It’s funny how we (I) can live our lives in such a bubble. Opened in 2016, The Green Planet, like most things in Dubai, is relatively new. However, it still surprises me that I didn’t know about it until a birthday party there a few weeks ago. I must have driven past it before!
I’m not even sure how I could miss such a striking structure, especially as it sits aside from the City Walk as part of the City Walk expansion, practically all on its own.
As we enter, we’re greeted at the door by a blue neck parrot from South-East Asia. He’s noisy if not talkative and very, very pretty. When we’re ready – the boys take a browse through the shop – we enter through the rainforest floor and are then taken up the lift to the 4th floor. We emerge out into the canopy of the rainforest.
Green Planet is an indoor rainforest ecosystem. The huge bio-dome is designed to recreate the enchanting, biodiverse world of a tropical rainforest. The dome centres around a 25m high man-made yet life sustaining tree, with around 3,000 plants and animals all within reach inside.
As we enter the canopy, we’re greeted by more parrots. There are two large green parrots here, both just as inquisitive of me as I am of them. After having a chat with the parrots and watching them eat some bits of seed and fruit, we’re invited into the bat cave. This is some coincidence as Harley is in his favorite Bat Man t-shirt. Turns out he has little patience for these creatures though.
The bat cave is newly opened at the Green Planet. These tiny creatures, only around 3 inches tall, breed quickly and have been recently acquired from an overcrowded facility in Europe. As my eyes adjust to the dim light, there are bats flying all over the place. They’re active at the moment as they’re just having lunch and given how fast they move, I’m surprised to hear that there are only around 50 in here, with a capacity for a couple of thousand.
Back out into the light and there are even more things to discover. We walk over a ramp and are right in the canopy of the tree. There is a platform with information and a cockroach skitters across the floor to the kids’ delight. I turn around and these two little brightly colored Brazilian parrots are checking me out. There is a keeper nearby and I rather suspect that they’re hanging around, waiting for a treat. They’re not shy either and if I put my hand out they’re close enough to reach. I don’t trust those beaks though and you’re not supposed to touch the birds.
There is nothing stopping them touching us though and after spending some time admiring this toucan, we have a closer encounter than we had expected as he flies past giving us a bit of a swoop and a bit of a fright!
Although we can’t touch the birds (and don’t particularly want them touching us either!) there are other things that can be touched. We pat a millipede and learn that it has four legs for every segment of its body. They can grow up to 16 inches. I’m glad this one isn’t quite that long.
Not all the exhibits are live. There are some information stations with microscopes and interactive screens to provide further details. There are also some more creatures that shouldn’t be touched, like the baby tarantula and the weaver ants. The weaver ants can vary in color with their abdomen either a shade of red or green. These ones look primarily green and they’re busily weaving their leaves together with the silk produced by their larvae. There are several nests, one of which would host their queen.
They work quickly and efficiently and I can see how they would use their cooperation to coordinate moving large prey around. As we circle down from the canopy to the midstory of the tree, there are more weird and wonderful things to discover.
This baby python looks like the common carpet or diamond pythons found in Australia and I’m somewhat relived that the boys are happy to given him a pat. On this level there are more displays of information and some featuring a number of different types of lizards. Most of them are hiding or at least camouflaged, the primary defenses against predators. This guy, however, seems not to require any further defenses as he looks like he’s already departed this world. Either that or he’s in need of a very good facial.
The next creature we meet is only slightly less lazy. Sloths are arboreal mammals. They move very slowly and sleep an average of up to 18 hours per day, similar to cats. However cats are predators and sloths are not. Their diet consists of leaves, fruits, insects and sometimes small lizards. Anything that they can find while they hang about in the trees. In fact, in the wild, sloths move so little that due to the humid environs in which they live, algae can actually grow on their fur.
This cute creature is completely unaffected by the attention that she’s receiving and stops for a snack of cashews and grapes as she makes her way around the bannister.
In contrast to the leisurely pace of the sloth, the squirrel monkey barely stays still long enough for me to get a clear picture. There are a couple in this enclosure and they chase each other around and play in front of the crowd gathered at different levels watching. In the wild in the canopy of the Amazon rainforests they spend most of their time in their search for provisions. They eat a wide range of fruit and insects and in this respect, actually play an important role in controlling insect populations in the environments in which they live.
Next level down is another cluster of creatures including this chameleon that we can observe up close. As we approach he’s on the trunk of the tree looking rather greyish green. A few minutes later, he’s moved onto a higher branch and has turned a distinctly pinkish shade. His rather off-putting ability to rotate his eyes gives him 360° vision meaning that he doesn’t need to move at all to be able to see all around him.
At the same time as the chameleon is climbing around, Jasper has a hold of some sort of giant cockroach looking creature. It looks like something I wouldn’t normally touch but after seeing him in hysterics from being tickled I give this unusual creature a perch for a minute or two.
Here there are exhibitions of more frogs, lizards and insects. We peer into boxes of all sorts of creatures. The boys ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the weird and wonderful things on this amazing planet. The emerald green of the tree boa, the vibrant green of a tree frog, the yellows and oranges of the parrots and the blues and greens of birds of the forest floor.
We’ve probably been here for a good couple of hours by now. There is a large fish tank on the bottom level but it’s currently undergoing renovations. There are still some turtles here and I duck under a huge lizard sitting up on a rock after I’m told that he sometimes jumps on people.
We exit the rainforest back into the shop. After the real animals the toys here look cute and cuddly but, well, not so real. After all, what could be more incredible than Mother Nature. She’s certainly at her best here at Green Planet.
Good To Know
The Green Planet is located next to City Walk, less than 10 minutes from Downtown Dubai and Dubai Mall.
Would I Return?
Yes. There are heaps of children that I’m hoping will visit us in Dubai that I know would love it here. Plus, I don’t think you could get sick of this kind of immersion in Mother Nature.