Amazon Flooded Forest Exhibit

Overview

OPENED SEPTEMBER 29, 2001
Each year, torrential rains flood the Amazon basin, transforming it into a watery world, known as the varzea, for nearly six months. The varzea is home to some of the planet’s most extraordinary and diverse plants and animals. The plants, animals and people there actually thrive when the river is at flood stage. With your first step into this zoo's exhibit, you will be engulfed in a world inhabited by Emerald Tree boas and colorful poison dart frogs. Around the corner you'll encounter pygmy marmosets, toucans, iguanas and rare species of fish, some of which are seven feet long. Just a few steps away under the forest’s canopy you'll see saki and howler monkeys, fearsome-looking caiman and two-toed sloths. The best has been saved for last, when you'll come eye to eye with the legendary green anaconda, which can grow up to 30 feet in length, making it the world’s largest snake.

The ambitious exhibit, which offers below and above water viewing, is one of the first of its kind at any zoo.

Animals