Some of the spectacular photos of this establishment resemble the exhibits found at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The "Flooded Forest" zone looks to be amazing!
Some of the spectacular photos of this establishment resemble the exhibits found at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The "Flooded Forest" zone looks to be amazing!
It truly is amazing; I decided quite quickly that it was one of my favourite single exhibits. These massive glass windows look into two large tanks and one enormous tank. The forest itself is a walk-through enclosure, housing many birds, a few reptiles and a capybara, and there are a number of smaller enclosures dotted around, as well as underground.
The flooded forest is just one of many exhibits at this outstanding museum. I'm a regular visitor (and member) of several London museums, but I've never seen anything like the innovation and attention given to every single exhibit at CosmoCaixa. Obviously a huge advantage is that it's all new (re-opened in 2004) and that la Caixa, whose social(/cultural/charitable) foundation is one of the largest on the planet, sponsor the museum. Walking around it feels like no expense has been spared, and even temporary exhibits are of an outstanding quality. Another thing that surprised me is that overall this is a science museum - but large areas were given over to evolution, nature and animals, which I found unusual but also quite pleasant, of course.
Another nearby area is the series of aquarium tanks, which house the other animals shown in this gallery and mentioned on zootierliste. Also innovative and impressive but signage is lacking a little. Mind you, it is a science museum.
I think I was also particularly impressed because of my fairly low expectations. It was at the bottom of my list of the three institutions to visit in Barcelona, relatively remote, and even entry was cheap. I've probably ruined that feature of the visit for anyone reading this and planning on visiting in the future, but it still shouldn't spoil the experience of a very impressive series of exhibits.
This exhibit reminds me of the forest gallery at Melbourne Museum. Although the one in Melbourne looks smaller and represents the central highlands of Victoria.
Here is the Osher Rainforest at the California Academy of Sciences, and at the base is the Amazon Flooded Forest exhibit (it is not seen in the photo). The structure in Barcelona reminds me of the one in San Francisco, but the Spanish version is perhaps even more impressive!
Here is the Osher Rainforest at the California Academy of Sciences, and at the base is the Amazon Flooded Forest exhibit (it is not seen in the photo). The structure in Barcelona reminds me of the one in San Francisco, but the Spanish version is perhaps even more impressive!
Thanks for posting the link; I've already looked through the gallery on several occasions and the exhibits look amazing. The Steinhart aquarium alone looks so impressive that I struggle to ignore it when I think of the California Academy of Sciences.
One of the other things I like about the Cosmocaixa exhibit is the presence of enormous trees (artificial, of course, but cast from real Ceiba specimens in Brazil). Are the biggest trees in the Osher rainforest very tall? I've seen the flooded area in another photo - I'm struggling a bit to estimate total size (despite the underwater tunnel). Does it strike you as being big enough?
To give some idea of scale for this exhibit, I've posted another photo here:
Probably for several reasons. I think because they lack big zoo animals, a zoo would struggle to make an attraction out of them. Although they're very impressive, they're also expensive, so I'd imagine a zoo on a budget would probably prefer to build a walkthrough aviary and a river habitat separately. In a museum a big glass-fronted exhibit works nicely, even if it's alive
Having said that, such massive indoor rainforest ecosystems are becoming less uncommon in zoos, with perhaps one of the most accurate ecosystem representations at Zurich zoo in its Masoala rainforest.
T Are the biggest trees in the Osher rainforest very tall? I've seen the flooded area in another photo - I'm struggling a bit to estimate total size (despite the underwater tunnel). Does it strike you as being big enough?
The California Academy rainforest seems like it is about as tall as the one in your photos, 3 stories or so. The trees are as tall as the ones shown here and most of them are real as far as I can tell. I think that the forest is comparable in size to the one here in the photo. There are free-flying tropical Central and South American bird and butterfly species in the canopy area of the forest.
