Handpicked experience · Bali
Bali, Indonesia
A ticket to a small collection whose headline animal spent fifty years being credited with a filthy mouth rather than venom, and whose females can hatch a clutch with no male involved at all.
Get your ticket to the Bali Reptile Park and see beautiful creatures in action!
See native and exotic reptiles and learn all about them at the Bali Reptile Park.
Discover the reptile up close and spend a day at the Bali Reptile Park.
Learn from the collection of reptiles and even have a picture or two with these adorable animals.
The largest living lizard, and the chemistry behind how it hunts
A species whose females can produce young unaided
Arboreal species that repay patience more than the big animals do
A compact, largely covered circuit that works in the rain
Keeper-led contact, on the days it is offered
A neighbour to the bird park, so the two combine easily
A dated ticket to Bali Reptile Park at Singapadu, a compact collection built around shaded walkways and glass, next door to the bird park and usually done in an hour or two.
The largest animal here is the Komodo dragon, and for decades the standard explanation of how it kills was wrong. The story everyone learned was bacterial: a mouth so filthy that a bite infects the wound, the prey wanders off, and the lizard follows it for days until it dies of sepsis.
Research published in 2009 found something else. The lower jaw carries venom glands, and what they deliver stops blood clotting and drops blood pressure fast. A bitten animal bleeds and goes into shock rather than slowly rotting, which fits what keepers had long observed and the bacterial account never quite did.
The old version persists in print because it is a better campfire story. The real one is more interesting: this is a lizard that evolved a pharmacological answer to hunting animals much larger than itself.
Something else about this species surfaced only when collections started keeping detailed records. A female with no access to a male can still lay viable eggs, and hatch them.
The genetics make it stranger. In these lizards it is the female that carries the two different sex chromosomes, so parthenogenesis produces offspring that are all male. A single female washed up on an empty island could, in principle, lay a clutch, raise sons and found a population from herself.
Reptiles do not run a constant internal temperature, so their day is spent moving between heat and shade rather than moving around for its own sake. Stillness is the normal state and not a sign of a dull enclosure.
Feeding matters even more. A large snake that ate a week ago has no reason to move at all and will not, and a crocodilian at rest can hold a position for hours. The animals that reward attention are usually the small ones: the arboreal species shifting grip, and the lizards working a heat gradient across a branch.
One piece of physics worth knowing while you watch a crocodile: the muscles that close those jaws are ferociously strong, and the muscles that open them are weak enough that a keeper can hold a snout shut with a strap.
It is a small site and mostly covered, which makes it a good option in the wet season and a sensible pairing with the neighbouring bird park.
Glass and low light are the photographic problem, so a lens that copes with dim conditions is worth more than reach, and flash is not permitted against the enclosures.
Handling sessions, where they run, are supervised and posted at the entrance. Children should be within arm's reach throughout.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
It attributed the kill to infection from a dirty mouth. Work published in 2009 identified glands in the lower jaw delivering compounds that prevent clotting and collapse blood pressure.
Through blood loss and shock rather than slow infection, which matches what keepers had observed long before the chemistry was described.
Yes. Eggs laid without a male have hatched in collections, which only became clear once breeding records were kept carefully.
In this group the female carries the two different sex chromosomes, so the genetics of virgin birth can only produce sons.
They regulate temperature by moving between warmth and shade rather than being active for its own sake, so stillness is their normal condition.
Very much. Digestion in these animals takes days, and one that has eaten recently simply has no reason to shift position while you are there.
The closing muscles are enormously powerful while the opening muscles are weak, which is why a strap around the snout is enough to secure one.
An hour or two. The site is small and mostly covered, and it pairs naturally with the bird park next door.