Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Zoo, botanical garden and museum in Tucson, United States.
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a combination zoo, botanical garden and natural history facility on the outskirts of Tucson in Arizona, covering around 98 acres (40 hectares). The grounds connect outdoor enclosures for mountain lions, wolves and otters with cactus gardens, mineral displays and an open-air hummingbird aviary.
William Henry Carr founded this facility in September 1952 to protect and study the ecosystems of the Sonoran Desert. Over the following decades, the site expanded with underground galleries for reptiles and caves and a cat enclosure that emerged in the 1970s.
The regional focus appears through community programs with Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui traditions that use desert plants for food and medicine. Visitors today see demonstrations of traditional basket weaving and hear stories about the spiritual meaning of desert animals like the Gila woodpecker or the desert tortoise.
The facility opens earlier in summer to beat the heat and closes at sunset, while in winter it starts slightly later and stays open until evening. Paths climb gently and pass through shaded areas with benches, and most stations are accessible by stroller or wheelchair.
The underground galleries offer a chance to watch nocturnal animals like scorpions, bats and tarantulas under dim lighting, with reversed day-night cycles. A special area displays living fossils like the coelacanth in an aquarium replicating deep-sea ocean conditions.
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