Sky Dome
Opened in 1965 as a new addition to Reptile Gardens, this indoor jungle was virtually unheard of in the US at the time. The Sky Dome was rebuilt after a fire in 1976 destroyed everything except for an old Ponderosa Pine skeleton. The same tree still stands as the centerpiece of the Safari Room on the main level. The new Sky Dome was opened in 1977 with new animals and exotic plants.
Not only does the Sky Dome feature beautiful plants, unique creatures and sculptures from Papua New Guinea and Bali, Indonesia, but this indoor jungle also houses a replica of the largest turtle fossil ever found, an Archelon turtle fossil, the largest turtle species yet discovered. The original fossil was found by paleontologists a short distance from Reptile Gardens in the 1970s. Despite efforts from owner Earl Brockelsby, the original fossil was sold to a museum in Vienna, Austria.
Read more about this topic: Reptile Gardens
Famous quotes containing the words sky and/or dome:
“And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The sun, the hero of every day, the impersonal old man that beams as brightly on death as on birth, came up every morning and raced across the blue dome and dipped into the sea of fire every evening. Water ran down hill and birds nested.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)