The Best Zoos in Singapore

Singapore’s biggest and most popular wildlife attraction by some way, the Mandai Wildlife Reserve occupies more than 300 acres of rainforest, jungle and wetlands north of the city. The Singapore pass from Go City grants you entry to all of the reserve’s attractions, and could save you up to 50% when visiting Singapore Zoo, River Wonders, Bird Paradise and the Night Safari, plus other Singapore attractions like Gardens by the Bay and Universal Studios. Find out more and choose your pass here or read on for more info on Singapore’s best zoos…

The flagship attraction at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, Singapore Zoo is one of the most impressive rainforest zoos on the planet. Its open-exhibit style employs the use of moats, hidden barriers and glass screens across the zoo’s 69 acres, allowing the animals as much freedom as possible, and giving their visitors the sensation of being closer to their favorite critters than ever before.

There are several zones to explore, including a tropical rainforest housed inside a frankly enormous biodome, where you might encounter lesser mousedeer, lion tamarins and two-toed sloths. Then there’s Wild Africa, where giants of the savannah – among them white rhinos, giraffes, lions and African painted dogs – hold court. Hit up RepTopia for your fix of cold-blooded beasts including bearded dragons, gaboon vipers and panther chameleons, and let the kids work off some steam at KidzWorld, with water play, sensory games and close animal encounters.

Another jewel in the Mandai Wildlife reserve’s crown, River Wonders is a paradise of walking trails and boat rides that reveal the species that thrive in and around the world’s rivers and oceans. It's here you might encounter aquatic oddities like giant river otters, manatees, red-bellied piranhas and fearsome Indian gharials.

The zones here represent the wildlife found on some of the planet’s most biodiverse waterways, including the Amazon, Ganges, Mekong and Yangtze rivers. Board the Amazon River Quest and see if you can spot the wildlife – tapirs, giant anteaters and jaguars among them – lurking in the dense riverside vegetation. You can also visit the world’s largest freshwater aquarium in the Amazon Flooded Forest, and get a close encounter with river otters and manatees. Not cute enough for ya? The Giant Panda Forest has your back where, as well as the titular black-and-white bears, you can also meet ferociously cute little red pandas.

This one’s for all the Insta addicts out there. A whopping 42 acres of long legs, kaleidoscopic plumage and oddball beaks await in Bird Paradise, a vast aviary of feathery friends from Asia and beyond. There are around 3,500 birds to ogle here: everything from tiny (but loud!) straw-headed bulbuls to huge southern cassowaries from Papua New Guinea – if there’s a bird out there more clearly descended from the dinosaurs than the cassowary, we’ve yet to encounter it! Other prehistoric-looking birds here include spoonbills, pelicans and scarlet ibises, while the Amazonian Jewels zone provides some light relief via its rainbow of tropical show-offs, among them macaws, salmon-crested cockatooes and the quite fabulous Philippine eagle. Heck, there’s even space for several penguin species, including the cute Northern rockhopper.

Fill your social feeds with color and joy, and be sure to catch the breathtaking daily presentations showcasing apex predators of the air, including majestic white-bellied sea eagles, harris hawks, and huge cinereous vultures. 

Read our full guide to Bird Paradise here.

The largest of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve attractions, Night Safari runs to nearly 90 acres and focuses – as the name suggests – on largely nocturnal creatures. Here’s where you can encounter majestic Malayan flying foxes, which become much more active at dusk and put on a heck of a show as they soar gracefully from treetop to treetop. 

Proving size really doesn’t matter at all when it comes to striking fear into the hearts of all who encounter them, the Tasmanian devils are quite possibly the Night Safari’s most terrifying residents. 

The Night Safari is also home to Nile hippos, bull elephants, leopard cats, African aardvarks, Cape buffalo, spotted hyenas, slow lorises, bushbabies, and the vanishingly rare Sunda pangolin. You can catch all of these and more in close-up along the park’s themed trails, or take the half-hour tram ride for a broad overview of the zoo and its crepuscular inhabitants.

Read our guide to the Night Safari’s four themed walking trails here.

You can save up to 50% on admission prices for more than 40 attractions, tours and activities with a Singapore pass from Go City. As well as the four zoos at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, the pass gets you into Universal Studios, the Gardens by the Bay and the National Gallery. Click the buttons below to find out more and select your pass…