I had some time free, so I can join too:
SMALL MAMMAL DOMES
A zoo decided to rebuild the Small Mammal House into something better than a row of small mammal enclosures. It hired an internationally known architect.
The new Mammal House has the form of five connected glass domes. Viewed from one side, the building resembles African kopje rocky outcrop or a clump of tree crowns. Viewed from another side, five domes form the shape of a resting animal: head, two big ears, body and curved thick tail. Perhaps a sand cat or a chinchilla. Metal supports have shape strengthening this impression – an outline of eye patches, cheeks, arms and legs. The entrance is through the glass animal’s nose.
The first dome is Brazilian rainforest.
The visitors walk into the rainforest hall. Free-living animals on the trees and in the bushes are: pied marmosets, red-backed titis, brazilian agoutis, maned sloths, keel-billed toucans, montezuma oropendolas and green iguanas. The path follows the creek, which separates two moated exhibits. One is shared by a troop of yellow-breasted capuchins and a pair of crab-eating raccooons. The second is shared by a pair of pacas and family group of white uakaris.
The second dome is Australian outback.
This is walk-though exhibit with red earth, termite mounds, planted eucalyptus and grass trees. High eroded rock face has a trickling waterfall forming a waterhole. The visitors path is bordered by glass railings, separating exhibits. One exhibit is inhabited by yellow-footed rock wallabies, malas and short-beaked echidnas. The second exhibit has koalas on treetops and a pair of numbats on the ground. The third has the pair of tasmanian devils. The pool is inhabited by a pair of platypus. Free-flying under the dome are galahs and rainbow lorikeets. Visitors can take a cup of nectar and feed the lorikeets from the hand. The path curves and goes up the rock-face, so you can watch koalas on trees at eye-level, while rock wallabies look at you from even higher rocky outcrop.
You emerge in the night over Malaysian swamp.
The night exhibit has rich artificial palms and trees, and fake moon mirrored in the small pool. Animals live in enclosures separated by glass or piano wire, which is set some distance from visitors, so the impression is walking through the thick jungle with free-living animals. Malayan porcupines, Palawan mousedeer, Panay cloud rats, giant flying squirrels, white-faced scops owls and slender loris share the huge first exhibit, which is actually curving over visitor trails. So animals can run on the branches overhead or under the wooden bridge below visitors feet. Next exhibit has fishing cat in a mangrove swamp with the deep pool. Further for enclosures are full of branches and it is impossible to guess in the darkness where one ends and the next begins in this dense thicket. They have: philippine tarsiers, malayan pangolins, spotted linsang and a pair of marbled cats.
Then we walk into the next dome. This is another night exhibit, African savanna.
The landscape is open, with thorny acacias, termite mounds, and the roof is painted like red sky with red clouds of the endless sunset. Most night animals cannot see the red colour, so it is dark for them. Springhares, tree hyrax, pel’s anomalures, kirk’s dikdiks, greater galagos, yellow-winged bats, golden fruit bats and spotted stone-curlews are free to run around visitors and on trees overhead. The moated exhibit is shared by aardvarks and a pair of fennec foxes. Tree-climbing free-living animals have access to it. The last exhibit is separated by piano wire. It has lots of tree branches and rocky backdrop. It is inhabited by a pair of servalline genets on the trees and rocks and pair of ratels who spend time on the ground.
Visitors walk through the tunnel, seeing large exhibit of naked mole rats. They have a sort of diagonally cut slope, exposing lots of criss-crossing glass corridors and chambers, lighted by red light. The above ground part has white-bellied hedgehogs.
Then we are back in daytime, and in the last and biggest dome. This is actually glass animal’s “body”. South American part was “head”, Australia in the thick tail, and night exhibits in the two darkened ears.
The biggest and highest dome is rainforest of Madagascar. We walk on the path under bamboos, lianas and travellers palms, and animals are free to run around – red ruffed lemurs, red-bellied lemurs and greater bamboo lemurs, madagascar flying foxes, Madagascar crested ibises and free-running panther cameleons. In the centre is researcher’s hut, where visitors can examine how mammal research is done. They can see radio collaring equipment, how scats are analyzed, and look through the microscope to identify remains of insects and fish scales in animals scats.
Then visitors see three glass exhibits in the side of the dome. They are spacious and richly landscaped with branches and vegetation. The first has the group of silky sifakas, another falanouc, the third a pair of golden bamboo lemur.
Outside the building is surrounded by water moats. They divide outside, forested exhibits for marmosets (walk-though), for uakaris, capuchins (wire-covered tent with glass windows), for wallabies, tasmanian devils and koalas (dry moats), and for lemurs (walk-though) and sifakas and mongoose (wire-covered tents with viewing windows).