Ready to roar: dinosaurs take over the zoo
FOR nearly 200 years, London Zoo’s exotic animals have fascinated and excited visitors — from today, they might also be terrified on a visit to the dinosaur enclosure.
Life-sized, motorised models of the l a r ge s t animals to walk the Earth have gone on display in the ZSL Zoorassic Park attraction. Each beast is fitted with sensors which means they interact with humans; moving, roaring and even spitting when visitors get up close.
On arrival to the attraction, families will be given time-travelling passports and walk through a tunnel that will transport them millions of years into the past at the Regent’s Park zoo.
They will then meet dinosaurs including the brachiosaurus — a relatively gentle giant — the towering tyranno- saurus rex and the horned triceratops. The armour-plated edmontonia — a tank-like dinosaur covered in spikes — and the flying pterodactyl are also in the attraction.
After their trip to the enclosure, visitors will be taken forward in time to 2050 to learn about the work ZSL’s conservationists are doing to stop today’s creatures becoming extinct like the dinosaurs.
Entry to Zoorassic Park, which opens on Saturday and will be open for six weeks, is included in the ticket price of the zoo.
This weekend, the zoo is also launching summer sleepovers, allowing guests to stay overnight and see the dinosaurs after hours. The sleepovers will over the next two months and will run from 7pm until 10am. Prices start at £85 per person and include entrance to the zoo the next day. For details, visit zsl.org