Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Today we visited the Sonora Desert Museum located near Saguaro National Park West; the museum bills it’s self as a world renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden. The cost of admission for both of us was $26.00 and it is debatable if it was worth that price. Everything at the museum is well done but most of the botanical portion is available in the National Park or for free in the desert near Tucson, we were interested in the zoo and we did enjoy seeing the insects and animals of all types.

Inside the Hummingbirds exhibit. 

 

 

Some portions of the museum were very crowded which made it difficult to see some of the animals, but there are a lot of animals to see and they are displayed throughout the museum so you could move on and check back later; we saw a lot of wildlife that would be difficult to locate even with a lot more effort.

 

Desert Big Horn.

Mountain Lions.

Black Bear.

Mexican Wolf.

Coyote.

Javelina.

Grey Fox.

 

We did attend one program titled Animals Run Wild which showed some animals found in habitats relatively near to Tucson, although geared toward children the program was enjoyable.

A Ring Tail.

Skunk.

Porcupine.

Parrot.

 

Although crowded, if time is an issue this would be a good stop to see desert flora, fauna, science and history in one visit that is fairly easy to access. If you have the time and ability to do some hiking most of the plants can be viewed throughout the area but the animals are a little harder to see and in many cases should be avoided in the wild.

Sandy and Teddy-Bear Cholla.

Flowering cactus.