Barang: The Nandankanan Zoological Park (NZP) here Tuesday welcomed eight yellow anacondas and three female Nile crocodiles from Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology in Tamil Nadu.
Nandankanan deputy director Jayant Kumar Das said that the creatures will be kept in off-display area at Reptile Park for quite some period.
With the arrival of these two species, the total species at NZP went up to 158, Das said.
Sources said a four-member team of NZP, comprising assistant conservator of forests (ACF) Amulya Kumar Parida (Visitor management), Debabrata Mohapatra, Ramachandra Kandi and Pathani Jena, had left for Chennai to bring the creatures October 16.
According to sources, Nandankanan authorities had planned to bring new guests to the zoo in three phases between August 1 and 14, but the plan did not materialise.
“In the first phase, a two-member team of NZP had gone to bring giraffes from Mysore August 1, but they returned empty-handed. In the second phase, a six-member team had brought a jackal species from Indore zoo in Madhya Pradesh,” said a zoo source.
In the third phase, the zoo authorities were to receive the anacondas and Nile crocodiles from the Tamil Nadu intuition August 14. However, NZP authorities did not proceed owing to multiple reasons including the Herpes menace that claimed several elephants at the zoo.
Later, the zoo authorities had planned to bring the semi-aquatic reptiles before Dussehra. However, this time, too, they missed the deadline.