Bronx Zoo: JungleWorld
What I honestly expected to be of sub-par quality turned out to be one of my favorite jungle buildings I've visited to date! It opened in 1985 and has been home to some cool species over its history. One of the coolest was proboscis monkey, which left in the early 2000s. Though they're gone, there are still the beautiful ebony langurs, among other species.
Outside the building is a rather boring first exhibit- a cliffside aviary for waldrapp ibis. It is more than suitable for a really neat species, just not exciting. Inside is where things begin to get exciting. The first pair of exhibits are mid-sized, and home to Mastchie's tree kangaroo and Asian small-clawed otter. The kangaroo exhibit could be better, but then again, I haven't seen a single truly outstanding exhibit for the species. The otters I barely looked at, they're everywhere (though I think I saw more northern otters on this trip rather than Asian small-clawed). This was followed by a small corridor with an exhibit for reptiles, and then one of the premier species of the building: the ebony langurs. A large chain of false trees (presumably emulating mangrove trees due to the area's name of "Mangrove Forest") is home to a troop of five of these rare (in America anyways) monkeys. Only one other troop persists in the country, six or so at Tanganyika Wildlife Park, imported from Howletts several years back. I did enjoy seeing these beautiful langurs for the first time, such a strikingly colored animal!
A small nocturnal section is next, with just one exhibit. It was a mixed exhibit for slow loris (signed as
N. coucang but I believe someone said it is actually
N. pygmaeus) and greater Malay chevrotain. It was great for the loris (with more privacy, but smaller than Columbus) but I think a bit small for the deer. A mirror along one side of the exhibit makes it hard to determine the true size of the exhibit.
The next large room has three main exhibits visible. Two are poor exhibits, which made me assume the rest of the building is the same, while the third is just fantastic. On the right is an exhibit for a pair of black leopards. The vertical height is great, but everything else is just too small. Any other number of taxa would be better suited, but I suppose the zoo will wait for this pair to pass away first. A good idea would be binturong, in my opinion, which the zoo already has. The other exhibit of disappointing quality is a boring beach for Malayan tapir. It's better than the tapir exhibits of the Henry Doorly Zoo, but obviously still not preferable. The last exhibit is an amazing large room that is mixed between mammals and birds alike. It's so huge that it is honestly hard to find even the largest creatures in it, the white-cheeked gibbons. Perhaps the only animal easy to find is the painted stork, several of which were perched on large branches.
The jungle of foliage is what truly makes this gigantic exhibit fantastic. It obscures animals of all shapes and sizes, from small mammals such as the Prevost's squirrel (which, needless to say, I did not see) to the larger aforementioned gibbons. The room has other viewing points, later on, with a much more interesting lower exhibit.
The next room is the last such corridor, with many smaller amphibians and invertebrates, to the larger mangrove snake, as well as a tree shrew. There is also a window to the bigger room, but I saw nothing from it. Then, the last room is reached. A long and winding "river" is seen first, and the source, a large body of water is soon seen. This entire stretch is home to gharials, a tortoise (what species?), and some waterfowl (scaly-sided merganser, Baer's pochard, others), as well as whatever other birds decide to "visit." There is a back view of the larger jungle area. By this point, all of the larger species, such as this South Sulawesi tarictic hornbill, can reliably be seen.
This is also where I saw smaller species such as magpie-robin. It is, unfortunately, the last viewing opportunity in the one-acre building. It was a fantastic exhibit, and is probably my third favorite rainforest building after Omaha and the Dallas World Aquarium. It has its downsides- tapir, leopard, and the simple lack of visibility of some smaller species, but overall I loved the building!
). I do intend to collect all of my thoughts about Bronx into one review thread, but I have no idea when that will be. 