JungleWorld

The Bronx Zoo, opened in 1899 and run by the New York Zoological Society (now the Wildlife Conservation Society), began planning a large indoor Asian rainforest in 1977 for the southeastern part of the park, the Wild Asia area. The project was completed in June 1985 at a total cost of $9.5 million, of which $4.1 million came from Enid A. Haupt, a member of the society's board of trustees.

The building was intended as more than a display of animals. It was designed to drive home a statistic widely quoted at the time: the loss of some 150 acres (about 61 hectares) of rainforest every minute worldwide.

Since opening, JungleWorld has also served as a breeding centre for several threatened species. More than a hundred silvered langurs have been born there since 1985, making this group one of the largest breeding groups of the species in North America. In 2022 a Matschie's tree-kangaroo joey became the first of its species born at the zoo since 2008, and a second joey from the same mother made its public debut in July 2024.

JungleWorld is the largest building at the Bronx Zoo, covering about one acre (4,000 m²) beneath a 55-foot (17 m) roof. A wooden boardwalk roughly 210 metres long winds through it.

The guiding principle is the absence of visible barriers. There are no bars, the path has only low railings, and most animals are separated from visitors and from each other by ravines, streams or cliffs. The route passes through a sequence of recreated Asian habitats: a volcanic scrub forest, a mangrove, a swamp, and a lowland evergreen rainforest with giant trees that merges into a mountain rainforest. Five museum-style galleries link these habitats and explain how they work.

Lighting is kept deliberately low, like a forest understorey, and high perches are provided for birds and bats. A pond fed by a waterfall offers a place to sit and watch.

Most of the animals come from South and Southeast Asia. Mammals include northern white-cheeked gibbons, whose calls carry through the hall, Asian small-clawed otters, Malayan tapirs, silvered langurs and Javan lutungs, clouded leopards, treeshrews, greater mouse deer and Rodrigues fruit bats. The Matschie's tree-kangaroo from New Guinea is the geographical outlier.

The gharial, shown in connection with a conservation partnership with the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, shares the space with Fly River turtles and gouramis. Birds include storks, lorikeets, Javan pond herons, Nicobar pigeons and great argus pheasants. Smaller forest-floor creatures, among them scorpions, stag beetles and fire-bellied toads, are displayed behind glass.

JungleWorld stands in the Wild Asia section of the Bronx Zoo, which covers 265 acres (107 hectares) of Bronx Park. It is open year-round, and its tropical warmth makes it a welcome stop during a New York winter. Entry is included in the zoo's general admission, while limited-admission tickets require a surcharge.

The dim lighting takes a few minutes to adjust to, and strollers must be parked outside. The seating by the waterfall pool is a good place to pause and watch, or to wait for the gibbons to call.