Summer may still be a month away.
But it unofficially arrives May 16 at the Akron Zoo.
After months of work and helping new critters settle in, the zoo has wrapped up renovations of its Legends of the Wild section.
Some of the section’s residents have been back on display for some time, like the penguins and crowd-favorite mountain lion cubs.
On Saturday, the zoo will open the doors to its newly named Primate Passage building that used to be home to its lemurs.
The renovated digs will be inhabited by critters that are all new to the zoo and native to South America.
Zoo spokesperson Elena Bell said guests have been asking for more monkeys and these additions should make them happy.
Among the new residents are three white-faced saki.
The monkeys — male Toumi, female Clementine and their female 1-year-old, Ripley — are native to northern South America.
They are small and weigh around 4 pounds.
Other monkeys that are making their debut in Akron include the cotton-top tamarins that weigh just 1 pound and are native to the tropical forests of Colombia and the golden lion tamarins that weigh just under 2 pounds. They are native to the rainforest in Brazil.
Another change guests will notice in the indoor habitats, Bell said, is that other animals are being intermingled, such as the sun conure parrot along with the green aracari and the prehensile-tailed porcupine, green-crested basilisk and chinchillas.
Bell said guests are also eager to see the strange-looking axolotl salamander, which is making its Akron debut inside of the Primate Passage building.
Return of the popular DinoTrek
The zoo’s DinoTrek exhibit is also making its debut on Saturday and will run through Sept. 8.
The summertime exhibit will boast some 30 life-size animatronic dinosaurs representing some 23 different dinosaur species that will be placed throughout the zoo grounds.
Bell said when the zoo debuted the DinoTrek last year it saw an attendance boost of some 10%.
“We had to bring them back because they were so popular,” she said.
The exhibit will include the Tyrannosaurus rex that can be found in the Pride of Africa areas along with a Velociraptor and a couple new species including the Iguanodon and Ceratosaurus.
The Dino Up-Close show is returning this summer where guests can get up close to costumed characters including baby dinosaurs, Ducky and Morris, Caesar the T-Rex and a new dino character that will make its debut.
DinoTrek is included with a zoo general admission and is free for Akron Zoo members.
“We have quite a lot of new things,” Bell said. “It is going to be an exciting summer.”
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Zoo to open new monkey exhibits and DinoTrek this weekend
Reporting by Craig Webb, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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