Walt Disney Imagineering is nearby the zoo and did some special effects work for this cave exhibit when it first opened. Somehow they had projectors set up so that it looked like Betty White, Gary Shandling (and maybe others?) were appearing in the animal exhibits to talk about their natural history. It was cool, but apparently didn't work in the long run. Maybe someone here knows more about this effect and what happened to it? I only saw it once briefly.
It was a fairly common museum technique called a "Pepper's Ghost" that uses mirrors to reflect a hidden projected image into a diorama-type space. It was pretty fun back in the day...who would have thought then that Betty White would be a household name and Gary Shandling a has-been?
Arizona Docent, do you know why this exhibit was essentially abandoned as an animal exhibit? It used to have vampire bats, skunk, ring-tail, and other species. Now it has only scorpions and blind-cave fish. Nobody that I've asked seems to know what went wrong with it as originally designed.
The axolotls replaced the blind cave fish several years ago. I rarely visit the cave anymore myself; mannequins and fake snakes and bats I can see in a museum. I view it as a waste of great exhibit space. There was talk of converting it into a "Bat Cave" when the entire Adventure Island Children's Zoo was up for remodeling several years ago, along with a lorikeet aviary. Budget restrictions no doubt.
