San Antonio Zoo set to unveil new exhibit

The San Antonio Zoo is on track to unveil an exhibit this fall featuring animals native to places such as Southern Mexico, the Caribbean, and South and Central America.

The new realm will be named Neotropica and will include a oneof-a-kind catwalk for jaguars that will allow the wild cats to roam above the exhibit and visitors. The walkway has been named Pantera Walk, the zoo said.

Joining the jaguars in the new exhibit will be bird species such as the roseate spoonbills, scarlet ibis and white-winged ducks. Visitors also will be able to check out a yellow anaconda, Cuvier’s dwarf caiman crocodiles, howler monkeys and South American fish.

The zoo, however, is not adding new species. The animals that will be featured in the new exhibit already are housed at the zoo.

Neotropica and the Pantera Walk are expected to open in late October or early November.

Neotropica will be the zoo’s first new realm since the completion of Wild Australia in 2019. The exhibit will be a nod to pre-Hispanic cultures,

re-creating a remote fishing village with characteristics of the Americas, the zoo said.

Tim Morrow, the zoo’s president and CEO, said Neotropica will highlight the zoo’s conservation efforts in the parts of the world represented by the exhibit.

The zoo works with indigenous tribes such as the Bora in the upper Amazon Basin of Peru to help protect the rain forest through a conservation effort called Project Selva. It also has joined forces with an organization in Mexico named the Wild Cats of Tamaulipas that works on the conservation of jaguars.

Photos courtesy San Antonio Zoo San Antonio Zoo officials released renderings of their new Neotropica realm, including the one-of-a-kind jaguar walk.

Neatropica will feature animals native to places such as Southern Mexico, the Caribbean and South America.