Bronx Zoo World of Darkness reopening

CMP said:
On a semi-related note, with all the nocturnal species lost from captivity, what is the potential for the new exhibit? How ambitious would WCS be in bringing in rarely kept species or those new to North America?
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I don’t know about new species, but from my visit in 2009 there were scorpions along with one tank having a button for UV lights so visitors could see the scorpions glow.
 
nczoofan said:
And it’s official, World of Darkness is back, opening in Summer 2025.

Bronx Zoo Macy's Thanksgiving Parade - Bronx Zoo
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The significance of this announcement cannot be downplayed. World of Darkness was a legendary exhibit and the first ever true nocturnal house in a zoo. The amount of rare and unusual species it hosted during its initial 40 year run was astonishing. Talks of reopening the building have been going on for ages, but with nocturnal houses becoming an increasingly rare commodity, it seemed highly unlikely for the longest time. Clearly I’ve forgotten Bronx doesn't usually follow trends; they start them. Seeing such an iconic exhibit be brought back to life after 15 years of closure is incredible.
 
pachyderm pro said:
The significance of this announcement cannot be downplayed. World of Darkness was a legendary exhibit and the first ever true nocturnal house in a zoo. The amount of rare and unusual species it hosted during its initial 40 year run was astonishing. Talks of reopening the building have been going on for ages, but with nocturnal houses becoming an increasingly rare commodity, it seemed highly unlikely for the longest time. Clearly I’ve forgotten Bronx doesn't usually follow trends; they start them. Seeing such an iconic exhibit be brought back to life after 15 years of closure is incredible.
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If it's even a modest success,.... time to revise the Must See Exhibits list.
 
pachyderm pro said:
the first ever true nocturnal house in a zoo
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Would be interested to see the definition of a "true nocturnal house". Artis opened it's first nocturnal house in 1963, Antwerp in 1968 and Diergaarde Blijdorp opened their nocturnal house (as part of a larger building, also housing primates) in 1968 too.

Edit: Looking through Zoochat the first nocturnal house seems to have been in Bristol in the 1950s.
 
Well, It’s a good day to be a Bronx Zoo fan now that World of Darkness is returning by the summer of next year. :3
 
lintworm said:
Would be interested to see the definition of a "true nocturnal house". Artis opened it's first nocturnal house in 1963, Antwerp in 1968 and Diergaarde Blijdorp opened their nocturnal house (as part of a larger building, also housing primates) in 1968 too.
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Hadn't realized the buildings at Artis and Antwerp came first, so allow me to rephrase: the first ever true nocturnal house in a North American zoo.
AnActualFan said:
If it's even a modest success,.... time to revise the Must See Exhibits list.
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I'm not sure if World of Darkness 2.0 will be on the same level as Kingdoms of the Night, but it is genuinely exciting to see a modern take on a nocturnal house. The last 'new' one in the U.S. was Cincinnati's Night Hunters building which opened in 2011 and that was really just a redressing of the old cat house. It's been 16 years since Madagascar opened, but if Bronx can still deliver that same attention to detail (and I very much believe they can and will), this could be something special.
 
pachyderm pro said:
I'm not sure if World of Darkness 2.0 will be on the same level as Kingdoms of the Night,
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I agree, but it is a legendary historic building, so even a modest success of bringing it back will probably make it a must-see just for the history of it and some of the species that are probably being held in it (hello aye-ayes!).
 
pachyderm pro said:
Hadn't realized the buildings at Artis and Antwerp came first, so allow me to rephrase: the first ever true nocturnal house in a North American zoo.

I'm not sure if World of Darkness 2.0 will be on the same level as Kingdoms of the Night, but it is genuinely exciting to see a modern take on a nocturnal house. The last 'new' one in the U.S. was Cincinnati's Night Hunters building which opened in 2011 and that was really just a redressing of the old cat house. It's been 16 years since Madagascar opened, but if Bronx can still deliver that same attention to detail (and I very much believe they can and will), this could be something special.
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It’ll certainly be smaller than Omaha’s exhibit but I imagine they will upgrade it nicely from what it used to be. Additionally they seem to be really focused on the interpretative elements of this space, which were lacking a bit in the old house from my memories.

The zoo already has quite a few nocturnal exhibits between madagascar, Jungleworld, the Mouse House, the giraffe house, and the Kiwi exhibit. I do wonder which if any species can move over to the new house.
 
nczoofan said:
The zoo already has quite a few nocturnal exhibits between madagascar, Jungleworld, the Mouse House, the giraffe house, and the Kiwi exhibit. I do wonder which if any species can move over to the new house.
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Honestly, I wonder if the Galago that was in the Mouse House is being moved?
 
pachyderm pro said:
The significance of this announcement cannot be downplayed. World of Darkness was a legendary exhibit and the first ever true nocturnal house in a zoo. The amount of rare and unusual species it hosted during its initial 40 year run was astonishing.
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Does anybody have a list of what the past species highlights of World of Darkness were? I saw it in 2005, and honestly all I remember are alligators and cloud rats.
 
Since Bronx already has a Mouse House with functionality that somewhat overlaps with the nocturnal house, and NA facilities have lower diversity of small mammals than European counterparts while small mammals are major components of nocturnal houses. It looks like the World of Darkness will display some duplicate species from the Mouse House. I hope they can get Tree Pangolin but looks very unlikely
 
USZOOfan42 said:
The concept art shows a two toed sloth, fruit bats, aye aye and some sort of caiman. I wonder what will show up in the exhibit, I expect those, loris, night monkeys and much more.
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Where could we find this concept art for WoD? I don’t see a caiman or sloth on the announcement webpage.

So excited for this exhibit to open once more!
 
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