Jungle Fever

Zurich is about the last place in the world you'd expect to see a red-ruffed lemur or panther chameleon — in the middle of the alpine winter, no less. But the city's zoo on Zurichbergstrasse is a tropical jungle all year round. The 10,000-sq-m greenhouse is one of the world's largest man-made rain forests: its humidity and temperature faithfully re-create the climate and ecosystem of the endangered rain forest on Madagascar's Masoala Peninsula.

After the initial climatic shock — it helps to remove as much clothing as you decently can — you find yourself surrounded by giant trees with twisted roots, rubber plants sprouting bell-shaped flowers, raffia palms, orchids and periwinkles. As you pass a large tortoise lurking under a fern and shriek at a fruit bat flying over your head, you may wonder whether you are still in Zurich. And that's how the zoo's director, Alex Rübel, intended it. Opened in June 2003, after a decade of planning and construction, the j33.5 million project boasts such high-tech features as light-sensitive roof foil that maintains high temperature and humidity, a waterfall and man-made rain from sprinklers pouring up to 80,000 liters of water a day. Some 17,000 species of plants and 2,500 trees were brought in from Madagascar.

Spotting a lemur — an endangered primate indigenous to Madagascar — is a matter of luck; you have a better chance of seeing one in the morning before they retreat to an island built on an artificial lake. After all, as in any jungle, the idea is to try to see the animals in their natural habitat, rather than their cages. But even if you don't get to see the elusive lemur, you may encounter one of over 100 other animals living among the lush vegetation, such as the grey mouse maki, the aye-aye, the tree boa or the girdled lizard. No Tarzan sightings have been reported — yet. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.