such as the Liphistiidae, Barychelidae, Cyrtaucheniidae and some Idiopidae and Nemesiidae...
, huntsman spider
Huntsman spider
Sparassidae are a family of spiders known as Huntsman spiders because of their speed and mode of hunting. They also are called giant crab spiders, because of their size and appearance. Larger species sometimes are referred to as wood spiders, because of their preference for woody places...
, Goliath birdeater
Goliath birdeater
The Goliath bird-eater Spider is an arachnid belonging to the tarantula group, Theraphosidae, and is considered to be the second largest spider in the world , and they may be the biggest by mass...
spider, mouse spider, redback spider, wolf spider
Wolf spider
Wolf spiders are members of the family Lycosidae, from the Ancient Greek word "" meaning "wolf". They are robust and agile hunters with good eyesight. They live mostly solitary lives and hunt alone. Some are opportunistic hunters pouncing upon prey as they find it or even chasing it over short...
, and scorpion
Scorpion
Scorpions are predatory arthropod animals of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by the pair of grasping claws and the narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back, ending with a venomous stinger...
s.
The Park also houses Australian animals including koala
Koala
The koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae....
s, grey-headed flying fox
Grey-headed Flying Fox
The Grey-headed Flying-Fox, Pteropus poliocephalus, is a megabat native to Australia.Members of the genus Pteropus include the largest bats in the world. The Pteropus genus has currently about 57 recognised species....
es, eastern grey kangaroo
Eastern Grey Kangaroo
The Eastern Grey Kangaroo is a marsupial found in southern and eastern Australia, with a population of several million. It is also known as the Great Grey Kangaroo and the Forester Kangaroo...
s, Tasmanian devil
Tasmanian Devil
The Tasmanian devil is a carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae, now found in the wild only on the Australian island state of Tasmania. The size of a small dog, it became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the thylacine in 1936...
, wombat
Wombat
Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular quadrupeds, approximately in length with a short, stubby tail. They are adaptable in their habitat tolerances, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as...
s, wallaby
Wallaby
A wallaby is any of about thirty species of macropod . It is an informal designation generally used for any macropod that is smaller than a kangaroo or wallaroo that has not been given some other name.-Overview:...
s, dingo
Dingo
The Australian Dingo or Warrigal is a free-roaming wild dog unique to the continent of Australia, mainly found in the outback. Its original ancestors are thought to have arrived with humans from southeast Asia thousands of years ago, when dogs were still relatively undomesticated and closer to...
s, platypus
Platypus
The platypus is a semi-aquatic mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young...
es, echidna
Echidna
Echidnas , also known as spiny anteaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae in the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals. There are four extant species, which, together with the platypus, are the only surviving members of that order and are the only extant mammals that lay eggs...
s, ring tailed possums, and cassowaries
Cassowary
The cassowaries are ratites, very large flightless birds in the genus Casuarius native to the tropical forests of New Guinea, nearby islands and northeastern Australia. There are three extant species recognized today...
.
"Ploddy"
The park is home to a large replica diplodocusDiplodocus
Diplodocus , or )is a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaur whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a Neo-Latin term derived from Greek "double" and "beam", in reference to its double-beamed chevron bones...
initially named Dino, sometimes said to be the very first of Australia's Big Things
Australia's Big Things
The Big Things of Australia are a loosely related set of large structures or sculptures. There are estimated to be over 150 such objects around the country, the first being the Big Scotsman in Medindie, Adelaide, which was built in 1963....
. This structure had portions of its legs removed and was moved to Somersby when the park changed location. In the light of additional media attention the dinosaur was renamed "Ploddy".
Eric the crocodile
A crocodile named Eric, born in 1947 in Australia's Northern Territory, was featured for many years at the park. He was a star attraction and had a fan club of over 10,000 members across the world. Every year Eric consumed his own body weight of various animals such as chicken, goat and fish.Eric had been implicated in the disappearance of two indigenous children in the 1980s, and was captured for the safety of the community. He was first taken to Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
Crocodile Farm, where he bit off the heads of two female crocodiles with whom he was supposed to mate, and lost his right rear foot in a duel with a fellow crocodile. In 1989 he arrived by special freighter jet at the Australian Reptile Park and became a major attraction. He was named after the park's founder Eric Worrell
Eric Worrell
Eric Worrell was an Australian herpetologist and writer who was a pioneer in the production of snake anti-venom in Australia.Worrell was born in Sydney and grew up in Paddington...
who had died in 1987.
Eric the crocodile died on 30 June 2007 from a systemic infection, exacerbated because staff couldn't treat him due to power outages caused by storms in the area. His vet, Peter Nosworthy, believes age made him susceptible to the infection, while his size made it impossible to administer intensive care. At 5.6m long and 700 kg, Eric was the largest crocodile in New South Wales at the time of his death. A memorial to Eric is now at the rear of the park.
Eric now has a successor called Elvis the who arrived at the park in September 2007.
Education
Talks and presentations include Galapagos TortoiseGalápagos tortoise
The Galápagos tortoise or Galápagos giant tortoise is the largest living species of tortoise, reaching weights of over and lengths of over . With life spans in the wild of over 100 years, it is one of the longest-lived vertebrates...
feeding, a reptile show, a Tasmanian devil talk, Koala talk, Spider talk, Dingo talk, and Alligator feeding.