SAN DIEGO —- Lizards and snakes get a bad rap. But an exhibit under way at the San Diego Natural History Museum hopes to warm up the public to the cold-blooded creatures.
“Lizards & Snakes: Alive!” opened at the museum last month and features more than 60 live reptiles, along with a vast array of hands-on and educational exhibits that explain why the sometimes frightful-looking creatures are an important part of the natural ecosystem.
“Lizards and snakes make up an amazing success story in the animal kingdom,” said Bradford D. Hollingsworth, a herpetology curator at the museum and collaborator on the exhibit, which was first developed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “(The exhibit) is a great start to understanding the rich biodiversity of lizards and snakes in our own backyard, as San Diego is home to 14 of their taxonomic families.”
To add interactivity to the exhibit, the museum will host a “Lizards & Snakes Alive! Family Day” from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. The program will be free with paid museum admission.
Children will be able to take part in several crafts and activities at stations around the museum, including having their faces painted with lizard and snake designs. At noon Saturday, “Mr. James the Reptile Wrangler” will present a “Tales & Scales” program where children can learn about, see and touch some scaly critters. There will also be some “meet and greet” sessions with other creatures at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The exhibit’s live collection includes a rhinoceros iguana, chuckwallas, Madagascan giant day geckos, Amazonian tree boas, Western fence lizards, gila monsters and red spitting cobras. Some of the creatures are displayed in re-created habitats, like the 4-inch tropical girdled lizard and the 14-foot Burmese python. There’s also a variety of fossil specimens and fossil casts, including a fossil of a megalania, the largest-known terrestrial squamate (scaled creatures), which grew up to 30 feet. And there’s a cladogram (from the Greek word for “branch”) where children can trace the evolutionary relationships of squamates over time and to each other.
“Lizards & Snakes: Alive” continues through April 3. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (open until 8 p.m. Thursdays, except holidays). The museum is in San Diego’s Balboa Park at Village Place and Park Boulevard. Tickets are $16 for general admission, $14 for seniors; $11 for active-duty military with ID and youths 13-17; and $10 for children 3 to 12 and free for children 2 and under. Call 619-232-3821 or visit sdnhm.org.