One of India’s few urban national parks sits in the center of Chennai. Guindy National Park, India’s 8th smallest national park, is also host to a snake park. The Chennai Snake Park Trust, founded in 1972 by American herpetologist Romulus Whitaker, is a fun place to spend a few hours and check out not only the snakes the park sets out to protect, but also a variety of crocodilian species, lizards, and tortoises/turtles.
Several times a day there is a demonstration to get to know some of the snakes a bit better, in which the announcer reinforces the point that “of India’s 242 snake species” (some estimates go up to 270) only four species are both venomous enough to kill humans, AND common enough to pose a real threat.
