From nose to tail, belly to back, hard scales protect this petite alligator. Even their eyelids have bony plates under the skin!

Mang Mountain pit vipers are strikingly beautiful snakes with green scales to help them blend into their bamboo habitat.

The largest venomous snake in the world, the king cobra has special muscles and ribs in its neck that spread out to form a "hood" when it feels threatened.

Several of our Galápagos tortoises have been with us since 1928, making them the oldest residents in the Zoo. We estimate their age to be well over 100. 

A member of the boa family, South America’s green anaconda is the heaviest snake in the world.

Turtles spend most of their life in the water; terrapins spend time both on land and in water, but always live near water, along rivers, ponds, and lakes.

That famous rattle at the end of a rattlesnake’s tail is made of interlocking rings, or segments of keratin—the same material our fingernails are made of.