A naturalist and his snakes
Eric Worrell opened the Ocean Beach Aquarium at Umina Beach in 1950 and began milking snakes for venom. He moved his collection to Wyoming, near Gosford, in 1958, and Eric Worrell’s Australian Reptile Park opened on 3 October 1959. In 1963 Ploddy the dinosaur joined it.
Venom for antivenom
Since the 1960s the park has supplied the venom used to make antivenom for Australia’s land snakes, and it began supplying funnel-web spider venom in 1970; a funnel-web antivenom followed. The park says more than 25,000 lives have been saved thanks to its venom programme.
Somersby and beyond
The park moved to Somersby in 1996 and recovered from a fire in 2000. Eric the saltwater crocodile, named after the founder, was a star until 2007, when Elvis took his place; in 2022 the first Komodo dragons hatched in Australia were born here.



