Deserts

July 9th, 2012.

How does this compare to the Desert Dome at Henry Doorly?

Here is an excerpt from my 2012 review:

This is a nice little desert building, with meerkats and a few birds, but essentially it serves as a Reptile House. It is quite well done (but naturally blown away by Omaha's Desert Dome in terms of size) and the only drawback was the size of the dome and the size of the 27 terrariums in a back room as all of the tanks were approximately 2.5 ft. by 2.5 ft. by 2.5 ft. glass boxes. Species list for the Desert Dome: meerkat, Grand Cayman iguana, rhinoceros iguana, radiated tortoise, pancake tortoise, desert tortoise, Coahuilan box turtle, blue spiny lizard, great plated lizard, African plated lizard, blue-tongued skink, chuckwalla, Mali spiny-tailed lizard, bearded dragon, stellio agama, red-headed agama, owl finch, shaft tail finch, Gouldian finch, zebra finch and Gambel’s quail.

Species list for the 27 terrariums (I think that every exhibit contained exactly one snake): Honduran milk snake, Sinaloan milksnake, Malaysian blood python, black-headed python, spotted python, green tree python (two exhibits), timber rattlesnake, Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, Mexican bullsnake, Everglades rat snake (two exhibits), red spitting cobra, Brazilian rainbow boa, Kenyan sand boa, Mexican rosy boa, desert rosy boa, mangrove snake, eastern indigo, eyelash viper, West African gaboon viper, tentacled snake, gray-banded kingsnake, Florida pine snake, northern copperhead, western cottonmouth and eastern massasauga.

Snowleopard what are the small bird cages? for? they look very out of place in such a setup.

Judging from Google Earth and photos (I've been in this dome as well but not at Henry Doorly), the Desert Dome is probably almost 5 times bigger. Here's a comparison of each dome, both shots are the same distance off the ground.

@dean: I guess that the bird cages (which definitely do look out of place) are for locking up some species for the night that might either be new to the exhibit complex or need to be segregated from other animals.

@Moebelle: nice use of Google Earth! The Desert Dome in Indy is very small but for the most part quite enjoyable.

Thanks snowleopard I did wonder if they are for new introductions to allow them some sense of security if they needed it until they found their own niche, they certainly appear take the edge of the exhibit.

Would you like to check out this structure on Google Earth? The Sonora Desert dome at the outstanding North Carolina Zoo is nowhere near as large as the Desert Dome in Omaha but still very nice nevertheless.

http://www.zoochat.com/590/sonora-desert-building-179403/

Here's a comparison of all three. Indy Zoo's, Henry Doorly's, and North Carolina's desert biome domes.