City: Omaha, NE

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (402) 733-8401

Address: 3701 S. 10th St. at I-80 exit 454

Insider Pick:

Description: Interacting with gorillas, walking through a cloud of butterflies, and walking over an alligator-filled swamp are just a few of the many popular activities at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, and they’re also the kind of activities that make the zoo rank as one of the top in the nation. The zoo is home to the world’s only indoor desert and rainforest (and all the creatures that live there) and it’s renowned for its Hubbard Gorilla Valley, which lets visitors sit inches from a gorilla, separated only by a window. It’s Scott Aquairum has a captivating walk-through tunnel that leads through a shark tank, and a pillar full of glowing jellyfish offers a favorite spot to take a photo.New attractions include the Insect and Butterfly pavilion, which lets visitors walk through a room filled with, at any given time, 20,000 butterflies. The other half of the pavilion—the actual structure is shaped like a butterfly with a central body and two wings—houses all sorts of creepy crawlies. In the center, be sure to look for the hatching window, where if you linger long enough, you can see a newborn butterfly hatch from a gilded cocoon.The zoo’s newest exhibit was unveiled in 2010. Expedition Madagascar features some of the country’s most unusual animals as well as a large habitat built especially for lemurs. The 15 indoor exhibits house a wide array of species including fish, reptiles, small mammals, and lemurs. The outdoor exhibits include a fossa exhibit, an island with ring-tailed lemurs living among man-made Baobab trees, a net covered exhibit where Coquerel’s sifka leap among branches at eye level, and an exhibit of ruffled lemurs. The exhibition is closed during winter months and opens again each spring. Each exhibit is linked to an ongoing project in Madagascar, and the exhibit includes educational information about the conservation efforts the Omaha Zoo’s Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership has been working on since 1998.