The Eugene T. Mahoney Kingdoms of the Night opened beneath the Desert Dome in April 2003 at a cost of $31.5 million (including Desert Dome). Kingdoms of the Night is the world’s largest nocturnal animal exhibit at 3,900 m2.
Both the Kingdoms of the Night and the Desert combine to a total of 7,800 m2. The Kingdoms of the Night features a wet cave (with a 14 ft or 4.3 m deep aquarium), a canyon, an African diorama, a eucalyptus forest, a dry batcave, and a swamp. The swamp is also the world’s largest indoor swamp. The Kingdoms of the Night logo is a sign that has owl eyes.
Kingdoms of the Night is divided into several exhibits, each representing a different environment. Guests first venture through a canyon area where they can find naked mole rats and fossa. This leads to an African diorama where children of all ages can stand inside a Baobab tree to see the transition from dusk to evening. The African diorama is one of the many multi-species exhibits in Kingdoms of the Night which shows how animals such as aardvarks, springhaas and greater bush babies interact.
As guests venture through a wet cave, they will see stalagmites and stalactites dripping into a “seemingly bottomless” pit. The pit is actually 16 feet deep and home to blind cave fish. There are 2,400 stalactites in the wet cave. Hundreds of short-tailed fruit bats can be seen flying around a large bat cave.
Traveling through the Eucalyptus Forest, guests get a sense of Australian night life as they wander past Tamar wallabies and a short-beaked echidna and stroll alongside an Australian stream, full of freshwater crocodiles, turtles and fish. The eucalyptus trees are preserved to keep their aroma fresh. The dry bat cave exhibit is illuminated by a 70-foot-high shaft of light and is home to many different species of bats including those that eat fruit, meat and blood. This dry cave is the hollowed-out inside of the central mountain in the Desert Dome.
According to omahazoo.com; en.wikipedia.org. Source of photos: internet
