Opening | Exhibit Description | Animal Species | Plant Species | Press Release
ZOO BRINGS AMAZON TO OREGON
Emerald tree boas, fresh water stingrays, howler monkeys, and colorful toucans can be seen in new state-of-the-art exhibit
Portland, Ore.Beginning this fall, Oregon Zoo visitors can experience a remote jungle in South America without leaving the Pacific Northwest by visiting the zoos new Amazon Flooded Forest exhibit. The new exhibit will be unveiled Saturday, September 29, 2001.
For nearly six months each year torrential rains flood the Amazon basin, transforming it into a watery world, known as the varzea. The varzea is home to some of the planets most extraordinary and diverse plants and animals.
The plants, animals and people there actually thrive when the river is at flood stage, said Oregon Zoo Director Tony Vecchio. There are many species of fish, which do most of their feeding during floods, swimming up into the branches of submerged trees to eat the seeds, nuts and fruit. These unique fruit-eating fish take on the role of seed dispersers by passing the seeds from different trees far from where they were consumed, creating new generations of trees when the waters recede.
With their first step into the zoo's Amazon Flooded Forest, visitors will be transported to a world inhabited by stunning emerald tree boas, colorful poison dart frogs and large Brazilian cockroaches. The distinctive songs of paradise tanagers can be heard as they fly from limb to limb in the forest canopy. On a branch nearby, a motmot tries to attract a mate by twitching its long tail from side to side like a metronome. As visitors travel deeper into the Amazon, they'll encounter marmosets, agouti (a friendly rodent the size of a cat), iguanas and rare species of fish, some of which grow as large as seven feet. In the treetops, large beautiful birds such as Swainsons and channel billed toucans perch as they watch the other birds that call the canopy home. 
Nearby, saki and howler monkeys can be seen grooming and swinging on sturdy vines. Spending much of its day sleeping, the two-toed sloth hangs upside-down on a mossy branch. Just below the vines and tree limbs are deep shadowy pools of water. Here reside fearsome-looking caiman and unusual Amazonian fish, including rarely seen species such as orange spot freshwater stingrays, arawana, heckle discus, Amazon catfish, bucktooth tetras and arapaima. The largest fish are the arapaima, which can grow up to 10 feet and weigh 400 pounds. The Amazon catfish is also impressive, growing to six feet and weighing up to 600 pounds.
The best has been saved for last. In this pool, visitors encounter small fish darting in and out of soft beams of sunlight. The fish are wary because they share their world with the largest predator of the Amazonthe green anaconda. Anaconda can grow up to 30 feet, making it the worlds largest snake. Here visitors enter the anacondas watery world (without getting wet!) and literally come eye to eye with this legendary and elusive snake.
The anaconda is almost mythical, Vecchio said. To see a giant snake like that underwater is unforgettable.
After months of design and construction, the ambitious exhibit will feature several mixed species exhibits and flood the entire front of the exhibit, making it one of the first of its kind at any zoo.
According to Mike Marshall, primate keeper, This is a big departure for us. Well have in this one exhibit the full spectrum of species living in this ecosystem mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. It will really give you a sense of what an Amazon forest is like.
The Amazon Flooded Forest is the first phase of a multi-year renovation of the zoos 40-year-old primate house. Originally built in 1959, the exhibit was last renovated in 1980 to include Chimp Island and several other exhibits.
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