What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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8 WHAT'S UP! MAY 22-28, 2022 FAQ Zoorassic World WHEN — 8 a.m.- 5 p.m. daily, through Sept. 5 WHERE — Tulsa Zoo, 6421 E. 36th St. N. in Tulsa, Okla. COST — Zoo admission is $10-$14; Zoorassic World is an additional $6 INFO — 918-669-6601 or tulsazoo. org BONUS — Zoo members can purchase the $45 Zooras- sic World Add-On, allowing you to receive six admis- sions into Zoorassic World each day through- out the time the exhibit is at the Tulsa Zoo. COVER STORY Around Every Corner BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette S neezy, the Tulsa Zoo's biggest Asian elephant, a male, weighs about 11,000 pounds and stands between 9 and 10 feet tall at the shoulder. (In case you're wondering, that's about three times the weight of a Volkswagen Beetle and almost the height of a one-story building.) The zoo, which opened in 1927, has three elephants, including females Sooky and Booper, and according to Jordan Piha, curator of mammals, all of them "eat hundreds of pounds of food each day — hay, grass, leaves and branches. We also feed them restaurant quality produce and a special grain made specifically for elephants." Imagine, then, the nutritional demands of a Brachiosaurus. Standing 35 feet tall, measuring 65 feet long — the length of two school buses — and weighing in at close to 100,000 pounds, the Brachiosaurus was also an herbivore and lived during the late Jurassic Period about 150 million years ago. Experts estimate he ate as much as 800 pounds of veggies a day. Fortunately, Piha doesn't have to feed his new Brachiosaurus or the other summer visitors at the Tulsa Zoo. The 25 life-sized dinosaurs, dating across the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, are animatronic. But they do almost everything else except eat. "They have a lot of movement, including head and mouth movement, eyes that blink, tails that wag, and some you can even see 'breathing,'" enthuses Pat Weisz, vice president of guest experience for the zoo. "They also make sounds based on what the paleontologists who are studying them in the field hypothesize. Some Tulsa Zoo summer home to 25 dinosaurs The incredibly long neck and specialized teeth of the Brachiosaurus helped the animal forage on vegetation from very tall trees, similar to how giraffes are able to reach vegetation at impressive heights today. (Courtesy Photo)