Rainforest Pyramid (Moody Gardens)

Moody Gardens was founded in 1986 by the Moody Foundation. The site belongs to the City of Galveston and the foundation runs it as a public, non-profit educational destination that uses nature to advance rehabilitation, conservation, recreation and research. The landscape design was commissioned from Geoffrey Jellicoe. The first attraction, Palm Beach, opened in 1988 with white sand imported from Florida.

The Rainforest Pyramid opened in 1993. It was the first of the three glass pyramids that became the emblem of the site, followed by the science-oriented Discovery Pyramid in 1997 and the Aquarium Pyramid in 1999. Guinness World Records lists it as the largest pyramid-shaped greenhouse.

In 2008 Hurricane Ike badly damaged the structure. A 25-million-dollar enhancement programme funded by the Moody Foundation allowed it to reopen on 28 May 2011, adding among other things a walkway that takes visitors up to canopy level. In 2022 new displays grouped as Rainforests of the World: Dynamic Dwellers introduced a honey bee colony, leafcutter ants, new amphibians and 21 invertebrate exhibits.

The Rainforest Pyramid is a fully glazed pyramid ten storeys high. Guinness World Records gives it a height of 43.13 m (141 ft 6 in) and a footprint of 40,000 square feet (3,716 m²). This volume allows the rainforest to be layered on several levels, and the route leads from the treetops down to the forest floor and even underground.

The interior is organised in zones: the canopy, entered from above by the walkway added in the works completed in 2011; Nightfall, a nocturnal area with a bat cave; the forest floor, enlivened by a waterfall and pools; and the Sunrise Gallery, devoted to invertebrates. A honey bee colony reaches the outside through a two-foot tube.

The two other pyramids at Moody Gardens repeat the same form; the Aquarium Pyramid, the tallest, has about twelve storeys.

The pyramid evokes the rainforests of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Figures vary between sources: more than 1,700 species of plants and animals according to Guinness World Records, about a thousand plant species, from trees and shrubs to flowers, according to Wikipedia.

The animals include giant river otters, presented as the largest otter species, free-roaming saki monkeys and cotton-top tamarins, two-toed sloths, ocelots, a Komodo dragon, prehensile-tailed porcupines, pygmy slow lorises, free-flying birds, fish of tropical rivers and bats. The 2022 additions focus on small creatures: fungus-farming leafcutter ants, dermestid beetles and other decomposers, axolotls, Lake Titicaca frogs and a Project Piaba tank, together with new plants from the three continents.

The pyramid stands at 1 Hope Boulevard on Galveston Island, at the heart of Moody Gardens, a 242-acre (98 ha) site accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums that receives about two million visitors a year. One to two hours allow a descent from the canopy to the forest floor by way of the nocturnal zone. The visit can be extended to the other two pyramids: the Aquarium Pyramid, reopened in 2017 with a 1.5-million-gallon tank, and the Discovery Pyramid, given over to temporary exhibitions and simulation films.