Vienna, Austria – While winter chills grip the city, Schönbrunn Zoo is building a slice of rainforest indoors. After 20 years, the rainforest house is undergoing a full renovation and will reopen this year with a completely new concept, offering visitors a tropical world of discovery and highlighting the ecological importance of rainforests.

Among the new animal arrivals are endangered Chinese pangolins, currently housed in only two European zoos. Adjacent to them, a spectacular new attraction is taking shape: a gigantic bat enclosure rising over eight meters high. “Here, we experience the rainforest at night. In the moonlight, surrounded by wisps of mist, we look across a body of water directly into the rainforest and can observe the fascinating flower-pollinated bats,” said Zoo Director Dr. Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck.

In this part of the rainforest house, day and night are reversed so nocturnal animals can be observed during visiting hours. The steel and concrete shell of the enclosure already hints at its impressive size. Flower bats, currently housed in the terrarium, are ready for their move.

In South American rainforests, these bats are key pollinators, visiting up to 1,000 flowers each night to collect nectar and pollen. “In the rainforest house, visitors will be able to observe this fascinating behavior up close. Flower bats are only about the size of mice, but their tongues are one and a half times as long as their bodies. At special nectar feeders, they will hover in the air—much like hummingbirds—take in food, and then disappear back into the darkness of the rainforest,” explained curator Anton Weissenbacher.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download