The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Has A New Reptile House (And We Love It!)

You know you’ve been taking advantage of your zoo membership when you’ve only had it for a month and a half and the lady at the ticket counter recognizes you!  Such was the case this week when we took a trip to the zoo on one of those record-setting high temperature days.  Because of the way our schedule worked that day, we didn’t even start the zoo expedition until about 12:30 and I was a little worried none of the animals would be out and about because it was so hot, but that wasn’t the case – we saw some great activity even in the heat of the afternoon!

We are really love the zoo’s “new” reptile house.  I guess it used to be Birds and Reptiles (as evidenced by the carved stone above the main door), but for as long as I can’t remember, it’s been closed and kind of mysterious-looking.  They’ve been renovating it and it opened a few weeks ago and we love it!

It’s not hands-on like “The Loft” place where they have a bunch of reptiles and get them out for you to pet, but frankly, it’s a lot nicer, brighter, and cleaner.  (I have no clue what their plans for The Loft are; we haven’t been in since the new reptile house opened.)

I love the way they did the displays so that the reptiles are usually pretty easy to find.  The snakes, and many of the lizards, are in displays with rocks, pebbles, or sand that contrast with the snake’s color.  Still, some of them are really good at hiding so it’s fun to search for them!

Unless, of course, you search for awhile and then realize that there’s not actually a snake in the cage.  Haha.

Keep reading to the end for one of my favorite things about this new exhibit…

Some of the displays just make me laugh, like the baby alligators above.  I mean, hilarious.

We just happened to be in the reptile house when they were doing their weekly feeding of the baby alligators.  It’s not a regularly scheduled demonstration, so you might have to be a bit lucky to catch it, but it was fun to watch the keepers pick up the little white mice with giant tweezers and (try to) feed them to the baby alligators.  They had to catch the gators in a fishing net!

(We were there around 3-3:30 on a Monday afternoon, and they said that’s usually when they feed them.)

And perhaps the best part of this new exhibit… (Besides the renovated bathrooms…)

This super-cool water bottle refilling station.  This thing dispenses cold water, people!  You can see that it’s part of a drinking fountain, but it dispenses a larger stream of cold water so it doesn’t take forever to fill up your bottle.

Did I mention it’s cold water?!

Well, anyway.  Hope you enjoyed the peek into the new reptile house at the zoo!