Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum – Tucson, Arizona
Combine a world class zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden and you have the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. This fabulous facility has been available for visitors with its exhibits of live animals for over a half a century. The exhibits are set for the comfort of both the animals and the visitors with the natural landscape of the Sonoran Desert Region. Here you will have the opportunity to go eye to eye with a mountain lion a Gila monster or maybe just a prairie dog. There are more than 300 animal species and 1,200 different types of plants within the compound with almost 2 miles of paths going through the 21 acres of exploration and education.
The museum was founded in 1952 to provide educational programming, conserve the Sonoran Desert environment, adding to and improving the museum’s collections and supporting the ongoing research and advancing scientific understanding of the desert and helping to sharpen and encourage the stewardship of the land by the people that live and visit the area.
If you have between 2 and 3 hours you will be able to see most of the museum, but feel free to take longer, it is worth the time to enjoy the entire facility without hurrying. It is an outdoor museum so be sure to dress appropriately, wear a hat, sunscreen and comfortable shoes. There are drinking fountains and shade ramadas on the grounds to enable you to take a break, all indoor exhibits are cooled for your comfort.
The people that you see at the museum who are wearing white shirts are docents (specially trained volunteers to help you gain a better understanding of the museum.) Feel free to ask them questions, they will do their best to answer you.
Pets, other than trained service animals assisting visitors, are not allowed on the grounds so leave them at home NOT IN YOUR CAR!
Most of the exhibits at the museum are living exhibits. All are native to the Sonoran Desert region, with very few exceptions (an African euphorbia, for example, to illustrate convergent evolution).
The Museum also has an extensive Sonoran Desert region gem, mineral, and fossil collection of which some are on display at the Earth Science Center. This is a fascinating area to visit so be sure to take a few minutes and go through it.
The museum works with the federal and state recovery programs to assist in protecting such things as the Mexican gray wolf, the thick-billed parrot and several amphibians as well as plants that are on the endangered list.
Hours: Open every day of the year. from June – August they are open from 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.. March – September from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. with no entry after 4:15 p.m. and October – February from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. with no entry after 4:15.
Admission: June – August: Adults: $9.50, Kids 6 – 12 $2.25 From September – May Adults $13 and Kids 6-12 $4.25. Children 5 and under are FREE.
Location: 2021 N. Kinney Rd., Tucson, Arizona 85743
Phone: 520-883-1380
Email: info@desertmuseum.org.
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