Jambo! Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom just turned 20 years old this Month! (Can you believe it?) And to wish them a Happy Birthday, we’ve dug up 20 fun facts for 20 wild years that you might not know about Animal Kingdom.
1. It’s the biggest park on Disney property
At 403 acres Animal Kingdom is by far the largest of all four parks at Walt Disney World, and the largest Disney park in the world. You could even almost fit all of Epcot & the Magic Kingdom on top of it’s foot print. Or you you could squeeze nearly four Magic Kingdoms inside Animal Kingdom.
2. Kilimanjaro Safaris is HUGE.
Kilimanjaro Safari’s occupies 110 acres of land. That one attraction is larger than the entire Magic Kingdom’s 107 acres. That’s one ride larger than an entire theme park!
3. Flora from everywhere
There are more than 4 million plants, trees, shrubs and flowers planted here to make each habitat as realistic as possible. There are plants from every continent except Antarctica in side the park.
4. Florida Oaks on the African savannah
But although the brought plants in from around the world, the trees at Kilimanjaro Safari are just Florida oak trees trimmed to look like classic Acacia trees on the African Savannah.
5. Lion cooling units
Ever notice how the lions are usually found roughy around the same spot atop some rocks in the savanna? Disney wanted to make sure guests would be always be able to get a good view of the lions while making sure the big cats were also comfortable. The also put salt licks and hide feeding stations near the roadway to encourage animals to hang out where they’d be seen.
6. Bedtime for the animals
All of the animals come back to an enclosure at the end of the night. They’re all trained to respond to an audio cue that calls them back for the night. Some are called back by drums, or cowbells. The giraffes are called back by a coach’s whistle.
7. The Tree of Life
There are 325 animal sculptures on the Tree of Life. Sculptors had only between 6 and 10 hours to create and finish each each animal before the plaster hardened, and then had to attach the trees 103,000 leaves by hand. The leaves were also designed to sway in the breeze.
8. Some serious recycling
The Tree was actually built on an old oil platform that was re-purposed to use as the tree’s frame because it’s strong enough to hold up all the plaster, and sturdy enough to stand up to the occasional Florida hurricane. That is some SERIOUS dedication to recycling when you use something like that to build a monument to the natural enviroment.
9. Dino Sue
While walking through Dinoland USA, you might have noticed a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton near the entrance to Dinosaur the Ride, and didn’t really give it a second thought. I mean, yeah, it’s a dinosaur skeleton in dinosaur themed part of the park. Not surprising. But that skeleton is actually an exact replica of Sue, the world’s most complete T. Rex skeleton that was found in South Dakota in 1990 and is now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. So if you can’t make it to Chicago to see the real thing, at least there’s a knock off version you can look at here.
10. Diggs County
In Dinoland USA you might have seen a street sign for Diggs County, US Route 498. That’s an Easter Egg that references the parks opening date in April of 1998.
11. An Expensive Expedition
Expedition Everest was the most expensive roller coaster ever built. $`100 million dollars, and took 6 years of planning and construction. It is the tallest artificial mountain in the world.
12. That busted Yeti
The huge Yeti that you encounter at the climax of Expedition Everest was the most advanced audio animatronic character ever created. It’s 25 feet tall, with hydraulic cylinders used to bring it to life with more power than a 747 jet engine. ut in what’s probably the biggest engineering failure in Disney history, it’s foundation broke within a year of opening and due to some complications involving how it was built into the mountain it has never been repaired.
It used to reach out and look like it was trying to grab riders off the train as they flew by, B So now just to give it the illusion of movement, strobe lights flash on what has become known as the Disco Yeti.
13. Evolution of Everest
Expedition Everest started as the Matterhorn for Switzerland in Epcot, then they wanted to put it at the Japan pavilion at Epcot, and basing it on Mt. Fuji. This idea eventually morphed into what’s now Expedition Everest.
14. Finding an FAA loophole
At 199.5 feet tall Expedition Everest is the largest artificial mountain in the world and the most expensive roller coaster ever built. It stands exactly 199.5 feet tall, because if was 200 feet or taller Federal Aviation Guidelines would have required the mountain to have a red light beacon at it’s peak. That would have ruined the look they wanted, so they built it just shy of that mark.
15. Research and conservation programs
Animal Kingdom is s a genuine research and conservation park for endangered species, including the white rhino. There’s only about 10,000 white rhinos left on earth and eight of them have been born at Animal Kingdom. Seven baby elephants have been born here, and eleven giraffes, but the very first birth at Animal Kingdom was a Kudu – an African antelope.
16. Elephant research
Animal Kingdom Zoolologist have specialized in studying elephant mating behavior and vocalizations, and have discovered some vocalizations never observed in the wild.
17. That dragon on the logo
You might have noticed that the Animal Kingdom logo has some silhouettes of different real animals AND a dragon for some weird reason. Originally, the park was supposed to include a “Beastly Kingdom” area which would have featured mythical creatures (such as dragons and unicorns), but the park ran over budget and that section was never built, but the dragon on the logo remained. This area eventually became the Avatar Land that opened in the summer of 2017.
Some of the Beastly Kingdom attractions would have included a dark roller coaster called “Dragon Tower,” a ride based on the film Fantasia, and a hedge maze called “Quest for the Unicorn.
When this plan fell through some of the imagineers working on this part of the park were lured away and hired by Universal Studios to work on the design for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter over there.
18. Lots of animals…
About 250 different species are represented by over 1,000 individual animals at Animal Kingdom. To keep 1,000 animals happy and healthy takes about four tons of food a day. Each week Animal Kingdom goes through 14,000 pounds of plants and vegetables, 20,000 crickets, and 40,000 worms to keep their animals fed.
19. …And lots of poop
Nearly two thousand pounds of manure is produced by the elephants at Disney’s Animal Kingdom every single day. The manure is collected every night, recycled and used as fertilizer on the grounds across the entire Walt Disney World resort.
20. The bathroom doors
Animal Kingdom is the only Disney park to have bathrooms with locking doors at the entrances. If you even noticed that you might have thought that’s kind of weird, but it’s just one more example of the Imagineers trying to think of everything. This is just in case of the unlikely event that an animal like a lion or a gorilla ever got loose and went on a rampage, then guests could hunker down and lock themselves in the bathrooms for their own safety.
