NOCTURNAL ANIMAL HOUSE

Leopard Cat

Nocturnal animals are...

the animals that are active in the night going about their daily tasks of digging or borrowing or hunting for food and spend the day lying asleep in the burrows or nests. These nocturnal animals when kept for public display in normal enclosures or cages are unattractive to the visitors as they are generally found inactive or lying curled up in a corner. To make the nocturnal animals active during the daytime for the benefit of visitors, the wake-sleep cycle of the animals is reversed by simulated night condition, inducing the night time activities in the animals. In this connection special arrangements are made to change the time of day gradually, that is from daylight to dark and dusk to dawn, so that the animals are conditioned to the change of biorhythm in their routine life. A modern cave has been constructed to exhibit the nocturnal animals in such a way that people have a feeling as if they are going through a tunnel and see the animals in their natural habitat without causing any disturbance in "The Moonlit Zoo".

Small Indian Civet

Palm Civet

Slender Loris

The Nocturnal animals ...

that are displayed at present are:-

• Slender Lorises.
• Slow Lorises.
• Leopard Cats.
• Large Indian Civets.
• Small Indian Civets.
• Palm Civets.
• Ratels.
• Hedge hogs.
• Flying Foxes.
• Fruit Bats.
• Indian Porcupines.
• Brush Tailed Porcupines.
• Great Horned Owls.
• Fishing Owls.
• Mottled Wood Owls.
• Barn Owls.
  
  

Brown Fish Owl

Besides the above...

a number of other species like NightJars, Jungle Cats, Mouse Deer etc., are also proposed to be kept.

This project is the first of its kind in India and adds to another first for the Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad. It will be useful for study of biological rhythm of these animals, which was not possible until now. This will help in study of biorhythms in other species including humans. The feeding behavior of these animals will also be studied. The food is nocturnal prey species like rats, mice etc., which destroy grains of human beings.