News

‘Tis the season when people are doing a lot of browsing in stores and online for the perfect holiday gifts, but here at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, many of our animals love to browse 365 days a year..

Did you attend Spooktacular this year? If so, chances are you got to tap your toes to the beat of Omaha Street Percussion, bask in the glow of Illumination Alley and get up close and personal with the bats in the Lied Jungle.

Soon visitors to Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium will be able to ascend from the grasslands of northern India to the upper reaches of the Himalayas, pass through ancient ruins and misted forests and get up close and personal with some of the world’s most majestic and elusive animals.

Have you ever heard of a rattlesnake without a rattle? The Catalina Island rattlesnake is the only known species of rattlesnake to not have a rattle, and it can only be found in the wild in one place – the tiny Isla Catalina off the coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico.

By early August, the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership (MBP), which was founded by Dr. Edward E. Louis Jr., Director of the Conservation Genetics Department at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, had planted one tree in Madagascar for each of Nebraska’s 1.92 million residents. By the end of August, the number of trees planted will have reached two million.

Nancy Armitage was once visiting Thailand when a local grifter threw a python around her neck and demanded money to remove it. Nancy, an avid ophiophilist (she had her own snake named Floyd at home, and used to catch venomous snakes for fun), intuited that the snake was relaxed and posed no threat, so she calmly demurred and walked away, leaving the stunned scammer to run after her to get his snake back.

This year, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium’s annual Dream Night was held on June 8, 2018 and hosted a record-setting 850 people.

Our newest pygmy hippo, Silas, was born during the spring and can now be seen in the Lied Jungle, under the watchful eye of his mother Chomel.

“They were just little brown toads no one cared about… until we realized they were almost all gone,” says Jessi Krebs, curator of reptiles and amphibians at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium.

Dr. Lee G. Simmons (Doc) has been leading safaris for groups from Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium for 35 years, so he generally has a good idea of what animals they can expect to see.

Syngnathidae is the family of fish that includes seahorses (as well as leafy seadragons and pipefish). The name is derived from the Greek, meaning “fused jaw” – but their jaw is sooooo not the most interesting thing about them.

One of the first things visitors learn when they visit the red pandas in the new Asian Highlands exhibit at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium is that the animals aren’t pandas – or even bears – at all.