Celebrate the season!
Frolic under flurries, enjoy festive performances, and meet baby animals at 'Tis the Season for Science, open daily through Jan. 5.
We're open daily! View holiday hours
Osher Rainforest
Step inside a lush, four-story rainforest that's teeming with life—from free-flying birds to exotic reptiles, amphibians, golden silk orb-weaver spiders, and enormous Amazonian fish that glide overhead.
Inside the dome, a magnificent neotropical rainforest stretches 90 feet above. Delight in the exploits of 1,600+ live plants and animals, including taxicab-like sun beetles, leafcutter ants hard at work, and a slithering Amazonian tree boa.
From the canopy, plunge (via elevator) four stories down for a beneath-the-surface view of an Amazonian flooded forest. At each stage of the journey, you'll come face-to-face with some of the incredible animals that call these forests home.
Butterflies aflutter
Watch the life cycle of tropical butterflies and moths unfold before your eyes. In our butterfly emergence chamber on the top floor of the rainforest, you'll see shiny chrysalises and structurally impressive cocoons alongside butterflies stretching their newly formed wings.
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About the dome
Housed within a spectacular 90-foot-diameter glass dome, our rainforest exhibit is the largest of its kind in the world. With temperatures of 82–85 degrees and humidity at 75 percent or above, it will instantly transport you to some of the most biodiverse places on Earth.
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Tropical flora
The rainforest's living plants include trees like the Brazilian beauty leaf and West Indies mahogany, dozens of shrubs—including Theobroma cacao, the plant from which chocolate is made—and hundreds of flowering plants, from begonias and philodendrons to orchids, bromeliads, and our rare corpse flower.
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Animals of the rainforest
More than 1,600 live animals reside in our rainforest dome, including 250 free-flying birds and butterflies and close to 100 exotic reptiles and amphibians. From the bright flashes of blue morpho butterflies to the jewel-like colors of poison-dart frogs, you'll see fauna at its most dazzling.
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The flooded forest
Surround yourself with hundreds of tropical, freshwater fish by taking the flooded forest tunnel, a transparent passage that plunges right through our 100,000-gallon Amazonian tank. See cichlids dart through the roots of a mangrove cluster while turtles and arowana soar overhead.
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Hours & location
Osher Rainforest opens 30 minutes after the museum opens Monday–Saturday.
Monday–Saturday, 10 am–4:45 pm
Sunday, 11 am–4:45 pm
Enter the rainforest on the Main Floor, across from the Academy Café.
That splash in Osher Rainforest could be an arowana. Meet our elegant, occasionally acrobatic Amazonian fish.
Beautiful and social, these birds are even known to feed chicks belonging to other members of their flock.
Welcome to the Academy's hub for exploration, with books, games, specimens, and more. Open daily; hours vary.
Five new species on exhibit, each with their own superpower. Meet the supergroup you didn't know you needed.
Ascend into the rainforest canopy for a week of science crafts, activities, coloring, and videos for ages 4-8.
Discover how animals have evolved fascinating methods of living in and out of water.
Grainy cochran frogs, known as "glass frogs," have translucent bellies that reveal bones and organs.