The Butantan Institute is a research center that covers about 700 acres in the city of Sao Paulo.
Part of this center looks like a “resort” for snakes, with green lawns, trees, flowers, pools, and only snakes to enjoy them. The snakes even have their own “apartments,” domes with holes cut in them. Each dome serves as a nest for one snake!
Was the Butantan Institute set up by a snake lover who wanted to show the reptiles a good time? Not at all. Researchers at the center study the snakes. They raise many kinds of poisonous serpent for their venom, which is used to make snake bite serum and other medicines.
