It looks across onto a children's playground so that chimpanzee and human can both watch each other at play. The reptile house is a long hall with vivaria along both sides. It is an older style house, but well maintained. The reptiles kept include many important species, several the subject of inter-zoo management agreements. Beyond is the reptile breeding unit where windows afford visitors the view of incubating eggs and newly hatched young.
Species propagated here include blue tongued skinks, rainbow boas and plumed basilisks.
Small cats are housed in redeveloped 'rock-dens' behind glass. They include leopard cats and margays. Right at the top of the hill, with a panoramic view across the city, is one of the best features of the zoo, making it well worth the climb. It is an African Plains exhibit where zebra, red lechwe, and scimitar-horned oryx herd together. The latter two are important captive stock of what are both endangered species, and oryx from Edinburgh Zoo have already been sent back to Tunisia for reintroduction into the wild.