Red Pandas will also be part of the Asia expansion, after the Reid Park Zoo hosted a pair for a few months in late 2017.

Zoo staff members are narrowing down specific species for the reptile house, but visitors can expect to see snakes, lizards, insects and a Komodo dragon. Fruit bats will have a habitat outside of the reptile house and the zoo is also planning to house cranes in a rice paddy exhibit.

AFRICA EXPANSION

Design and planning for Phase 2, the Africa expansion, is a few years off, Kluge said, but the zoo is planning to construct an African safari lodge, an underwater hippo habitat and a rhino feeding area. The lodge will offer giraffe feeding from the second floor and hidden barriers between the different habitats will create the impression that guests are looking out at a real African savanna.

Elephants are a hallmark of the zoo, Kluge said, their habitat taking up a quarter of the zoo’s acreage and a quarter of its animal care staff. The seven-acre exhibit opened in 2012 and is getting ready to welcome another baby elephant next spring, the second born at Reid Park Zoo and in the state since Nandi’s birth in August 2014.