Indianapolis Zoo: Second to None

I recently went to the Indianapolis Zoo with my girlfriend and had an amazing time. There was so much to see and do. The Indianapolis Zoo is located in downtown Indianapolis in the White River State Park. 

The zoo has 5 exhibits all boasting a wide variety of animals. The names of the exhibits are Forests, Oceans, Marine Mammals, Deserts and Great Plains. My favorite exhibit was the marine mammals. At this exhibit, we probably spent about 20 minutes at the polar bears tank watching him swim around and come right up to the glass where we were standing. It’s amazing how big some of the animals actually are when you are standing next to them. At one point the polar bear stopped and put its head right next to the glass where a little girl was sitting to watch him. Everyone immediately started to take pictures. This was such an odd sight and was amazing exactly how much bigger the bear was that the little girl. In addition to the polar bears, the Marine Mammals’ exhibit also included walruses, polar bears, seals and sea lions and the very popular free dolphin show. The dolphin show was a very fun activity to attend and it attracted a large amount of people. Warning for attending the show: Do NOT sit in the front if you do not want to get wet.

Aside from all the fun that we had inside of the Marine Mammals’ exhibit, the coolest part of our day came while in the Great Plains exhibit. While we were standing at the ledge of the giraffe exhibit, we suddenly noticed that all of them had begun to look at us and even come a bit closer than usual. Pretty soon a zoo keeper came up to us and told us that they would be beginning to feed the giraffes and we could actually feed them a carrot if we paid one dollar. We opted not to feed them, but instead to step to the side and take pictures of them as they walked right up to the ledge. It was a great experience. Never in my life would I have even imagined that I would get to be so close to a creature as big as a giraffe.

In addition to these to exhibits there are also some other must see animals and exhibits. A great place to take kids would be to the country’s largest shark pool inside of the Oceans exhibit. Kids get to reach their hands inside of the pool and touch a dogshark. Another cool animal to see are the lemurs. The baby lemurs are very fun to watch, and when we were there, they spent the majority of their time clinging on to their mother’s backs. Some other interesting animals to check out are the penguins, red panda, tigers, eagles, and the peacocks.

I had an amazing time at the zoo and will definitely be back again.

Photos courtesy of IndianapolisZoo.com