Journal-News.com

Indianapolis Zoo
1200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46222
(317) 630-2001
www.indianapoliszoo.com
Area Zoos and Aquarium Guide

Driving distance: 119 miles from downtown Dayton. Allow at least two hours.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

Ticket prices: March through October: Adults, $13.50; Seniors 62 and older, children 2 through 12, $8.50; children 1 and younger and members, free. "Community Tuesdays": $7 on Aug. 7, Sept. 4, Oct. 2, Nov. 6. January, February, November and December: Adults, $8.50; seniors 62 and older and children 2 through 12, $6.50.

Attendance: 1.1 million annually.

Acreage: 68 acres.

Animals: 1,100 animals representing 190 species.

Main attraction: Dolphin Adventure: For an additional registration fee, guests can sign up to get into the water with the popular dolphins. This special program must be reserved in advance. Fee is $185. Visit the Zoo's Web site at indianapoliszoo.com to sign up for the dolphin in-water program.

Specialties & zoo trivia:

• Oceans exhibit opened in 2007 with a shark touch pool.

• Baby elephants Kedar and Zahara born from an elephant breeding program.

• Three walruses (somewhat rare in American zoos). One of them, Nereus, is the star of an Animal Planet program called "Growing Up Walrus."

• Penguins who "fly" beneath the feet of visitors via a window in the floor.

• The only roller coaster in Indianapolis.

• Program for breeding Jamaican iguanas.

• Originally opened in 1964 as a children's zoo. The "new" zoo opened in 1988 after moving to White River State Park near downtown.

• The first zoo to be triple-accredited as a zoo, aquarium and botanical garden.

• The first zoo to have a building dedicated specifically for education programs.

• The Dolphin Adventure pavilion is one of the two largest indoor dolphin facilities in the nation and houses bottle-nosed dolphins, including three calves born at the zoo.

• Produced the first and second elephants ever to be born via artificial insemination.

• During the summer, White River Gardens at the Zoo has a butterfly exhibit with more than a thousand butterflies.

• Dolphin shows every day.

Insider's view: From Sarah Burnette, communications coordinator at the zoo: "One of my favorite things is actually sitting in the Dolphin Dome while the show is going on upstairs. Although you miss the fun of the narration and seeing the dolphins jump high in the air, you get a perspective a lot of people would miss ... watching the dolphins swim so fast from one end of the pool to the other, seeing how they dive so deep to make the jumps, and then when they do make the jumps, their dive back into the water seems so shallow. It's fun, with the reflections of the water shimmering on the floor. A few other people have discovered this and it's as if we all share this great secret.

"My other favorite place is on the lagoon right across from the Encounters area. You can sit and watch the ducks, dragonflies and red-wing blackbirds. It's almost like you are in the country, secluded but right off the main pathway. Most people miss it!"