Welcome (Back) to the Jungle: Osher Rainforest Is Open!

About a week before the rainforest was set to open, staff flipped on the mist machines, fogging up the glass dome and simulating raindrops that plopped from the leafy canopy down to the rainforest’s floor. Soon, the rainforest had returned to its balmy, humid conditions, ready to receive the tropical animals who call it home.

Four days before opening, it was reptile and amphibian day: Our crews reintroduced 39 pebble-sized glass frogs, a southeastern girdled lizard, and one red-tailed ratsnake into their new leafy enclosures. Many of the rainforest’s fauna received home renovations: The Panamanian golden frogs—a yellow-and-black spotted species extinct in the wild—came home to a larger, bubbling waterfall, which increases the oxygen flow in their tank.

Two days before opening, we started to hear the distinct cacophony of butterfly wings, rustling leaves, and chirping birds. Invertebrates crawled back to the rainforest that day too, as staff plopped massive orb weavers into enclosures and on branches along the dome’s ramp; these spiders the size of a clementine immediately got to work spinning their intricate webs and traps.

As part of Osher Rainforest’s planned closure, most animals were removed from the exhibit and temporarily housed behind the scenes—the first time the Academy has done so since the rainforest opened in 2008. Fifteen years of 85-degree heat, high humidity, and simulated rainfall took a real toll on the dome’s structure.

The absence of fauna made it easier for Academy crews to make bigger structural repairs that would have otherwise disturbed the creatures on exhibit. Only tropical, freshwater fish housed in the Amazon Flooded Forest stayed in their 100,000-gallon tank during the closure, protected from potential debris by a large net.