Zoo Tours Ideas

Here are ideas for Zoo Tours made by the users of ideas fandom, including zoos that are real and fictional.

Cretaceous Park Part 1
Hello, everyone! Zoo Tours guide, Zachary Handel here, and we are back to the west coast of California. Today, we are adding another zoo to our tour, Cretaceous Park, located in Sacramento, California. This zoo-theme park hybrid was created by a bioengineering company known as SciiFii, which in turn was started by a man named Richard Boggs, who wanted to create extinct animals, including those long before the Holocene, and see if they adapt to the modern times, while also support the welfare for captive animals. SciiFii specializes in animal care and welfare, as well as bringing back various species of extinct animals, giving them a second chance in life. However, SciiFii has been known to create entirely new species all together in order to boost biodiversity. Anyway, Cretaceous Park is home to more than 500 species of formerly extinct animals from the Mesozoic, having their own exhibits that matches their own natural-looking environments. The zoo was awarded by the AZA for Cretaceous Park's use of innovations and animal welfare in captivity, including ones that were once extinct.

We'll start off with a tour of this zoo by going near the entrance of the zoo, in one of the finest areas of the zoo known as the Jurassic Trails, an attraction filled with sauropods, stegosaurs, Jurassic iguanodonts, and among others. It does a good job at immersing it's wildlife and habitats, with a scenery built around it. So here's a breakdown to Cretaceous Park's Jurassic Trails attraction:

1. It opened its gates with the zoo.

2. There are around 7 exhibits, including one birdhouse containing Jurassic flying animals.

3. Displaying the total of around 50 animals of 24 species, two of which are world-famous.

It's greatest strength is that the attraction is relatively new like the zoo it is located in, meaning that everything is up to date. The animals are all scientifically accurate and matches very similar to the original species from the Mesozoic. Some of the exhibits can be considered the best of their kind. Most of the species we see are little known to the public, meaning they aren't often featured in pop culture like dinosaur documentaries or zoo documentaries. Things it needs work on? The exhibit containing small theropods could probably use a facelift. Regardless, this Jurassic-themed attraction earns an A in my book.

So enough intros, it is time to go through the Jurassic Trails at Cretaceous Park. It begins at the gates consisting a large replica depicting a large ribcage of a giant sauropod, which holds the sign of the Jurassic Trails as you walk through the gate. Your first animals are the theropods from the exhibit I said that needs a facelift, it's an Ornitholestes, name meaning "bird robber". Despite it's name, it is not a predator of birds, it actually mainly feeds on fish, frogs, lizards, snakes, eggs, small mammals, and carrion. Although I did say that the exhibit these theropods live in needs some work, being somewhat smaller than the amount of space it normally needs, at least the exhibit matches the environment very well with vegetation for the Ornitholestes to hide in case it is under stress or it simply needs some privacy.

After passing the Ornitholestes, you finally walk onto the path that makes you look like you are walking through the wilderness during the Jurassic. On the left side of the path, you encounter a large plains exhibit with several trees, and contains the Anchisaurus and the Massospondylus, both of the early sauropodomorphs considered as prosauropods. On the next enclosure, also on the left, you can find the lesser-known sauropods, the club-tailed Shunosaurus and the Cetiosaurus, the oldest sauropod ever discovered as fossil by paleontologists. Here, the modern recreations of both sauropods get along just fine, despite feeding on the same food sources, as they have enough room to allow them to keep each other away from one another in case they're under stress.

Well, just like this guy, it's time to move on. Continuing on the trails, you immediately see an exhibit that resembles a scene from the Galapagos Islands, but rather than giant tortoises or other modern Galapagos animals, it contains the Heterodontosaurus. Now wait, why are these guys given blood and why do they even drink the blood? Now here's why, according to some sources, fanged early ornithiscians of the early Jurassic, including Heterodontosaurus, probably drank blood by cutting the skin of the larger dinosaurs, like the prosauropods we saw earlier, and lapped the blood with their tongues in a manner similar to native modern vampire bats, despite the fact that Heterodontosaurus have molars, so SciiFii created a blood-drinking form of Heterodontosaurus. Although I did hear that the zoo was supposed to be including the plant-eating Heterodontosaurus variant, which would make sense. Oh well, moving along.

On the left side, you can see an enclosure that resembles an American southwest scrublands, which contains the early ornithiscian, Fabrosaurus, a primitive iguanodont, Dryosaurus, and one of the earliest known ankylosaurs, Gargoyleosaurus. These animals are normally seen living together, despite the fact that Fabrosaurus lived before both Dryosaurus and Gargoyleosaurus, and that Fabrosaurus lived in South Africa rather than North America that the other two lived in originally. However, Dryosaurus may have lived with Gargoyleosaurus, like these modern recreations, with the Dryosaurus being smarter and looking out for any possible danger, and the Gargoyleosaurus being stronger and fend off attacks from small and medium-sized predators, like the Ornitholestes we saw earlier.

Back into the right of the trails as you move on, you can see the largest exhibit of the Jurassic Trails and is one of the largest of the two exhibits in Cretaceous Park, and needs to be if it is to contain something like these. The exhibit contains a wide range of large sauropods, including the famous Apatosaurus, the elongated Diplodocus, the longest-necked Mamenchisaurus, an odd-looking Camarasaurus, and the giraffe-like Brachiosaurus. With an open plains exhibit containing redwood trees, conifers, palm trees, and pine trees, the sauropods have an all-you-can-eat buffet here, being able to digest a wide range of leaves from a different species of trees without any ill effects, both inside the exhibit and occasionally the trees from outside the exhibit like the nearby mulberry trees. However, as you can see, they're not alone. Here, you can also find the primitive Early Jurassic armored herbivorous dinosaur, Scelidosaurus, who easily avoids being stepped on by the much-larger sauropods.

Continuing on the trails and you meet the last exhibit of this attraction. Here, on the left side, there's an exhibit with an American southwest-like environment containing the the world's famous Stegosaurus, along with the companions, the yet-another primitive Jurassic iguanodont, Camptosaurus, and the more lesser-known spiky African relative of the Stegosaurus, Kentrosaurus. Just like the Dryosaurus and Gargoyleosaurus, both Camptosaurus and Stegosaurus seem to benefit with each other's presence, with the Camptosaurus being the brains, looking out for possible dangers, and the Stegosaurus being the brawns, defending Camptosaurus and themselves against large predators.

That may be the last of the main exhibits of the Jurassic Trails, but we are not done. Outside, you can see a large walkthrough birdhouse labeled as the Jurassic Aviary, and you walk inside and feel the warm and humid Jurassic atmosphere. However, despite its name, the majority of the animals in the Jurassic Aviary aren't even birds, but are pterosaurs. The walkthrough contains the largest Jurassic pterosaur, Pterodactylus, a small bat-like furry Anurognathus, the fish-eating Rhamphorhynchus, the lesser-known Sordes, and a large-headed Dimorphodon. But this walkthrough aviary at least contains one bird, the Archaeopteryx, the most famous of the early birds of the Jurassic and any part of the Mesozoic period. The staffs of the Jurassic Aviary can even give you mealworm beetle larvae or adult beetles to feed the pterosaurs and Archaeopteryx, allowing them to perch on your shoulders, back, or even head, you can even interact with the flying animals.

After going through the aviary, the tour through the Jurassic Trails is done. Hope you enjoyed this very immersive and extensive walkthrough of one of California's greatest zoos. Rarely featured dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and more, what more could you ask for? So long everyone and thanks again for watching Zoo Tours and I'll see you again.