The Most Incredible Zoo in the USA

We have been to countless zoos across the country including the top rated San Diego and Columbus Zoos, however, I must say that the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha is the best in the country!  I love that throughout the zoo, I felt like I wasn't looking at animals in enclosures but instead felt that I was in their natural environment with them. We first entered the Lied Jungle and ended up spending more than an hour there watching monkeys, bats, birds and a hippo, among other things, seemingly run loose around the place. They use natural barriers (water, levels, etc) so that while it looks like the animals could just walk over to you, they can't.

A white-handed gibbon.

There were so many different species of monkeys here and most of them all live together. 

A common squirrel monkey.

Birds would walk right by us like this Victoria Crowned-Pigeon 

whose feathery crown is huge but disappears when he looks right at you because it's thin as a knife.

Of course I loved walking thru the aviary among so many new species of birds!

A crowd of kids gathered to watch this gorilla and then she suddenly started "binging and purging" we'll say. Ewwww!

This baby orangutan was so adorable to watch! 

They used to have a very sneaky orangutan named Fu Man Chu who was an escape artist. After finding him and others loose multiple times, someone noticed that he was hiding a piece of wire along his gum line. It turns out he had taken metal wire from a light fixture and was able to manipulate it until it opened the lock of his enclosure! He then kept it hidden in his mouth for future use! Wow, such an intelligent creature!

Our other favorite area of the zoo is this Desert Dome. It's really three worlds in one building. First you experience the desert and it really felt like being back home in Las Vegas.

Another thing I love about this zoo- while most zoos have one type of animal per enclosure, here many different animals live together in an area much like their natural environment. I really enjoyed the feeling of adventure while searching for animals and birds around me.

Here we found a cute swift fox in a log. We missed seeing one of these at the Badlands, so this was neat to see up close.

Next we ended up on a different level that transported us to a cave. We really felt like we were in a cave! So many varieties of bats live here as well as other cave dwellers like blind fish. 

Finally we ended up on yet another level of the dome, the bayou. We walked across 

wood and rope bridges with alligators underneath us. It was another amazing immersive experience!

A mama tiger with her 3 month old cubs.

The largest aquarium we've ever walked underneath. 

A very large yellow-green moray eel.

If I were a bird, I'd be a puffin; she can fly, swim and walk on land. Face to face with my kind of bird.

There's a really cool Alaska-themed splash pad for kids to cool off on hot days. 

Lastly the kids and I walked thru the butterfly and insect pavilion to see all kinds of little critters.