CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- Otherworldly creatures are among us once more. And, for a day, they are free.
Discovery Place is waiving admission fees Sunday as it reopens the last attractions after an 18-month, $31.6 million renovation. Sunday, it pulls back the curtains on its critters.
Bug-eyed or blind, colorful or camouflaged, finned or feathered, its menagerie stretches from the upgraded rain forest to an expanded network of aquariums to terrariums leaping with oddball frogs.
It's a jungle in there, which suits BJ just fine.
At age 25, BJ is the most vocal of Discovery Place's exotic inmates. A blue-and-gold macaw of South American lineage, she made it clear from the start 18 months ago she didn't care for renovations going on in the museum's rain forest, her home since the mid-'90s.
There was the noise, for one thing. But what apparently rankled her most was the way the fix-up crew ignored her.
"She doesn't like it when people are in here not paying attention to her," says Elliot Provance, Discovery Place's chief animal wrangler. "She likes lots of attention."
So BJ, with a life expectancy of about 100, got a vacation. She was assigned to an enclosure at the "Shipwreck!" exhibit, where she could chit-chat with visitors.
BJ has a good vocabulary: She's able to say "Hello," "Uh-oh," "What's Up?", ask for treats and imitate laughter. Now she's got a new perch high in the rain forest, which has a fresh deck in the canopy level, a rope bridge and wooden railings in tune with the tropical motif.
Other creatures went with the flow. Red-footed tortoises Herbie, 17, and Tank, 24, were right at home with the hard-hat crowd. Squeakers the duck had no complaints. Wood partridges, which strut about with handsome mohawk crests, even bred during the work.
They've been joined by dozens of species for the reopening. Among them are three endangered red-faced parrot finches from New Caledonia, Madagascar giant day geckos that were bred in Miami, an iguana, four kinds of frogs and freshwater stingrays.
Chosen for their ability to play well with others, they are harmonious companions.
Also, there are about 50 new species of plants, including vanilla vines, ferns, palms and coffee trees.
A dead black locust tree, found on the campus of Warren Wilson College in Asheville and highly resistant to rot despite the humidity and heat of the enclosure, has become home to orchids and epiphytic plants that like to live in trees.
More aquarium space
On the ground floor are 15 aquariums holding a total of 24,000 gallons of water, triple the old exhibits. In one tank, moon jellyfish pulsate gently like living balloons; in another, white-spotted bamboo sharks mingle with stingrays and other fish.
Colorful clownfish form a school of miniature Nemos and never seem to tire of gawking open-mouthed at strangers. Atlantic lined seahorses bob in another tank.
Sparky, the official electric eel of Discovery Place for a decade, is back home. She went to the Catawba Science Center in Hickory for about a year while her aquarium was constructed.
It took a rubber net, rubber gloves, a big cooler and several gallons of courage to send her on her way.
"They can pack a punch," says Provance.
Frogs of many colors
"Fantastic Frogs" is a new exhibition that features 15 species of amphibians chosen for their spectacular adaptations, though not necessarily for their energy.
"This is the laziest frog on Earth," Provance says, pointing to a bloated lump of lime green called the Pacman frog. "Instead of fleeing, they just puff up and hope the predator goes away."
In the exhibit's 10 other terrariums, one can find poison dart frogs, including the deadliest of the species, or the clever tomato frog from Madagascar, which deals with unwanted attention by secreting a slimy toxin predators find disgusting.
Another pen holds the Vietnamese mossy frog, a sight for sharp eyes. Its skin is identical to the moss it hides in, and finding it takes some looking. Ditto for the Solomon Island leaf frog, a leafish specimen mostly invisible even to museum staff.
Also returning to the museum's animal ranks, though not in the category of technically alive, is the stuffed Kodiak bear.
"That was one of the iconic objects we didn't want to lose," says Dean Briere, Discovery Place vice president of strategic enterprises.
Not attending Sunday's reopening is Henrietta, who has found a new home at the Bronx Zoo in New York and seems content to stay. An 85-pound Burmese python, she was for years one of the rain forest's big attention-getters.
So far, BJ hasn't asked about her.
