Before leaving Montréal today, we toured the Biodome. The facility that houses this attraction was originally built as a stadium for the Montréal Olympics. Now it is a giant indoor greenhouse, zoo and aquarium all rolled up into one. There are four different environments represented. The first one is tropical, but the other three are all representative of nature as is found in Canada. They include the northern arboreal forest, as represented in the photos shown above by the lynx kitten and the beaver. Next up are northern tidal waters as representative of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The tern, sea bass and starfish are all species that come from this environ. Finally, there is the Arctic, represented by a penguin and yes, I know that penguins come from the Antarctic, but the display space is currently too small for a polar bear, so deal with it. They do plan on enlarging the Arctic display in the future though. The Biodome was a lot of fun and reminded us of the Climatron in Saint Louis, only much larger.
Hey Mark, I believe that the the tern is a Caspian Tern. Their range includes Michigan – I saw a pair at Birch Point a couple days ago. Last year, I collected a Caspian Tern head and wing off of buoy #24 between the cabin and the Canadian airport.
Cool! I guess since the Caspian Sea has dried up, they’ve emigrated to here