OMAHA, Neb. — A dry, hot desert may not sound like an attractive destination, but the world's largest indoor replica of one has become a hit with visitors to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.
The exhibit is housed under what is advertised as the world's largest geodesic dome. More than 1,700 glazed panels make up the dome's 13-story cover.
More than 73,000 people from 11 states walked the Desert Dome's sandy paths during its opening week in late March.
"That puts us on the map," says Dr. Lee Simmons, zoo director. "We're a long way from a tourist destination, so we have to pedal harder."
The exhibit features a cactus forest, an oasis, a hummingbird aviary, a 30-foot sand dune, a 55-foot mountain and a sandfall — like a waterfall but with flowing sand.
Omaha's zoo has been Nebraska's most-visited tourist attraction for years. It features an indoor rain forest that spans 1.5 acres where visitors mingle with jungle animals, hide in caves and hike behind a waterfall. The zoo's aquarium has an underwater tunnel where visitors walk with sharks and stingrays swim overhead.
The $31.5 million, shining Desert Dome dominates the horizon next to I-80 along the banks of the Missouri River.
Simmons says it could attract an additional 250,000 to 300,000 visitors to the zoo each year. The zoo is already among the top 20 in the United States in attendance with nearly 1.2 million visitors last year.
Zoogoers would have to travel to the Indianapolis Zoo or North Carolina Zoological Park to see a similar desert exhibit, but on much smaller scales, says Jane Ballentine with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association.
Omaha's Desert Dome is creating a buzz among the nation's zoo fans and industry officials, Ballentine says.
The Desert Dome, which took three years to build, is filled with plants and animals from the Namibia Desert of southern Africa, the Red Center of Australia and the Sonoran Desert of the southwest United States and northwest Mexico.
The dome is part of the zoo's effort to build ecosystem-type exhibits where the public doesn't just look at animals in a cage but are immersed in the environment, Simmons says.
Featured animals include venomous snakes such as the Taipan — the world's second deadliest snake — roadrunners, bobcats, a puma and meerkats, which are a type of mongoose from Africa.
Temperatures in the dome shouldn't keep visitors away — the air is regulated at a comfortable 72 to 75 degrees.
A nocturnal animal exhibit will open beneath the dome in 2003. The Kingdoms of the Night will include a swamp with a floating walkway, a stalactite cave and aquariums.
Simmons says the next major project the zoo hopes to begin work on soon is a gorilla exhibit where visitors would walk through an enclosed tunnel and view the primates living freely in an open area.