India Herpetology Research Centre Joins Species360

India’s Madras Crocodile Trust and Centre for Herpetology has joined Species360 as an institutional member, continuing a relationship that began as part of the Central Zoo Authority (CZA). Its research teams, including native Irula forest scientists, are collecting data to improve the availability of snake anti-venom throughout India where approximately 50,000 people die from snake bites each year.

The centre has two permanent field stations conducting in situ research and a zoo and ex situ research station providing care for 1,800 reptiles. Six of its seven species of crocodilians are listed by the IUCN as critically endangered or threatened, and the centre breeds several species of threatened chelonians, including two listed as critically endangered.